A little bit of a quirk?

When asked about the massive disparity between home form and away form PH says he has no idea and put it down as, "A little bit of a quirk."
I just don't believe that at all. I think it's down to PH's innate safety first attitude. He sets up and plays to primarily not lose and snatch a goal on the break. Now this works brilliantly away where home teams mostly feel an onus to attack. An onus or obligation that Paul doesn't seem to feel the need to fulfill. Hence, the number of dull, turgid home games we've seen this season. I think there is further evidence from the sensational cup run. Those games are one offs where you have to win or your out so essentially you HAVE to have a go and take risks at some stage of the tie.
So, do you think it's just a quirk or have you any alternative ideas as to why the glaring disparity?

Well, it’s probably down to tactical/strategy imperatives in my opinion, but PH isn’t going to say that is he, much as one or two might like. He’s not going to say ‘I’ve realised it’s because I perhaps dont approach home games with a bold attacking ethos at times’. So it’s not a surprise that it’s been put down to a ‘quirk’. What I would say is that the word ‘quirk’ would imply a ‘one off’, or ‘freak’ or a piece of misfortune or two. When you play 23 games at home, and only win a small handful, everyone knows that’s not going to be explained by the odd piece of controversy or ill fortune. What he says publicly and what he faces up to privately are different.

Home formations snd team selections have been puzzling  even with injuries taken into account.

If Taylor as a kingpin up front is a preferred option, then perhaps a loan player of a taller build, even someone raw from a slightly higher reserve side would have been a choice that could have been pursued?

The team did not necessarily need a huge goalscorer, rather someone to hold the ball up and pass to others who were more mobile ?

Hoof ball to the heights of McAtee, Lloyd, Khan and Orsi was never going to be really productive.

Too much expected of the young loan players apart from Richardson, who looked decent but injury prone - he had promise and gave as good as he received in tackles.

A quirk is a strange way to describe what makes fans so frustrated.

Quoted from Badger57

When asked about the massive disparity between home form and away form PH says he has no idea and put it down as, "A little bit of a quirk."
I just don't believe that at all. I think it's down to PH's innate safety first attitude. He sets up and plays to primarily not lose and snatch a goal on the break. Now this works brilliantly away where home teams mostly feel an onus to attack. An onus or obligation that Paul doesn't seem to feel the need to fulfill. Hence, the number of dull, turgid home games we've seen this season. I think there is further evidence from the sensational cup run. Those games are one offs where you have to win or your out so essentially you HAVE to have a go and take risks at some stage of the tie.
So, do you think it's just a quirk or have you any alternative ideas as to why the glaring disparity?

It's strange though because last season we were terrible for a large part of the season away from home,with a not too dissimilar squad. It was often commented how we needed to finish in the top 3 because we were so terrible away from home the playoffs with an away match woukd be a write off anyway.

I think it was the notts away game we started to pick up away from home and we all know what happened.

We were better at home last year too, I seem to recall we were going well at home at first before the nosedive. We had Hunt being on form pinging balls about and movement from mcatee and clifton and sousa wide.

I think in hursts time here we have been pretty good away from home but it's not a hard and fast rule, what about the 15/16 season I remember some big wins at home then - were we better away I can't recall?

I think the quirk thing is obviously nonsense, we've not performed well at home generally, it's impossible to argue. But maybe it's more that Hurst hasn't happened to find the right blend at home this season  rather than his teams are intrinsically like that due to his way of setting up?

I'm not convinced our poor home form is borne out of any low-risk approach employed by Hurst; he's not your archetypal front foot, Kevin Keegan type manager but I don't see sufficient evidence throughout his managerial career to suggest his teams are consistently poor at home.

For me, if one thing has defined our league season it's woeful profligacy. We miss way too many chances when on top in games, and the stats seem to bear that out. As of 1st April, the excellent Experimental 361 site had us 4th based on expected goals, with by far the biggest difference between our expected goals and actual goals scored.

