Monaco scores two goals that together are worth 0.17 and this time it is not enough

There is a way of winning matches that works perfectly well as long as it works, and Monaco had been carrying it along for five matchdays: thirteen points when the model gave them 6.82, the second widest gap in Europe behind Cagliari.

On Saturday night at the Louis-II the bill arrived. Not the whole bill, an instalment.

The first twenty minutes, and then nothing

Monaco start strongly for real. In the 6th minute Abline wastes the biggest chance of his match, 0.303. In the 14th minute Detourbet hits the post. In seventeen minutes the Monegasques shoot seven times.

Then they score, and they stop. The opening goal is Edan Diop in the 29th minute, worth 0.132. The second is Abline in the 38th minute, worth 0.034: three and a half hundredths, a shot that on average goes in once every thirty attempts.

Two nil at half time, with two goals that together are worth 0.166 expected goals. Less than a sixth. It is exactly how Monaco got to the top, and for forty-five minutes it worked again.

Toulouse settle the accounts in eleven minutes

In the 48th minute a penalty, Tengstedt, 0.760. In the 59th minute Sion Oppong from 0.341, which is the second biggest chance of the evening. Two two.

Toulouse's two goals are worth 1.10 expected goals together: six and a half times Monaco's two. The result is identical, the way you get there is not, and over a whole season the difference between these two ways is the final league table.

From the 59th minute onwards Monaco shot seven times for 0.35 expected goals in total, with a Fati shot in the 82nd minute worth 0.087 as the best of them. They did not build anything else.

The updated bill

Monaco now have 14 points from 7.99 expected. The gap stays above six points, but for the first time since August it has stopped growing, and in the ranking of Europe's miracle workers Monaco has slipped to fourth place: ahead of them now are Cagliari, Betis and Manchester City.

Toulouse, who had started with one point from three matchdays worth 5.20 expected, are the kind of team that sits on the other side of these accounts: they play better than they collect. On Saturday they collected, and they did it in the least comfortable place in the league.

One honest thing remains to be said. A draw proves nothing, and Monaco are still top: after six matchdays they are still unbeaten, which with these numbers is almost more impressive than the points. But teams that live on goals worth three hundredths all share the same statistical fate, and it is called regression to the mean. It always happens. You never know when, and that is why every time it feels like news.

Next Sunday, at 17:15, Monaco go to Lorient. Which is the team that on Saturday beat Paris FC 1-0, finishing with a PPDA of 63.8, meaning they practically never pressed, and producing less than their opponent: another one that right now lives on results more than on play. Lille, the other miracle worker in Ligue 1 with 13 points from 7.86, arrive at the Louis-II on the 25th.

T.L.

The match by match verdict is in the Meritometro. For those who want models and not headlines, there is the Nerd Zone.