Evan Ferguson has been revealed as one of the Premier League’s top performers in terms of expected goals.

The Albion striker has netted six times in the competition this season.

That includes a couple of tough chances and an unlikely deflection in his hat-trick against Newcastle.

And a very composed pass into the bottom corner during the win at Nottingham Forest.

That puts him well ahead of his expected goals tally, which statisticians have calculated at 3.12.

Of course, it is a positive stat and shows how reliable the 19-year-old can be in front of goal.

The study presented to us recently shows that Ferguson ranks fifth in the Premier League in terms of how his actual goals tally outperforms his xG.

Of players with eight appearances or more, he is behind only Son Hueng-Min, Mohammed Kudus, Hwang Hee-Chan and Bernardo Silva in that ratio.

Ferguson’s finishing efficiency ranks ahead of players including Mo Salah, Erling Haaland, Jarrod Bowen, Dominic Solanke, Ollie Watkins and Albion’s own Joao Pedro in terms of goals scored compared to xG.

The numbers were presented to us via a press release from equipment retailer Net World Sports.

We get quite few emails like this. Companies send us a ready-made story which we can relate to Albion and put on our website quickly and easily.

It’s a PR trade-off. In return for the easy story, we publish a link to their own website. Here it is.

Only this one isn’t so easy when you look a bit harder.

FotMob currently have Ferguson’s xG slightly higher at 3.65 and their numbers also differ slightly for other players.

As ever, stats can show more than one story or be open to more than the headline interpretation.

And that might be the case in terms of that xG figure for Ferguson in a lofty place.

An expected goals figure of 3.12 (or indeed 3.65) so far feels very low from 18 appearances, of which 11 have been starts.

As per FotMob, Ferguson ranks 49th for xG in the Premier League. That’s 49th. 

His xG ranks at approximately one goal per five appearances (some of which have, admittedly, been brief).

The xG for other central strikers on the list is for generally for about a goal every two to three games, better in some cases.

Darwin Nunez has an xG of 11.13 in 19 games while Haaland’s is 16.73 in 15.

Heading back towards the real world, Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s at Everton was seven in 16 going into this weekend. 

Solanke’s is high at 12 in 19 games. Alexander Isak has an xG of 9.81 in 15 appearances.

Then you find those who are expected to have scored one in two or three.

So should Ferguson’s xG figure, the one he is outperforming so admirably, be higher?

And, if it is too low, is that because he is not making the right runs and getting in the right positions or is it a shortfall in service?

It is a balancing act because one of the aspects which most impressed us about him when he first burst on to the scene was that he was more than an out-and-out frontman.

That he was intelligent in how he dropped deep and joined in play, in a style likened to that of Harry Kane.

But the numbers suggest what we can maybe see for ourselves – that, for whatever reason, he should be getting more “big” chances to score.

Get that right and one can only wonder about what the future could hold.

The same sort of xG-related ratio but on higher numbers will surely be a target for coming months as Roberto De Zerbi continues to show his Irish teen, like others, support but in a demanding way.

Elsewhere in the same rankings, Simon Adingra and Pervis Estupinan are both out-performing their xG stats by a little more than one goal.

This is in the league only, remember. Estupinan has also fired in a low-percentage shot in the FA Cup.

Facundo Buonanotte and Danny Welbeck outperform their xG by less than one goal which, in the real world, leaves them about level par.

The same goes for Joao Pedro, who has scored seven league goals and has an xG of 6.92 (so basically seven).

If you take away the penalties, one imagines the Brazilian has reached that state of affairs via the scenic route, converting some tough chances and not putting others away where the goal expectation is greater.

He is a little behind where he should be when penalties are taken from the record – but then penalties all count, also earn you points.

Pascal Gross and Kaoru Mitoma are about where they should be.

The numbers also underline that Jan Paul van Hecke should probably have netted from a set-piece by now.

He has yet to score and has an xG of 0.79.

In terms of the biggest xG under-performers, no current Albion players are anywhere in sight.

The study says Nunez is well behind par with five goals compared to his expected 11.13.

Nicolas Jackson’s goals tally of seven compares poorly to his xG of 11.8.

Calvert-Lewin was four goals short of where he apparently should have been and he would have lost further ground in the 0-0 draw with Aston Villa.

And how about Neal Maupay with two goals and an xG of 5.17?

That last name is one which brings back memories of a time when Albion were somewhat ironically known as the xG kings.

They are up to the xG expectations these days but the bar can be pushed higher.