Jedi boro
Well-known member
I think that’s fair
Our possession and shots on target stats this season
- Thread starter Jedi boro
- Start date
coluka
Well-known member
Many teams with the most possession fail to win games. Possession is not a good stat to rely on. It depends on what you do with the ball when you have it. Man Utd won 3-1 with 39% possession.
For me, if we keep our first choice 11 fit we will be ok. The reality (in my view) is we have only one striker who looks capable of 15+ goals (Muniz), early days i know, but thats how i currently see it. An injury to Muniz then what
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Secondly, an injury to Howson, Mowatt or Crooks, we are then using McNair or an U/23 player. Selling Tav without truly replacing him has been done to death, but it was stupidly naive. Anyone thinking Mowatt may be the answer will for me, be proven wrong, he isn’t anywhere near close to filling his boots and thats no disrespect meant to Mowatt, he is a different type of player, we are so ponderous in CM and easily bypassed at times thereby adding pressure to the defence. We are weaker in midfield and I am unconvinced by Steffen and (surprisingly) Lenihan at the back.
Hopefully, some of the weaknesses seen can be sorted, mistakes reduced and injuries avoided. The squad is lacking in quality up front and midfield at present, the fact that we have a small break for the World Cup may be a blessing if we pick up injuries, but I am not as glass half full as some appear to be.
For me, if we keep our first choice 11 fit we will be ok. The reality (in my view) is we have only one striker who looks capable of 15+ goals (Muniz), early days i know, but thats how i currently see it. An injury to Muniz then what
. Secondly, an injury to Howson, Mowatt or Crooks, we are then using McNair or an U/23 player. Selling Tav without truly replacing him has been done to death, but it was stupidly naive. Anyone thinking Mowatt may be the answer will for me, be proven wrong, he isn’t anywhere near close to filling his boots and thats no disrespect meant to Mowatt, he is a different type of player, we are so ponderous in CM and easily bypassed at times thereby adding pressure to the defence. We are weaker in midfield and I am unconvinced by Steffen and (surprisingly) Lenihan at the back.
Hopefully, some of the weaknesses seen can be sorted, mistakes reduced and injuries avoided. The squad is lacking in quality up front and midfield at present, the fact that we have a small break for the World Cup may be a blessing if we pick up injuries, but I am not as glass half full as some appear to be.
Andy_W
Well-known member
I've watched every minute of all the games and agree with most of that.
QPR there's not much we could have done about the Steffen foul, or their 25-yarder, but the third was bad. We created a lot of chances in that game, but getting back to a draw from being 3-0 down is always going to be very difficult, especially away. On most other days though that 25 yarder would not have went in, and the second would have been a foul, we'd have been a lot less shell shocked by the time the third went in.
Reading deffo should have been a Boro win, then maybe a draw, but certainly not a loss, they had absolutely zero.
Swansea, we didn't really deserve to win this, and we were good at Watford, but maybe not good enough for a draw, 3 points from those two games is fair enough.
We're about 6 points light I think, but I reckon we could have even had more than that if we had Muniz and Chuba available for all games.
BoroMart
Well-known member
0.39xG for them, 1.4 for us. There is an argument that we should have won. The goal they scored had an xG of 0.03. About a 1 in 33 chance of scoring and it was offside. The best 4 opportunities in the game were for Wartmore, Forss, Hoppe, and Lenihan
Erimus74
Well-known member
The Reading game was hard to watch, to have paid all that mobey & travel that distance for that
But we've all been thete, expectations is what drives us on, we have to divine right to expect anything, other than there best, but that was hard viewing
Agree for the most part, but I think the thing that stands out for me is the weakness we show defensively - their first goal, fair enough great strike but it was the 15 seconds leading up to that which were poor. He should never have been in that position in the first place and that stems from the midfield I think. The 2nd goal was probably a foul, but I wonder what our opinion would be if it was the other way round, the keeper looks weak (again with Stokes disallowed goal, definitely a foul but he should be comfortably claiming that).
Watford are a good team no doubt, but they managed to bypass our midfield quite a bit, which puts pressure on our defence and eventually something is going to drop for them, which it did.
On the whole, a bit despondent but we are much better than the results we've been getting. It's a real shame the transfer window ended the way it did, I think we are a good CDM away from being a real force in this division.
I thought the crowd was a bit subdued vs Swansea, and worry about what may happen if we go 1 down tonight
S7DiscoDown
Well-known member
We should definitely be 4 points better off. Hold out against Stoke and Watford. They were shocking points dropped.
We've had chances to increase the lead against wba and Sheff UTD. It's just daft moments or poor decisions.
The only time we've been poor were 30 mins against QPR and Reading. Yet still could have picked something up in both.
