True, not saying it can’t be used. But the above comment was saying using xG tells us how good a finisher Son is, and I was saying we don’t need xG to tell us that - we can just watch him play.

My general concern about stats, is, as some people above have said, is that people use it as a means to end all means to judge the effectiveness of a player, or how good a player is. But a lot of the time, we can use the eye test to effectively gauge how good a player is. Not saying stats can’t be used, but rather that not in the way it’s commonly being used now.

But would we not be able to determine this simply by watching Son play on a regular basis?

Tim Howard in that WC match where he made like 30 saves. Against Belgium I think.

To some level yes, but not necessarily in the way you’re thinking. I don’t see it as a single game event. After all teams play many games in a season, and success is really a cumulative thing.

I think the “luckiest” thing for a team is injuries.

I remember SAF saying some time back, for the 98/99 year, when Man U won the treble, they were very lucky with injuries. I think only Henning Berg suffered any type of medium/long term injury, or something like that. Which meant they were able to have a full squad selection for almost the entire year.

I’ve seen some fans argue that if Arsenal didn’t suffer injuries toward the end of the season they would have won the PL. While I would say it is debatable that without injuries they definitely would have won, but, it most certainly would have increased the likelihood, especially considering they were top until the final few weeks.