On the evening of the 24th of March, news broke out from Bayern Munich: Julian Nagelsmann had been sacked. But was it the right choice? One way that we can analyse a manager’s tenure is by looking at the difference between expected goal for and expected goals against.
The line graph above shows this. With expected goals for in blue and expected goals against in red, we can see that despite the Bayern Munich board’s claims about the team’s progress under Nagelsmann, the difference between xG and xGA remained quite large across the whole of his time there. In fact, the only time where a 7-game rolling average suggested that the team were conceding better chances than they were creating was at the beginning of the 2020-2021 season – under previous manager Hansi Flick.
Admittedly, Bayern’s xG dominance faded out after the Qatar World Cup, just as Bayern sporting director Hasan Salihamidžić eluded to – but this was more of a regression back to the Flick era rather than an uncharacteristic falling off of the Bavarians.
Based off this graph alone, should Nagelsmann kept his job? Most likely: there were little signs that a change was needed. Was Nagelsmann’s sacking based off this graph alone? Most likely not: reports that the German had lost the dressing room somewhat had circulated, and the availability of new manager Thomas Tuchel would have prompted a quick dismissal. In any case, what we can take from this is clubs (Spurs, maybe?) should not be put off Nagelsmann – in terms of on-field performances, anyways.
