Aston Villa were challenging for the Premier League title a few weeks ago, but after just one win in six, are now fighting for a top-four finish. We look at why their expected goals hinted a run like this was coming.
It’s not often a game that finishes 4-1 is about fine margins, but Aston Villa will have felt that way last night in their home defeat to Chelsea.
After Brazilian pair Douglas Luiz and João Pedro both found the net for their respective teams on Wednesday, Ollie Watkins thought he had put Villa 2-1 up, only for a VAR check to find the slightest sliver of his knee and toe to have been offside.
Then, João Pedro made it 2-1 to Chelsea, with the VAR check finding him to be marginally onside. It would have been easy for the home fans to have felt the world was against them at that point, and matters weren’t helped when they watched their team slip to a 4-1 loss in the second half in what was a huge game in the race for the UEFA Champions League spots.
It was the latest in a difficult run for Unai Emery’s men, who have drifted away from the title race in recent weeks and now find themselves in a battle for the top four, having fallen behind Manchester United into fourth last weekend and now sit just three points above Chelsea and Liverpool.
Villa have won only one of their last six league games (D2 L3), and after losing just four of their first 21 Premier League games of the season (W13 D4), have since lost four of their last eight (W2 D2).
Is this a cause for alarm, though, or just a bad run of form that usually happens to every team at some point during a campaign?
After a difficult start to the season in which Villa didn’t win until their sixth game, or even score until their fifth, they suddenly found form. After a 2-0 defeat at Liverpool in early November, Villa won 11 consecutive league games, their best run as a top-flight team since March 1914 (also a run of 11).
It coincided with a remarkable habit of scoring goals from long range.
In their 19 league matches from playing Sunderland away in September to facing Newcastle away in January, Villa scored 13 goals from outside the box, and it won them plenty of games. Those strikes make up a third of their 39 total Premier League goals in 2025-26.
Unsurprisingly, it is the most goals from outside the box in any of Europe’s top five leagues this season.
However, with the greatest of respect to Villa’s excellent players who were scoring those long-range goals, it didn’t feel sustainable. Once those low-percentage chances stopped turning into goals so often, could they still win games?
For the first time this season, Villa have gone as many as six league games in a row without scoring from outside the box, and as mentioned, they have won just once in that time.
Across the 2025-26 season, only bottom-placed Wolves (17) have scored fewer goals from inside the opposition’s penalty area than Villa (24). That Emery’s side have the joint-fourth best defensive record (34 goals conceded) in the division has been a big help, but their goals from long distance were clearly also doing a lot of the heavy lifting.
Anyone familiar with football data will tell you that looking at xG over a single game, or even a handful of games, can be very misleading. There are a number of reasons why a team who register a low xG in a game could still be considered unlucky not to have scored more, while a team who record a high xG perhaps weren’t as creative as the numbers suggest.
Looking at it over a longer period, like most or all of a season, and usually the numbers are more reflective of the reality.
Only seven teams have a lower total xG in the Premier League this season than Villa (35.3), while only six teams have a higher xG against (42.3). And yet, somehow, they had until recently been a part of a three-horse title race.
As you can see below, after that slow start, Villa have been largely outperforming their xG for this season. It has switched in the last few weeks, though, which has coincided with their drastic dip in form.
This is not to say that Emery’s men weren’t playing well for that lengthy period of consistent victories, but just that the chances they were creating relative to the goals they were scoring didn’t really match up. After their first 20 league games, Villa’s overperformance of 9.0 goals compared to their xG (33 goals from 24.0 xG) was the highest in the Premier League.
However, in their nine games since, their underperformance of 5.3 (6 goals from 11.3 xG) is the most of all 20 teams.
Doesn’t include one own goal Doesn’t include one own goalIt’s also important to note that, at the other end, Villa overperformed their xG against in their first 20 games by 5.4, the fourth most in that time, and in their last nine they have overperformed by 2.9, also the fourth most, so it’s mostly in the attacking half of the pitch that things have unravelled recently.
In a previous article on Aston Villa earlier in the season, we pointed out that Opta’s expected points model did seem to suggest they had been overachieving.
The ‘expected points’ table is powered by xG from shots taken and shots faced. It isn’t a perfect representation as xG doesn’t take factors into account such as game state or chances that don’t include an actual shot. However, it provides a decent barometer of how teams are faring in terms of chance creation and chance prevention.
After Wednesday’s games, Villa are fourth in the actual table but 13th in the expected points table, below Everton, Crystal Palace and Leeds United. That’s not to say Villa really should be that low, but it does somewhat indicate that a drop in form like this was likely at some point.
It can still be an excellent season for the club. With fifth place very likely to be a Champions League spot again in the Premier League this year, they still have a strong chance of qualifying for Europe’s premier club competition. The Opta supercomputer gives Villa an 80% chance of a top-five finish.
There is also the Europa League, which Villa are favourites to win with the supercomputer (32%). They do have a potentially tricky last-16 tie against Lille to come, though.
They’re out of the FA Cup, so will get a break this weekend, but their next Premier League outing is away to Manchester United, the scene of their Champions League hopes ending on the final day of last season. Emery will look to go to Old Trafford this time and rejuvenate their hopes for 2025-26.
Getting back to scoring worldies would help, to be honest.
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Was Aston Villa’s Dip in Form Inevitable According to xG? Opta Analyst.
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