[img]https://experimental361.files.wordpress.com/2023/04/2023-04-01-103.png[/img]

To illustrate the point, here's the xG progression in each of our last 6 games:

[img]https://experimental361.files.wordpress.com/2023/04/2023-04-10-doncaster-grimsby.png[/img]
[img]https://experimental361.files.wordpress.com/2023/04/2023-04-07-grimsby-hartlepool.png[/img]
[img]https://experimental361.files.wordpress.com/2023/04/2023-04-01-bradford-grimsby.png[/img]
[img]https://experimental361.files.wordpress.com/2023/04/2023-03-28-crawley-grimsby.png[/img]
[img]https://experimental361.files.wordpress.com/2023/03/2023-03-25-grimsby-walsall.png[/img]
[img]https://experimental361.files.wordpress.com/2023/03/2023-03-22-mansfield-grimsby.png[/img]

With the exception of Bradford (which we indeed lost), the xG stats have us as the expected, comfortable victors in every game - even Hartlepool. And yet we only managed 1 win, 3 draws and 2 defeats - turning what seemingly should have been 15 points into a measly 6.

But this just tells us that we miss a lot of chances, and miss out on a lot of points in the process - it doesn't explain why our home form is so poor. Let's take these last 6 games for instance - 2 of which were at home, 4 away. In our 2 home games, our average xG scored was 2.0 versus 1.85 away. However, in terms of real goals scored we actually averaged 1.0 at home, and 1.5 away. Still less than we should seemingly have scored, but a much poorer conversion ratio at home.

That's a small data sample I grant you, and we can debate the validity of xG as a metric until the cows come home. But for me it reinforces 5 things that I've thought for a while:

1. We miss too many chances, home and away
2. We are psychologically fragile at home after a slow start to the season at BP
3. The atmosphere at BP is markedly different to that away from home, and adds to those psychological fragilities
4. Teams factor in our home record and profligacy and come to BP with greater confidence and more attacking designs of their own
5. We lack a regular goalscorer to convert chances, ease the crowd, put games to bed and dig us out of tricky situations

I genuinely think that we're not far away from being a decent team, but even without a crumb of data we all know only too well that we haven't been very good in and around the opposition penalty area this season.

Next season is a new one, we'll have fresh blood in the dressing room and I see no clear reason for the pattern of poor home form to continue. But it could reoccur if we don't address the blatant issues that have held us back this season. Goalscorers don't grow on trees, I get that, and there are no guarantees a striker is going to perform for you. But generally speaking, those that do come at a premium at every level and we need to learn our lessons, take our medicine and take the kind of punt we've been reluctant to do in the last few windows. If we don't, we run the risk of another season like this one and I fear the momentum we've built over the last 18 months will be lost.

My carer today did not sound Suffolk so I asked her where she came from she replied Mansfield .

I said we are playing you on Saturday she replied you will win Mansfield are rubbish at the moment.

Did not believe her until she told me her son plays for England deaf team and she knows Mansfields manager.

Plus her husband is a big Mansfield fan.

So maybe we are playing them at the right time.

Quoted from Poojah

I'm not convinced our poor home form is borne out of any low-risk approach employed by Hurst; he's not your archetypal front foot, Kevin Keegan type manager but I don't see sufficient evidence throughout his managerial career to suggest his teams are consistently poor at home.

For me, if one thing has defined our league season it's woeful profligacy. We miss way too many chances when on top in games, and the stats seem to bear that out. As of 1st April, the excellent Experimental 361 site had us 4th based on expected goals, with by far the biggest difference between our expected goals and actual goals scored.

[img]https://experimental361.files.wordpress.com/2023/04/2023-04-01-103.png[/img]

To illustrate the point, here's the xG progression in each of our last 6 games:

[img]https://experimental361.files.wordpress.com/2023/04/2023-04-10-doncaster-grimsby.png[/img]
[img]https://experimental361.files.wordpress.com/2023/04/2023-04-07-grimsby-hartlepool.png[/img]
[img]https://experimental361.files.wordpress.com/2023/04/2023-04-01-bradford-grimsby.png[/img]
[img]https://experimental361.files.wordpress.com/2023/04/2023-03-28-crawley-grimsby.png[/img]
[img]https://experimental361.files.wordpress.com/2023/03/2023-03-25-grimsby-walsall.png[/img]
[img]https://experimental361.files.wordpress.com/2023/03/2023-03-22-mansfield-grimsby.png[/img]

With the exception of Bradford (which we indeed lost), the xG stats have us as the expected, comfortable victors in every game - even Hartlepool. And yet we only managed 1 win, 3 draws and 2 defeats - turning what seemingly should have been 15 points into a measly 6.

