Bilbao's Table Lies
A. Bilbao sit nineteenth with 12 points from 13 games, but 18.5 expected points say the Basque side is a top-half team being punished by its own finishing and a defence that leaks at the worst moments.
Twelve points. That is the number that matters for A. Bilbao after 13 games of the Spanish First Division, and it is a lie told by the table.
The same fixtures, weighed by the chances created and allowed in each, produce 18.5 expected points. That would put Bilbao tenth. Instead they are nineteenth, and the gap of six and a half points is not bad luck handed down from the heavens. It is theirs, made at both ends.
Going forward, Bilbao have scored 11 goals from 14.7 expected goals, 3.7 short of what their play deserved. The chances have been built; the finishing has been careless. At the other end they have conceded 17 from 14.2 expected goals against, 2.8 more than the opportunities allowed warranted. A defence that gives up little still gives up goals, and a team that creates plenty still comes away with too few.
For context, Athletico Madrid lead the league on expected points with 29.2 from 34 actual. Girona, Ponferrada, Barcelona, Real Madrid FC and Villarreal all sit above Bilbao on the same measure. Read that list again: Bilbao, tenth, is not where a club of this following expects to be, and not where its football has put it.
Sunday's goalless draw at home to Madrid was the season in miniature — control without reward, a visiting goalkeeper flattered by the night. The derby win over Alavés in September, with goals from Imanol Sanz and Borja Ribeiro, showed what happens when the chances go in. Too often since, they have not.
"We are doing the hard part," said one voice from inside the dressing room. "Now we have to do the easy part."
Bilbao's supporters know the difference between a team playing badly and a team being punished. This is the second kind — and it is the second kind that can turn a season around.