The Gillingham XG statistic that left Crawley Town boss Scott Lindsey frustrated, and the possession stat that left him disappointing

Everyone knows how important data and stats are to Lindsey and Crawley Town as a club and every week every statistic is looked at and logged.

On Saturday, after the Gillingham game, some people might have been a bit confused when the Gills had a higher XG than the Reds.

Anyone who watched the game will know Crawley battered their opposition and created more big chances. But platforms like Flaschscore had Gareth Ainsworth’s sides’s XG at 2.30 and Lindsey’s men at 2.07.

And Lindsey pointed out the reason and why the final figure was wrong - and it was all down to one chance.

The Reds boss explained: “Not many people saw this. Sam Gale, the centre-half for Gillingham, had a header at the far post in the first half. Even Sky Sports didn't pick up on it. It was offside. I actually looked down the line at the chance and saw the linesman flag for offside, so it was an offside chance, but no-one picked up on it.

"And even you look at all the platforms, they're all kind of having Gillingham as a higher XG because of that chance, because it was a big chance. He was only two yards out. He should have probably scored the chance. Because he was so close to the goal, with no-one to beat, it goes down as a really high XG.

But like I say, it was offside so shouldn’t have counted. No other platform really picked up on it. Sky Sports didn't pick up on it.

Our analyst got in touch with Statsbomb, who we use, to let them know their XG is wrong. ‘Sam Gale's chance was offside. You need to correct it’. And they did. But no-one else, all the other platforms, have not picked up on that. So that's why, in effect, we did actually have a higher XG than Gillingham.”

Lindsey is meticulous in his analysis of games and he said it was important these stats are right.

“What I do is I look at every single chance back on a Sunday,” he said. “When I watch the game back, I look at all the chances that have created an XG, and I look at them and kind of understand how they've happened and how we've got in there or how they've got in. And I look at it in detail. So I knew that XG was wrong.

“It's actually the first time I've actually come across where they've actually got something wrong like that.”

And one other stat that came out this week was that Crawley Town have the second highest average possession share in the whole of The 92 with 61%.

That is equal with Liverpool and just 1% behind Cardiff City. But being second was not good enough for Lindsey.

“It's disappointing we're not first, if the truth be known. I want us to be top of everything,” he said. “I want to be the best in the country at keeping the ball. To be second isn't good enough for me.”