Statistics suggest West Brom improving in each game under James Shan

There were goals galore under Darren Moore, but several games where individual moments of brilliance rescued the side.

Even in James Shan’s opening two games, the Baggies weren’t in command, particularly at home to Swansea when the 3-0 scoreline flattered them.

But there were signs against Birmingham City last Friday that things may begin to be improving.

Football statisticians Infogol use expected goals (xG) to analyse results and predict forthcoming matches.

Before Friday's match, they claimed the Baggies would be in sixth place rather than fourth, if games had finished as expected.

That is by no means a big discrepancy in Infogol's expected table.

By their model, Derby County should be 19th rather than sixth, Nottingham Forest should be 20th rather than ninth. Wigan Athletic, who are currently 20th, should be ninth.

But it will strike a chord with supporters who have struggled to be convinced by the Baggies’ overall play this season.

Albion won Shan's first two games but they had a lower xG than their opponents on both occasions. It was 1.9 against Swansea's 2.7 and 0.81 against Brentford's 0.99.

But on Friday, they deserved their victory over Blues, recording an xG of 2.28 to 0.86.

The Baggies are now in fourth place in Infogol's expected table. They are sitting where they should be.

Jake Osgathorpe from Infogol said Albion had been over-performing in front of goal.

He said: “A look at the Championship table suggests that Albion are a strong attacking team, second in the league for goals scored (75 goals), but Albion have been fortunate to score as many as they have.

“Based on the quality of chances Albion have created this season, they would have been expected to score closer to 59, an over-performance of 16 goals.

“Some might say that this simply shows that the team has clinical finishers and, while this may be true to some extent, the level of this over-performance over the rest of the season is likely to prove unsustainable.

“Defensively, Albion have been one of the worst teams in the top nine based on xG, conceding an average of 1.3 expected goals against per game, so they are going to need to tighten up as they head towards the business end of the season.”

Supporters will not need telling Albion needed to tighten up at the back, particularly after the first half of the season.

But even though they conceded two goals to Birmingham City and kept two clean sheets in the previous two games under Shan, the expected goals figures suggest they afforded fewer chances.

And Infogol recognised that things had improved in defence during the second half of the season.

Osgathorpe said: “Interestingly, Albion were even over-performing in their results under Darren Moore prior to his sacking, with their performances yielding a positive expected goal difference, which shows that they were the better team in most matches.”

What these statistics prove is that Albion were over-reliant on their clinical forwards in the first half of the season.

You’re allowed to have good strikers of course, but it was always going to be difficult to keep that scoring rate up, particularly when Harvey Barnes returned to Leicester and Matt Phillips fell injured.

Albion were beginning to grind out results in a different way in the second half of the season under Moore, particularly away from home. That was until the last three games of his tenure, which proved fatal.

The beauty of football lies in the fact a team can dominate and still lose, or play poorly and still win.

But over the course of a 46-game season, such trends are unsustainable.

What does this mean for the rest of the season?

Before Friday's game, Infogol claimed Albion had a three per cent chance of going up automatically because they ‘needed monumental slip-ups from two of the top three.’

Shaving another point off the gap to top two may have improved matters slightly, but it's still unlikely.

Based on ‘raw ratings and possible opponents in the play-offs’ they have a 22.5 per cent of going up via that route.

A one in four chance of promotion then, although 36 of the 39 games Infogol have analysed were under Moore. Now Albion have someone else at the helm, will their chances improve?

There were few signs they would in the first game against Swansea, but as each game passes under Shan, statistically speaking, things are getting better for the Baggies.

However, three fixtures is a tiny statistical pool to work from. Only time will tell if that trend continues.

‘For more expected goals analysis, visit infogol.net or download the free Infogol app, available on both the App Store and Google Play.’