Rangers drew 2-2 at Dundee on Saturday night, at Dens Park. They arrived with seven wins in a row. They could have retaken the lead in the league. They did not.
It was not the score that held me. It was a line further down in the BBC Sport report. Rangers have scored 13 goals in the league. They should have scored nearly 20, apparently. The figure is called xG. Expected goals.
I read it twice, at the chip shop, my weekly folded beside the paper cone. Thirteen goals scored, seven missing. Goals that never happened, and that someone counted anyway.
In 1980, a goal was a ball over the line. You saw it, you stood up, you sat down again. The one that did not go in, nobody mentioned it again. It was not kept in reserve in a table. I’m not criticising. I’m comparing.
At Dens Park, Rangers’ xG was close to 2. They scored twice. Bouanani just before half-time, after Bradley Fink’s opener. Then Nicolas Raskin, from distance, in the second half. For once, the figure and the scoreboard agreed. And they drew. Callum Jones equalised for Dundee from a back-pass to goalkeeper Ivor Pandur that never arrived.
Derek McInnes told BBC Sport: “But we can’t come away from home and have to score three goals to win a game.” He is right. With xG, you can score none and still have been expected to score three. Who does that console, exactly.
Silly question, but if you add up the expected goals of the whole season, is someone still waiting for them somewhere?
Note that I’m not against progress. I’m against this progress. My neighbour in the stand used to say that such and such a striker should have scored. We called that an opinion. Today it is a column.
Celtic can stretch their lead to four points if they beat Hearts on Sunday, at three o’clock, British time. At least they play at a decent hour. Well. It’s the times.
It’s true, we checked: BBC Sport.
