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As things stand, the ten teams whose defences have conceded the most goals so far this season in the top five European leagues are as follows:
31 - Fulham (England)
30 - Chievo (Italy)
28 - Guingamp (France)
26 - Genoa (Italy)
25 - Burnley (England)
25 - Cardiff (England)
25 - Fortuna Dusseldorf (Germany)
25 - Frosinone (Italy)
25 - Huesca (Spain)
25 - Rayo Vallecano (Spain)
It's no great surprise to see Cardiff and Fulham on the list given the step up in class they are facing this season, but what on earth has happened to Burnley's defence? After 12 games of the 2017/18 campaign, they'd already faced the likes of Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Spurs, but had conceded just 9 goals. Indeed, they only conceded 39 goals during the whole of 2017/18 with what was effectively the same defence as they have now.
After 12 games of the 2017/18 Championship campaign, City had conceded just 10 goals and Fulham had conceded 11. By way of comparison, Wolves, who have conceded 13 Premier League goals this season, had conceded 9 in the Championship in 2017/18.
Get down with kids mate it's all to do with expected goals now.
We give up an average number of shots, but pretty big chances.
Burnley are facing a huge amount of shots per match.
Neither are good situations to be in.
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This shows last season. They were still giving up a number of shots, but soaking up a lot more of them.
I guess they concede a lot of possession generally, but in the past have restricted teams to pot shots from distance.
This season teams seem to have worked out ways to engineer good chances against them. They could actually be in trouble this season.
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Expected goals this season Vs
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Expected goals last.
There's a clear difference in xG conceded for Burnley, which suggests that teams haven't just been lucky with the same potshots that didn't go in last season, but in fact they have been allowing better or more chances.
Apologies for image quality