Manchester United have made a signing who could prove to be invaluable this season – if his statistical data hasn’t been skewed massively.
Ruben Amorim welcomed four major signings to the club over the summer in the form of attackers Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo, Benjamin Sesko and Senne Lammens, as Manchester United looked to address issues in either box.
Cunha and Mbeumo have started brightly, while Sesko is still bedding in, as Amorim looks to turn fortunes around following a bottom-half finish last term.
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Have Manchester United made a misstep with Senne Lammens?
Onana was turfed out after mistake after mistake (Image credit: Getty Images)
With Andre Onana’s inconsistent form between the sticks well-publicised, United landed on Belgian prodigy Senne Lammens as an option to upgrade on the Cameroonian – and with Lammens still just 23, he’s very clearly an option for the future.
Lammens has long been a darling of the stats community, with analyst Spencer Mossman explaining in a post on X (formerly Twitter) at the start of the month that despite Lammens’ lack of minutes at the top level, he possessed the best shot and cross-stopping data from across Europe.
Senne Lammens joined from Antwerp over the summer (Image credit: Joris Verwijst/BSR Agency/Getty Images)
But as pointed out by TalkBall in a video on social recently, “something was going on” with certain metrics in the Belgian Pro League last year.
The Belgian top flight had a Post-Shot Expected Goals minus Goals Allowed of +95.80 last season – some three times higher than the next best-performing division in Europe’s top nine leagues: in fact, when you combine PSxG-GA for the other eight, you get a figure of -137.3.
While some will certainly argue that Expected Goals can be a flukey metric and that players’ worth shouldn’t be measured purely in stats, FourFourTwo would shrug and agree… but do Manchester United?
The concern here is that United may have purchased Lammens based on stats that may – in Mossman’s own words – be “whack”.
PSxG-GA figures last season, from @fc_mossman on X (formerly Twitter) (Image credit: @fc_mossman on X (formerly Twitter))
Naturally, United will have scouted Lammens thoroughly – but with questions over the data here, it will be intriguing to see how the youngster performs when he’s eventually given a chance in the net under Amorim.
United return to Premier League action this weekend away to Brentford.
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