But this just tells us that we miss a lot of chances, and miss out on a lot of points in the process - it doesn't explain why our home form is so poor. Let's take these last 6 games for instance - 2 of which were at home, 4 away. In our 2 home games, our average xG scored was 2.0 versus 1.85 away. However, in terms of real goals scored we actually averaged 1.0 at home, and 1.5 away. Still less than we should seemingly have scored, but a much poorer conversion ratio at home.

That's a small data sample I grant you, and we can debate the validity of xG as a metric until the cows come home. But for me it reinforces 5 things that I've thought for a while:

1. We miss too many chances, home and away
2. We are psychologically fragile at home after a slow start to the season at BP
3. The atmosphere at BP is markedly different to that away from home, and adds to those psychological fragilities
4. Teams factor in our home record and profligacy and come to BP with greater confidence and more attacking designs of their own
5. We lack a regular goalscorer to convert chances, ease the crowd, put games to bed and dig us out of tricky situations

I genuinely think that we're not far away from being a decent team, but even without a crumb of data we all know only too well that we haven't been very good in and around the opposition penalty area this season.

Next season is a new one, we'll have fresh blood in the dressing room and I see no clear reason for the pattern of poor home form to continue. But it could reoccur if we don't address the blatant issues that have held us back this season. Goalscorers don't grow on trees, I get that, and there are no guarantees a striker is going to perform for you. But generally speaking, those that do come at a premium at every level and we need to learn our lessons, take our medicine and take the kind of punt we've been reluctant to do in the last few windows. If we don't, we run the risk of another season like this one and I fear the momentum we've built over the last 18 months will be lost.

These stats are certainly interesting but difficult to relate to the reality of how the game feels when watching live take the Hartlepool game where according to the BBC we had 17 shots to Hartlepools 4 . What is a shot for this purpose by the way? My recollection is we had few goal scoring opportunities and deserved to lose that game but the stats say something very different.

I listened to the interview and I didn't pick up on "quirk". I did hear him say we didn't finish teams off when on top which supports the stats above. Also supports what we've been saying all year about strikers.
Personally I'm not sure our midfield creates enough high quality chances, and we don't get behind teams often enough so its easy for defenders to keep us out

I think that our players are generally good, but not quite good enough to break teams down when we are at home, where the opposition tend to sick back more. We don't get the spaces we get away from home and tend to start hitting hopeful balls, which is meat and drink to most defenders, who will head it away all day.

Our passing is a concern when in tight areas and we tend to give the ball away a lot, but I think that doesn't happen so much away from home as we get slightly more time and space. I think this may explain why we did so well in the cup, because I think the opposition played more attacking and open, with the expectation that they were favourites and would outplay us, but our organisation and will to work won the day, taking them by surprise. The worst thing Plymouth did was take the lead and got into a mindset of "comfortable win".

Then there is the massive issue of not taking our chances. We don't have enough players who will take a good proportion of their chances. This showed against Hartlepool, when their loan player scored a hat trick, which put him on 9 goals in about a dozen games since he signed for them in Jan. They made their chances tell.

We need a few more players than can open teams up, and a couple who can finish when the chances come along. In just about all the drawn games at BP this season, we have had at least one glorious chance to take the 3 points, and sometimes more than one.

The defence has to share a bit of blame too, in that they have conceded too many soft goals this season. Looking at it pragmatically, just a handful less goals conceded and a few more scored, and we would be up nearer the play off spots, which tells us that we aren't that far away.

Phew !!
This thread took some reading and analysing so far
Cheers for putting  that together and comments ..UTM.
I will stick to just going to away matches .