Expected Goals: The story of how data conquered football and changed the game forever

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In his own words, an appreciation of xG requires only “an open mind and the mathematic understanding of a fourteen-year-old”. It has an easy flowing narrative and describes the various behind the scenes things that happen while running a football club and this might be enough to read the book were it not the fact that it falls short of the goal espoused in its title. Written by The New York Times' chief soccer correspondent, Rory Smith, the book offers a fresh and very entertaining insight into the oft-fascinating world of football and data.

Brighton, an unglamorous mid-table Premier League side, has punched above its weight and become mainstays in the league in large part because of how the way they used data in the transfer market.The main protagonists are Chris Anderson and David Sally - it felt like half the book was teeing them up as the Moneyball pioneers of football and the plot would come together in a satisfying climax. This book indirectly makes sense of that decision and a few other things that have happened at the club as they have sought to integrate data analysis into their decision making and transfer policy. Highly recommend this book, a must for those looking to understand why and how elite football clubs are moving to incorporate stats increasingly to dictate player recruitment and marginal gains. This way you can conclude which players are over-performing, how adept they are at getting into the right positions and who is benefiting from (or being hindered by) the quality of their teammates. It gave them eight seconds to win the ball off their opponents, and ten seconds after that to have a shot on goal.

The metric gives unparalleled insight into which teams and players are performing at the highest level. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. You'll find little in here if you actually want to know what the data can tell you other than a few snippets and references to other works in the endnotes.

A decent enough read, but I do not think the 'football Moneyball' story has arrived just yet, indeed the book itself seems to conclude that whilst football has opened itself up to data in a big way over the past decade or so, there does not yet seem to be an obvious example of its resounding success. Overall a very good quality service from this seller and I would not hesitate to recommend this seller. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Anderson got as far as being CEO at Coventry for about a year where the day to day realities of managing a cash strapped lower league club meant that he couldn't implement his ideas. I think in 10 years they will have developed their own style (this seems to become more so in the last third of the book) but for now there is some element of aping the style of Michael Lewis.