Fulham 2nd in Expected Points?!

Every week I like to take a look at the Expected Points table on Understat and see who looks like they’re over or under-performing their underlying shot numbers at the moment. To my shock, after a couple of bad Manchester City performances, we have this:

Yes, Fulham are ahead of Man City on expected points based on Understat’s model. There seems to be a pretty big discrepancy between Understat and StatsBomb at the moment — SB has Fulham at 16.46 xG for to Understat’s 21.67, with the biggest gap coming on shots by striker Raúl Jiménez.

I do not think Fulham are actually better than Man City. But SB still has the Cottagers on a very good +0.28 xG differential per 90, about the same as Arsenal. I gave FBRef a look to see if it might point me in the right direction, but surprise, it’s between Understat and StatsBomb on both the xG differential and Jiménez’s xG.

I’d have to do more digging than I had time to over the last couple days to figure out exactly what the discrepancy is, and who’s closer to being accurate, but everyone’s numbers agree that Fulham are A Good Team.

Fulham still have the same manager as last season, and are not meaningfully stylistically different. But the addition of Emile Smith Rowe + Jiménez and Adama Traore getting fully fit after starting their Fulham careers slowly seems to have significantly improved the team’s press and what they do after winning the ball. High press and counter-attacking shots are way up for the Cottagers this season.

The bigger improvement has come defensively, where Fulham are much better in all phases of the game so far this season. I’m concerned that this could be schedule-related — they haven’t played Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea or Tottenham yet this season — but Fulham are getting the job done against similar budget/talent opponents.

Returning goalkeeper Bernd Leno and back line members Antonee Robinson, Calvin Bassey and Kenny Tete have similar looking defensive action numbers to last season, and new signing Joachim Andersen is playing similarly to how he did at Crystal Palace. There isn’t any statistical weirdness here, Fulham simply appear to be playing slightly better as a collective.

xG weirdness aside on Jiménez, the biggest value he’s providing to his team isn’t necessarily his own shots. He had genuinely one of the best assists in the history of football earlier this season, and it wasn’t his only great setup. He’s dramatically improved his passing numbers over last season.

Fulham’s 4-2-3-1 system that puts three very willing runners and capable goal-scorers behind Jiménez and lets him be just as much of a playmaker as he is a shooter suits him and his teammates perfectly. It’s pretty simple stuff, but it’s working, and he’s developed chemistry with Smith Rowe in particular very quickly (more on him here).

Another big thing of note for Fulham is a thing that didn’t happen: Drop-off in ball-winning from their defensive midfielder. João Palhinha departed for Bayern Munich this summer, and Sander Berge was added to replace him.

While Palhinha was a fairly limited pure destroyer who Fulham did well to get a £50m fee for, they still struggled to find a good replacement until very late in the window. Berge was linked to Manchester United as a potential alternative if they failed to sign Manuel Ugarte, but after that got sorted out, Fulham were able to get their man.

At least in Fulham’s system, Berge appears to be literally the exact same guy. Also not pictured on this radar: He’s 6’5” and boasts a 75% aerial win percentage. The Cottagers have banked £25m and lost nothing.

It’s too early to tell if Fulham are actually competitive with the likes of Tottenham, Villa and Chelsea for a top 4 place. I’d lean pretty heavily towards no, simply due to the depth that a higher budget gets you. Fulham’s first choice starting XI might be able to hang with those sides, but if Man City are only a couple injuries away from being aggressively mid, it’s fair to assume the same applies even more strongly to Fulham.

But we’re in a pretty cool version of the multiverse where Fulham (and Brighton, Bournemouth, and kinda maybe Forest!) are competitive for a top 7 spot and a place in Europe for next season. This is a very cool version of the Premier League, and I’m enjoying Fulham as one of the big animators of the competition.

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