Newcastle now top of the table in the Premier League for one key stat

Newcastle United are now topping the charts in the Premier League for one key metric.

A post by @xGPhilosophy on X has shown that Newcastle are the Premier League side with the highest xG at this point of the season.

With a score of 18.58, the Magpies hold the lead over Brighton and Liverpool who both have a score of 17.46.

It's not really surprising to see Newcastle so high in the expected goals charts given how well our attackers have been playing. Callum Wilson and Alexander Isak are both boasting impressive goals-per-minute ratios, and they're being supplied by Kieran Trippier who is up there in the assists charts.

Anthony Gordon has had a phenomenal start to the season and Miguel Almiron hasn't been too shabby either. Add to that Bruno Guimaraes finding his form again then yeah, xG should be high.

With me not being a wannabe pundit in my 20's I don't actually put much faith in xG as a metric. There seems to be no one way to calculate it and it doesn't really show much of anything.

If a team can have an xG of 3.5 in a game and only score 1 goal, then what's it really there for?

However, given that @xGPhilosophy has us running away as the top of the charts for xG at the moment, then it's literally the most important footballing metric there is. In fact, if you think about it, it's actually better than the Premier League table, don't you think?