The worrying statistic behind Aston Villa’s faltering Premier League title bid
Aston Villa’s uncanny knack of scoring long-range goals is beginning to wear off.
Towards the back end of December, Villa went on a club-record winning streak of 11 games, as they hunted down the top two sides, Arsenal and Manchester City.
After their comeback victory at Chelsea on 27 December, Unai Emery‘s team were one point behind City and three adrift of league leaders Arsenal.
And they got into this position by scoring a remarkable amount of goals from long distance or with a low Expected Goals probability, with Morgan Rogers the greatest proponent of this.
Fast forward to the present, where the Villa Park outfit have slipped to fourth, behind Manchester United on goal difference, and are now 13 points behind the Gunners.
While Villa are still ahead of their Expected Points tally, there has been a considerable drop-off in 2026.
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Aston Villa’s conversion rate plummets
Villa sit fourth in the table, but according to the Expected Points standings, they should be 12th, with just 35 points, as via Opta.
Their actual goals tally of 38 is 3.5 higher than their xG, and the 30 goals they have conceded is 8.6 below their Expected Goals Against.
For many months of the season, Villa were defying expectations, both in terms of results and outscoring their xG. Indeed, in their first 20 league games, they had a conversion rate of just under 15 per cent from 81 shots.
But in the last eight fixtures, where they have won just one of their last five league matches, that conversion rate is down to just over two per cent from 48 attempts on goal.
This, arguably, sums up what has gone wrong for Villa in recent weeks. When you are scoring low xG goals, it is always likely that a team will regress to the mean eventually.
If this trend continues, they may risk dropping out of the Champions League qualification spots altogether. This is a far cry from when they were title contenders.
Aston Villa’s season is in danger of unravelling
For much of the season, Villa had an eye-catching habit of winning games despite having a much lower xG than their opponents. But on the flip side, they tend not to do as well when that is reversed.
But, off the back of suffering injuries to key players such as captain John McGinn, midfield enforcer Boubacar Kamara, and playmaker Youri Tielemans, Villa’s form has dropped off.
Villa are out of the FA Cup and Carabao Cup, their league season is in danger of falling apart, and if they don’t get their injured players back soon, their Europa League bid could falter, too.
A real sign of their struggles has come in their last two games. Most recently, they lost to Premier League basement side Wolves at Molineux in a harrowing defeat.
And on 21 February at Villa Park, they rescued a late draw against lowly Leeds United, who have one of the worst away records in the division.
Emery needs to do something special to get his Villa team going again; otherwise, this could be another season of disappointment.
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