View created from XML data - Statistics I am looking at a legacy system that stores XML blobs

A view is created over this so the data is more accessible (for reporting) 

CREATE view [dbo].[Data]
as
select top 100 percent
data.value('(/Input/@FirstName)[1]','varchar(100)') as FirstName,
(select data.query('for $i in /Input/Control[@Name="Postcode"]/* order by $i/@UpdateDateTime descending return $i')).value('(/Value/@ValueCode)[1]','varchar(50)') as 'Postcode'
...
...
from data


Will SQL server generate statistics for queries run against this view?
No, the query optimizer will not create statistics for a view unless it's an indexed view, you can create an XML index on the xml column itself to speed up the view,