Max Rushden

In Hull's case, you know, we...

there was a piece written on our website a few months ago about this, kind of trying to work out why their underlying numbers were so bad compared to their results.

And part of it is because they had two players, Anony McBurney and Joe Gelhart, who are elite finishers for the level, who even by their standards were having elite seasons.

And that helps, you know, having good players helps.

And it's interesting that they played against Middlesbrough, whose underlying numbers were the best in the league by miles under Helberg, but they had basically no players who were clinical in front of goal and therefore missed loads of chances.

Like finishing is a skill and it's an important skill in the same way that having a goalkeeper...

who makes good saves is an important skill.

And in Panda, Hull have a very good shot-stopping keeper, unlike Middlesbrough, who've got Sol Brin, who's been one of their weakest players this season.

So it tells a very good story of what's going on between both boxes.

It's a helpful predictive tool.

It's by no means, you know, people...

We've had some comments on our YouTube video saying, you know, Hull are the death of XG.

And I think that just kind of misses the point of what it is, basically.

And the other thing to point out is that even though for much of this season, Hull may have been posting kind of unsustainable numbers, that wasn't the case in the playoffs.

They played two games against Millwall.

They played a game against Middlesbrough.

And apart from a disallowed goal for Millwall, none of their opposition ever got close to scoring.

Millwall didn't create anything of note that stood.

And Middlesbrough didn't have a shot on target, I don't think, on Saturday.

So the performances they put in when it mattered in the playoffs was a masterclass from Jokic.