The January transfer window is just around the corner. And with Sunderland Football Club failing to win more than two matches under Phil Parkinson, fans would be forgiven for expecting Stewart Donald to make a few signings (WhoScored.com). However, while bringing people in might be a necessity, there is always going to be a few players who need to leave as well.
This week Roker Report asked whether or not Aiden McGeady was one of those players. In the article, a majority of the writers indicated that keeping the winger is probably the right idea. But how bad has the Irishman season been to warrant such a discussion taking place and is he really underperforming that badly?
TIF Tactics – How has McGeady performed this season?
So far this season McGeady has played 1321 minutes of football, which averages out to just under 15 full games of football. In those games, he has assisted one goal and scored four. Let’s take a look at how the player is performing this season compared to how he has performed throughout his entire career. We will look at his average contribution to Sunderland per 90 minutes.
First and foremost, let’s observe McGeady’s contribution to his team’s attack. This season he averages 0.25 goals per 90 minutes, slightly underperforming from his xG (expected goals) of 0.30 per 90 minutes. He averages 2.86 shots per 90 minutes, 31% of which are on target.
If we compare these statistics to the £2.25m-rated winger’s entire career we will see that he averages 0.25 goals per 90 minutes exceeding his average xG of 0.19. He averages just 2.30 shots per 90 minutes of football, with a 31.70% accuracy. The stark difference between these statistics is his xG. While McGeady it’s scoring at his normal rate, his xG suggests that he is completely underperforming when it comes to his ability to be clinical. The numbers indicate that he should be scoring more goals per 90 minutes than he has in his career, however, he is pretty much just bang on the money.
And in terms of registering assists, he’s contributing much less than normal. In his career, he averages 0.14 assists per 90 minutes. This season he averages just 0.07 assists per 90 minutes. This is no difference in his xA (expected assists) though, with his all-time career xA measuring up to 0.18 assists per 90 minutes, and his xA this season being 0.17 per 90.
McGeady does seem to be in a little bit of a rut at the moment. Despite contributing with goals at the same rate as he always has, the number should be much higher. And while he should be contributing the same amount of assists as normal, he’s only contributing about half. A majority of his other statistics remain relatively similar to that of his entire career indicating that there isn’t a huge area for concern. As members of the Roker Report suggest, he isn’t the biggest problem at Sunderland right now.
(all data and stats from Wyscout.com, accurate at the time of writing)