A little bit of a quirk?

Quoted from HerveJosse

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.

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.

Quoted from Knut Anders Fosters Voles

Anyone else click on this thread thinking…hoping…that Pauline Quirke’s iCloud had finally been hacked?

Anyone?

Someone?

Yoda?

Quoted from Knut Anders Fosters Voles

Anyone else click on this thread thinking…hoping…that Pauline Quirke’s iCloud had finally been hacked?

Anyone?

Someone?

Yoda?