Same problems as last season….

They don’t travel on national express for a couple of quid, ask any sport scientist and they’ll say how long you have between games is far more impactful than having to travel. I’m sure every team benefits at some stage but it stinks that we had to play on Wednesday due to Burnley being on tv on Sunday, it’s nothing to do with us and we shouldn’t have our season impacted. Sure it’s every team but I’ll never be happy with teams getting an advantage or disadvantage because Sky want to show a million games a season just as I don’t like how its fans who go to games who suffer with some of the ridiculous scheduling.

 

Agree as I posted in the thread losing that goal just before halftime must have knocked them, as you say get to halftime 0 - 0 Alexander has a word and makes changes, unfortunatly we went 2 -0 down before Pointon or Phillips could get into the game.

 

We had the bulk of possession and didn’t create enough meaningful chances.
If Swan scores that one on one in the first half it’s a different game.
Travelling 320 miles to an away game after a tough Wed night cup game is never easy but let’s not start making excuses. Bottom line is we didn’t do enough in the opposition box. Beesley needs to start doing more than just holding the ball up. If he’s a number 9 then he needs to start finding the net.

 

We need to move the ball quicker to find Beesley in space.. I can't recall a move yet where has got the ball to feet.. the only service we give him is in a congested area.

 

Or perhaps we go in 1-0 down at half time, then GA has a word and make changes and we don't ship an early goal by losing the ball, then not tackling back giving the number 7 space to run & shoot? And even if it goes to 2-0 the game's far from done that early on.

I'm sorry I don't buy this being knocked back by a late first half goal as a reason for shipping another just after the break. It's a piss poor excuse. These lads are professionals, and they are very capable of showing it. We've seen it. But being rattled by a goal should not be affecting us as badly as it sometimes seems to. The difference between a decent team and a good team is how they respond when things don't go their way. That I see as a weakness we sometimes show, and that's GA's job to sort.

 

Spot on. The other half has been grumbling and swearing ever since. It seems that fans just have to put up with whatever is served.

 

Take Sky's money out of the EFL and clubs go bust overnight. Even without Sky or any other TV it would be impossible to ever have every team having the same schedule as the calendar is impacted by everything from internationals down. We will play next Tuesday against Orient then Notts County on Saturday whereas Notts County have a full week between games. There will also be times when fixtures have to be changed due to policing e.g. Oxford vs Reading this weekend was postponed due to policing reasons so both have much more preparation time for their midweek game.
The fixture calendar if full of bits of good luck and bad luck throughout the season with playing teams at a good or bad time due to injuries, manager changes, fixture congestion.

 

Just going from the team stats after 4 games this season, not a huge pool of data but just to compare against last seasons numbers. Kinda easy colour coding, peach on both means it's similar numbers and middling. Green means good, purple means bad.



I dont think there are massive differences in the ways we are playing. We are still really poor at completing passes and we still bang the most long balls into nobody than anyone really. Our short passing really is bad, our average of 65 inaccurate short passes a game is daft, Cambridges inaccurate short passes of 55 is ranked 3rd, we are way higher than the rest. Same last season, our 66 per game made us the only team in L1 with over 60 inaccurate short passes per game.

The inaccurate play is the only massive jump, last season we were one of the better corner sides in the league with only 3 teams having fewer inaccurates than us, but this season we are top of that poor stat rank. One other thing is that we are crossing it far more into the box than before, but 26 of the 34 we average a game aren't hitting a City player. Both seasons it's about a third of the crosses are hitting a City man, but it's not leading to more shots. We are averaging the same amount of shots per game, but the balls in either from set pieces or open play are way higher than last season and way more inaccurate. Statistically, it looks like we are creating more opportunities, it's just we aren't getting consistently good opportunities.

Maybe thats why we are feeling a little more sour on the play so far? We are seeing more and more moments of chance, but it's equalling the same amount of efforts. So the crowd naturally groan more and more when more balls are flying out for a throw or goal kick rather than ending in a shot.

 

Interesting. After the first couple of games everyone was saying that our corners are much better this season - especially Connolly over Power. But now they’re showing as worse. I think we have too many that are either going straight to the keeper or are over hit and go straight out. We need a big player stationed beyond the far post to head those back into the mixer.

The passing and crossing stats really are shocking. I guess the inaccurate long balls isn’t that surprising if you hit far more of them than most other teams - some are bound to be speculative or inaccurate. But the short passing and crossing is inexcusable. We’ve brought a big guy in as a focal point and are hitting huge numbers of crosses in; but almost none of them are finding their target. Hardly surprising that Beesley is struggling to score goals.

 

For those getting depressed by the above stats, here's some more to cheer you up.