A statistic has put England and Scotland’s sluggish start to Euro 2024 into stark contrast when compared with their contemporaries in the tournament.

With each team having played two games in the tournament, what has been an exciting group stage will soon make way for the unbridled drama of the knockout rounds.

Unbeaten despite a pair of divisive performances, Gareth Southgate’s side have virtually already booked their place in the last 16 and can top their group with victory over Slovenia.

Meanwhile a 1-1 draw with Switzerland on Wednesday has kept Scotland’s dreams of reaching the knockout stage alive as they prepare to face pointless Hungary this evening.

However, despite the Home Nations having a real chance to progress, both teams’ expected goals statistics have left a lot to be desired.

Expected goals (xG) measures the statistical quality of chances created during a game and quantifies the likelihood of them being scored.

When it comes to xG created Scotland sit rock bottom of all the teams in the tournament, having managed to score twice in two games despite an expected goals stat of 0.79.

Like their neighbours to the north, England have also managed just two goals in the tournament thus far with a combined expected goals from their two games of 1.44 xG.

Rounding out the bottom three is England’s Group C rivals Serbia. Despite the considerable attacking talent at his disposal, across two games Dragan Stojkovic’s side have managed just 1.8 xG.

The Group C opener between England and Serbia also set an unwanted record according to the xG Philosophy on X, with two teams managing a pitiful 0.69 between them.

As a result the game had less xG created than any Premier League game last season, with England’s average xG from their two games (0.72) lower than that of the Sheffield United that finished rock bottom.