Hibs are BEATING Aberdeen in key attacking metrics - but will that add up to a crucial win in Granite City?
Gray’s men trail Dons by seven places and NINETEEN points - but gulf can be closed at Pittodrie
The headline numbers don’t look good. But would you be surprised to learn that, according to some of the figures behind the final results and current league standings, Hibs are actually performing BETTER than Saturday’s opponents Aberdeen?
Yeah, OK. Cue all the inevitable cliches about lies, damned lies and using statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post – for support rather than illumination. All valid caveats when parsing the different criteria applied to a modern game where someone will always be measuring something.
But there is no denying that, in many of the key metrics applied to teams in the Scottish Premiership by the clever folk at football stats website FotMob, Hibs are absolutely spanking the Dons. So why are David Gray’s men stuck in ninth place, while new Aberdeen gaffer Jimmy Thelin is looking down upon the pack from the lofty heights of second?
Let’s dive into the numbers. And look at how Gray might arrange his team so that they’re greater than the sum of their parts come Saturday at Pittodrie.
Attack, attack, attack
Hibs may well be trailing Aberdeen in scoring, with their goals per game count of just 1.2 leaving them way down in eighth place in Scotland’s top flight. The Dons have been rattling the goals in at a clip of just under 2 – 1.9, to be exact – per match.
Remarkably, however, Gray’s team have created far more opportunities than Aberdeen in the season to date. They’ve got an expected goals (xG) score for the season of 27.4 – third in the entire division – as opposed to Aberdeen’s 20.5, way down in seventh place.
On what the stats guys call Big Chances Created, Hibs – sitting third in the league with a whopping 41 – are well clear of the Dons, who are ranked seventh with 33 valuable scoring opportunities carved out. The Hibees are also marginally ahead when it comes to touches in the opposition box, by a score of 405 to 391, although Aberdeen do have a game in hand.
However you add up the stats, Hibs are clearly a team creating ample openings to put the ball in the net. Does scoring nine in their last four games point to a side also learning to convert their chances?
Keeping it tight
Although they’ve improved in recent games, that inevitable defeat at Celtic Park notwithstanding, Hibs are still paying the price for sloppiness in their own area. The numbers don’t lie.
Conceding goals at 1.7 per game, as opposed to Aberdeen’s score of just over 1 per match, is an obvious concern. They’re also worse off when it comes to xG conceded per game, as you’d expect.
Something’s gotta give
Gray would appear to have settled on a 3-4-1-2 formation over the recent run of improved form. And the recovery began, as the gaffer and players repeatedly insist, with that madcap 3-3 draw against Aberdeen at Easter Road on November 26.
What we saw in that game was how open both of these teams can be, with Thelin’s favoured 4-2-3-1 veering towards the aggressive end of the tactical spectrum. He’s not going to die wondering, is he?
On paper, it’s an interesting match-up. Aberdeen are strong in areas where Hibs have struggled. And vice versa.
There will be chances. Hibs will look to continue scoring highly on their own key metrics, maintaining their lofty position on accurate crosses per game – they sit third in the Scottish Premiership, with just under half a dozen a game – and cranking up that xG score until something simply HAS to break. It all adds up, hopefully, to another belting contest.