As you may know, xG – or expected goals to use non-abbreviated parlance – is a measure of the quality of a goalscoring chance. Expected Goals uses historical data to give a probability chance of a shot ending up as a goal. So, a pot shot from 30 yards may have an xG count of 0.01, whereas a penalty is around 0.78. A tap in on the goal line, with no other player around, will be 0.99 with many nines recurring.
As such, xG can be used as a guide to a team’s game-by-game form, but also their long-term prospects – sides that create lots of high-quality goalscoring chances, but yield few, generally do very nicely in league tables. In a similar fashion, xG can be used to measure the goalscoring prowess of individual players. Those with a high xG tally to their name typically get into excellent goalscoring positions… whether they take those chances or not is another matter.
Bryan Mbeumo has established a niche for himself as something of an xG deviant. Not for the first time, the Brentford winger outperformed his Expected Goals output in 2024/25, notching 20 Premier League goals from an xG tally of 12.3. Was Mbeumo super-clinical in front of goal… or the beneficiary of a ‘freak’ campaign of scoring? And can he be expected to outperform his expected goals rate in future seasons?
What Is Outperforming xG?
Although it’s afar from an exact science, the general idea is that 1.00 of xG equates to one goal. Of course, it’s not as simple as that. If a player generates 20 xG in a season, that may be from a dozen big chances or 100 shots from range in a cumulative effect. But, as a concept, a player that outperforms their xG is one whose goal tally exceeds their Expected Goals haul.
So consider the example of Mbeumo in 2024/25. With an xG accumulation of 12.2, he might be expected to have scored approximately 12 goals. In the end, he netted 20 – is that an indication of high-quality finishing? That’s certainly one way to look at it. The Cameroon ace did plenty with little, which suggests he is a clinical finisher in front of goal.
Outperforming xG is a metric that more and more recruitment teams are using to locate quality finishers – Manchester United, for example, signed Matheus Cunha from Wolves after he excelled in that department: notching 15 goals from an accumulative xG of 8.6 in 2024/25. The Red Devils have also shown an interest in Mbeumo, too. But how sustainable is outperforming xG? Can a player repeat the feat the very next season? The history books suggest that the jury is out on that one…
Repeating the Feat
A considerable outperformance of xG would be five goals or more, most analysts agree. But since the start of the 2020/21 season, only a handful of players have outscored their xG by five or more goals. Only one man – Son Heung-min – has done so twice.
Here’s a look at players that have outperformed their xG by five goals or more in the Premier League, with their goal tally for the following season also included:
| Year | Player | Previous xG | Previous Goals | Next Season Goals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023/24 | Phil Foden | 11.31 | 19 | 7 |
| 2022/23 | Harry Kane | 23.06 | 30 | N/A (Moved to Bayern) |
| 2022/23 | Martin Odegaard | 9.14 | 15 | 8 |
| 2021/22 | Son Heung-min | 16.99 | 23 | 10 |
| 2021/22 | Jamie Vardy | 9.99 | 15 | 3 |
| 2021/22 | James Maddison | 6.5 | 12 | 10 |
| 2021/22 | Kevin de Bruyne | 5.95 | 15 | 7 |
| 2020/21 | Son Heung-min | 11.02 | 17 | 23 |
| 2020/21 | Gareth Bale | 5.8 | 11 | N/A (Moved to Real Madrid) |
A fairly concrete conclusion can be drawn: for the most part, a player will struggle to get anywhere close to their previous season’s goal tally after comprehensively outperforming xG in it. So the takeaway point could well be that outperforming xG is not sustainable, i.e. a player will regress to their mean immediately thereafter. Therefore, is signing players that outperform their xG in a season a mistake?
The Biggest xG Overperformers in Europe
Looking at the 2024/25 season in European football’s ‘big five’ leagues, Mbeumo ranked second for xG overperformance and Cunha fourth. So who led the way? Patrick Schick may be better known on these shores for the wonder goal he scored against Scotland at EURO 2020 – which was voted the best at the tournament and was a finalist for the Puskas Award.
One month ago today, Patrik Schick scored one of the best goals in European Championship history 👑
𝐒𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐲 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 😱#Euro2020 pic.twitter.com/qfNkQlJT9v
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) July 14, 2021
That was a goal from a chance with an xG of 0.01, and it seems as though the Czechia striker has a habit of finding the net from low probability chances. Schick plays his club football for former German Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen, for whom he blitzed 21 goals from an xG of 12.7 – an overperformance of a whopping 8.3. His clinical nature and knack for a wonder goal ensure that Schick has Expected Goal defiance down to a fine art.
Mbeumo over-performed by 7.7 and Cunha by 6.4, while the meat in that sandwich at number three was another Premier League ace. Chris Wood had the best season of his career at the age of 33, captaining Nottingham Forest to their highest Premier League finish in decades and netting 20 goals along the way. They came from an xG of just 13.4, which suggests that a) Wood was brilliant in front of goal, but b) can be expected to net considerably fewer in 2025/26.
Rounding out the top five was former Newcastle United and Leicester City striker Ayoze Perez, who now turns out for Spanish side Villarreal. He notched 19 goals from an xG of 12.7. And what about the alternative: which player underperformed their xG? That dubious honour in the Premier League goes to Chelsea’s Nicholas Jackson, who mustered ten goals from a cumulative xG of 13.83.
