Cardiff City players' XG 23/24.

[Taunton Blue Genie]

Yes I know, some people will roll their eyes at the mere mention of XG and, to an extent, I agree with them, but I've been looking at this page

https://fbref.com/en/squads/75fae011/Cardiff-City-Stats

which is linked to in the Trust's latest newsletter and it is thought provoking stuff.

You compare City players actual goals figure with their XG and the clear trend is that, in most cases, our players exceeded or equalled their XG.

Players such as Ng, Grant, Bowler, Goutas and Ramsey all scored more than their XG figure and as for our much maligned strikers, Ugbo scored 4 against an XG of 4.1, Etete's goals and XG were identical at 3 and Diedhiou scored 2 against an XG of 1.5. To balance things a little, Yakou Meite was the biggest XG under achiever at the club with 2 scored against an XG of 4.3 - others who came up short included Rubin Colwill, 1 against an XG of 1.4 and Ryan Wintle with 2 scored against an XG of 2.5.

As I say, there will be those who place no relevance on these figures whatsoever, but it seems to me that if you do credit them with any sort of authenticity, the conclusion you draw from the figures is clear - our XG figures are low, but in many cases, the players exceeded their individual figure.

The cry is going up yet again for us to sign a fifteen to twenty goal a season striker during the summer because the ones we've got at the moment couldn''t hit that mythical barn door with a banjo, but I would argue that the XG figures are a justification for my own view that the strikers aren't the main problem with us,. Instead, it's our inability to create chances in open play for them - we used four "proper" strikers all season and while I agree that none of them were very convincing, I can't recall any of them missing a hatful of easy chances over the course of the season.

You are conflating not being able to hit a barn door with not being able to hit a cow's are with a banjo. Your XG rating has been amended accordingly, old fruit.

[the other bob wilson]

You are conflating not being able to hit a barn door with not being able to hit a cow's are with a banjo. Your XG rating has been amended accordingly, old fruit.

As it turns out, I did look up "couldn't hit a barn door with a banjo" and "couldn't hit cow's arse with a banjo" and they both brought back references - being a refined soul from Pentrebane, I was always going to opt for the barn door.

Let's not forget either that more than twenty years ago (where does the time go? ), the excellent Peter Thorne was being called the barn door by some on here when he was going through a long lean spell in front of goal during our 02/03 promotion season.