Not The Top Table (11 November 2025)
Every Tuesday NTT20.COM brings you updated xG form tables for the Championship, League One and League Two.
Welcome to the third-ever Not The Top Table. These xG form guides are fully sortable but, please note, they function best in your browser or on the Substack app and not as an email. Also, we’re keeping track of all feedback we receive to make additions and improvements in the future. If you have any thoughts, please share them with us.
The 5 game table gives some neat statistical representation of some strong recent Championship storylines:
Chris Davies ‘landing on something that works’ at Birmingham
Ipswich coming on strong, Blackburn refusing to spiral
Swansea incapable of creating
Bristol City hitting a wall
The 10 game and Running Total tables reflect that, in terms of pure numbers, there is something of a Big Three forming — Coventry, Ipswich and Birmingham.
Finally, Hull City are quite clearly the country’s greatest entertainers and should be celebrated as such.
Take Peterborough’s exciting placement in the 5 game table with a pinch of salt — their win against Wimbledon came with an xG scoreline of 4.18 - 0.94.
Lincoln continue to stand out when it comes to suppressing opposition chances, while Orient’s numbers all round feel more like Baller League than League One.
The 10 game table shows the top 7 teams all bunched up between 58% and 62% xG ratio, reflected in the most condensed league table in around 20 years. Brentford FC famously call this type of thing the Justice Table — in which case there’s very little justice in Burslem right now when it comes to Port Vale’s performances vs results.
Colchester’s match against Chesterfield — xG scoreline of 5.67 - 0.44 — is playing a big role in their numbers.
ColU, Barnet and Crawley lead the division over the last 10 — Barnet are the ones being taken most seriously.
Barrow are posting bad numbers and decent results, Harrogate are posting bad numbers and bad results.
Whilst Cambridge and Shrewsbury matches are officially the most boring in the EFL.
I have a feeling Birmingham will continue to underperform both xG and xGA. Still giving away set piece goals and Kyogo must be on for one of the most horrific chance conversion rates ever seen. Stansfield is very average in that regard as well. Plus we score in bunches which doesn't help results. Average xG of 1.8 is fine but not if that's two 4s preceded by a load of nils. Elsewhere, interesting to see how much better Sheffield United are now.
Interesting to look at “form” this way, i.e. season to date, last 10 games, last five games. Creates a good perspective on how the Leagues are developing.
I haven’t seen xG ratio used before. Is there evidence this is better than xGD or expected points?