Lyon-Auxerre 3-1: zero. Auxerre did not complete a single pass inside twenty metres

The verdict, before the numbers

At the Groupama Stadium Lyon beat Auxerre 3-1 and got back to winning after the draw with Le Havre. Third in Ligue 1, seven points.

The scoreline suggests a comfortable afternoon. The numbers describe a far stranger match than that, and the strangeness is on both sides.

The number that jumps out: zero

Look at the box entries row. 14 to 0.

It is worth explaining exactly what that means, because it is more precise and more brutal than it looks. A box entry, in this statistic, is a completed pass within twenty metres of goal that is not a cross. It is not a shot and not a touch: it is the ball arriving where it hurts.

In ninety minutes, Auxerre completed not one.

That does not mean they never shot: they had eight attempts and even scored. It means they always got there from outside, or off a loose ball, or on an isolated break, never by building. Across the European season so far it is the third time a side has finished a match on zero: before this, Rayo Vallecano at Sevilla and Aston Villa at Brighton.

The press tells the same story: Lyon 5.5 PPDA, Auxerre 29.0. Lyon went to press their opponents after five and a half passes; Auxerre waited twenty-nine. Two different matches played at the same time.

And yet Lyon scored three goals from nothing

Here comes the part that turns the reading upside down.

Lyon's three goals are worth, added together, 0.24 expected goals. Twenty-four hundredths across three strikes.

Bacher, header from a corner: 0.07. Athekame, three minutes later: 0.06. Nuamah, early in the second half: 0.11.

Three goals, not one of which the model rated as a chance. Two were scored by newly arrived defenders, the third by a returning forward. It is the kind of evening that in another league gets called luck and that here, with the rest of the numbers in front of you, has a more precise name: Lyon won the match they were dominating, but they did not win it with the chances they built.

Because they threw the real ones away

The tally of wasted chances is almost comic.

Openda had nine attempts and did not score. Nine. His shots are worth 1.49 expected goals between them: on his own, in one match, he produced more than the whole of Auxerre, who stopped at 0.91. Among them is a 0.55 chance on the quarter-hour, missed.

And then there is the 88th minute. Kail Boudache shoots from a position worth 0.95 expected goals. Ninety-five out of a hundred. Post.

It is the biggest chance missed anywhere in Europe this season, penalties excluded: in thirty days of football nobody has thrown away a ball that heavy.

Final sum: Lyon produced 2.88 expected goals and scored three, but the three they scored are not the ones they built. Had the evening gone according to the model it would have finished 3-1 anyway, with entirely different scorers.

Auxerre, meanwhile, have a structural problem

Three matchdays, no points, eleven goals conceded. And here the numbers offer no consolation at all.

Across three matches Auxerre have given up chances worth 9.78 goals and thirty-three box entries. They have produced 4.38 expected goals. Their expected points tally is 1.62 out of nine: even with average luck they would have barely more than one point.

The one good thing about the evening has a name: Cameron Archer, who scored their only goal from one of Auxerre's two real chances (0.33) and headed another wide in the 71st from 0.38. Two balls out of eight shots. The rest was noise.

The honest bit

The 3-1 does not describe Lyon, but it does not contradict them either. Fourteen box entries to zero and 2.88 expected goals to 0.91 are the numbers of a comfortable win. That the goals came from the wrong places is a detail of the night, not a flaw in the team.

Openda, though, is worth watching. Nine shots and 1.49 personal expected goals without scoring, in a single match, is not something that repeats often. If the finishing stays like this for another month, it stops being bad luck and becomes a question.

And Auxerre have no lying-table excuse. No points from 1.62 expected means they are losing because they play badly, not because the ball is bouncing the wrong way. That is the difference between a team to be saved and a team to be rebuilt, and it is better to know in September.

Check for yourself. In the Meritometro you will find the verdict on every Ligue 1 match based on chances rather than results, and in the Nerd Zone you can go back through Lyon-Auxerre shot by shot, with the value of each attempt.