Expected goals (xG)
Expected goals (xG) — the number of goals a team would be expected to score from the chances it created.
Each shot is assigned a scoring probability based on its characteristics — distance, angle, body part, assist type — and those probabilities are summed across the match.
Why it matters: scorelines are noisy over a single match; chance quality is a more stable signal of team strength, which makes xG a common input to the lambdas in a Poisson model.
Common mistake: treating xG as a measure of what should have happened. It is a description of chance quality under an average finisher, not a counterfactual scoreline.
Related
Check any of this against our record
Every signal CONSENSUS publishes carries the bookmaker odds fixed before the event starts and the settled result afterwards — including the drawdowns and the losing runs. The running total is on the front page and every entry is in the log.