xV: Cold day in hell

Hey friends! Welcome back to Expected Villa (xV), a numbers-focused look at Villa’s results and play. Villa were beaten by the snow. Oh.

I want to start by talking about the snow

How good was the snow on the day? You don’t often see game-stopping performances from the snow, but boy, did he really show up today. Snow cancelled any hope of a positive result for Villa, and despite that - you have to appreciate these kind of individual performances, no matter the team.

Everything is relative, so don’t ask me how much this snow has hurt us

S**t happens. The snow showed up today and it meant Villa couldn’t. We’re still on track for promotion, but we won’t know if it’s automatic, or through a play-off dog fight until later in the season.

Still, Villa will need to show up when they play stronger, drier opposition.

Snow really stood out in the numbers

Despite fielding an average team height of six inches (compared to Scott Hogan, who measures at around seventy inches in height) the snow was able to hold Villa today. That’s an impressive performance. Negative temperatures overnight lead to snow completely shutting down Villa’s attack. I don’t like using xG for single games, but hey 0.0 to 0.0 says a lot. We’ve got a good run of matches to bounce back, and we might not see snow again this season.