Villa had a total expected goals (xG) of 2.27 on Saturday, the highest of any team against the Gunners in the Premier League this season, and created five big chances, including goals from Matty Cash and Buendia.
They have scored 5.45 more goals [22 in total] that your xG [16.55] and conceded 5.83 fewer goals [15] than your xGA [20.83] in the Premier League this season.
The last metric (expected goals against) measures how many goals a team would be expected to concede based on the opportunities created against them.
Villa’s director of football operations and Emery’s trusted lieutenant Damian Vidagany wrote in X after last week’s 1-0 win over Wolves that it didn’t matter if Villa scored from the moon, just that they were getting the points.
Buendia is now Villa’s Premier League top scorer alongside Donyell Malen with four goals (Ollie Watkins, Morgan Rogers and Cash have three), so Villa are also not reliant on just one player to put the ball in the net.
They may be surpassing the expected goals figures at both ends of the pitch, but few would begrudge Villa their place near the top.
No team has won more Premier League games since the start of March than Villa.
“I’m not thinking about that [the title]”said Emery. “I know that 38 games is very difficult. We are not a contender. If we were at game 35, maybe we could talk differently.
“Three points give us a lot of confidence and give us a lot of feelings together about how we are doing. In the table, we feel better than two months ago.”
“[I am] I am very proud of how we are responding and how we concentrate on each game, also in Europe. The players are the protagonists.”
It is a far cry from Villa’s problems earlier in the season, when they failed to win any of their first six games, including the game against Brentford in the Carabao Cup.
They did not score in the Premier League until their sixth game, a 1-1 draw against 10-man Sunderland, but since that time at the end of September they have won 13 of 15 games.
Emery acknowledged that his form is the best he could have hoped for, having placed third when leaving the Stadium of Light on September 21.
He said: “How we are now, I am very proud of the players, of how they are taking on the challenges that we sent them to the locker room. But it is the reality, the reality is everything we are achieving, but the reality is also the difficulties that we are going to face.”
“The Premier League is very difficult and we will see our goal in 38 games, but of course now we feel good, strong and comfortable in the position we are in.”