We've had chances to increase the lead against wba and Sheff UTD. It's just daft moments or poor decisions.
The only time we've been poor were 30 mins against QPR and Reading. Yet still could have picked something up in both.
CarrickBall
Well-known member
If you can't keep the ball out of your net it means nothing.
I was talking to a Sunderland supporting mate of mine yesterday after the 10km, he fancies them tonight, said they should have more points than they do. Battered Norwich and were unlucky, etc etc etc... same stuff our fans are saying. At the end of the day, you end up with what you deserve, maybe not in individual games but certainly over a stretch of games.
Having loads of possession and passing stats means nowt if you melt every time there's pressure on your back 4 and you don't score enough goals to win games because you concede every time you play.
Andy_W
Well-known member
Do you mean weak as in not strong physically or weak as in not up to the standard we need, or both?
I'd let people shoot from 25-30 yards early on, rather than risk an early yellow, later on in the game I wouldn't. It's like a 1 in 20 chance of scoring, at best, most of the time they're giving us the ball back. It was a foul on Steffen, if we had VAR it would have been turned over, he wasn't even looking at the ball, their player was on the deck, going along the ground (couldn't win the ball) hit Steffen who was in the air, in a decent(ish) position, and their player who made the foul ended up in the net (completely out of control).
Contrary to popular belief, I don't think we've been that bad defensively, considering playing 3-5-2 which will ultimately lead to more chances for us, and likely more for the opposition. We're more attacking and possession-based this year than last, and under any manager, we've had in the last 5 years, which should be factored in. We can't compare chances given to like playing under Karanka (the last promotion) as it's a completely different side/ style.
The idea is that we create a lot more than this change costs, by doing this, which we certainly are doing. It's like how Bola is better defensively than Giles, but what do we gain by that? Little. What do we gain by having Giles? Probably the most assists/ good crosses/ big chances created from anyone in the entire league. Same with Fry, maybe he's a slightly better defender than Lenihan (which I don't see to be honest), but with Lenihan we get much more composure and better building up of play. We should lose the ball less, so should have to defend less etc. Clarke is better than McNair, in every aspect. I'd pick Dijksteele over Paddy as we need Paddy to back up midfield (as nobody else can do that, it's not ideal).
Weak though, that's a different thing to the above. I agree there's been a couple of occasions where we could have maybe been more committed, even risking a foul, but a lot of these occasions have been early on in games, and it's hard to give away yellows early on, when we don't have much backup for those who would have got the yellows. This could have cost us reds late on in games etc, which is often much worse than letting the opposition have the ball 40 yards from goal in the first half. A couple of times we've been weak, but when there's been little threat, the problem is these little threats have gone in. Maybe being weak on Pedro a couple of times cost us, but there's not a great deal you can do against players or play well above this level. Sometimes you're just going to give away chances, it's not possible to stop them all. It's the frequency of being punished for defending which has generally been good enough. I think we've been punished way more than we deserve.
I don't think Muniz or the team were weak going for the Watford shot at the end, why settle for 1 point when you can go for a win? He wasn't far from scoring, and the goal which came after was from some unreal play and a dodgy deflection.
The ref decisions against us have been a massive problem too, there have been at least 4 occasions where extremely bad decisions have eventually led to goals, there's little we can do about this, except hope that luck turns around. It's not like I'm being biased about these bad decisions mind, I always try and look at things like that as neutral. I can't think of one instance where we've had something go massively for us, other than maybe Fry pulling back Watford's player, but when I looked again the player was going wide, and outside the box, so even if the foul was given it was likely a yellow, outside the box, and we also should have had a penalty for the Foul on Lenihan in that game, which is worth a lot more.
Coming away from Watford conceding 1 or 2 is not necessarily bad, they're the best-attacking team in the league, and no slouch elsewhere, that's probably one of the 2/3 hardest games we should have all season. I'd have been very happy with a draw in that one (which I think we probably deserved), but a loss is ok too, no shame in that.
Andy_W
Well-known member
It means nothing if you don't watch the games, or factor in chances, decisions, luck, or how the game actually went.
Goals are a result of many preceding actions and factors, and results are just that, the result of goals. You can't start at a win, and work back to goals and actions, you can only start at 0-0 and then go actions>goals>results. If you sort out the first thing, then the second thing should take care of itself, and then the third.
Ok, extreme example: If we had 10 open goals missed against us, got away with two red cards and had one shot from the half way line and won, would you be happy and think that the game meant nothing, and we got what we deserved, because we won? Or would you by trying to fix what led to the open goals, and count yourself lucky for not getting red cards? That's wider margins, so would be more evident after a small number of games, but finer margins mean this needs to be applied over a much larger number of games.
Think you're applying some false equivalence with your Sunderland mate. Sunderland have been doing alright, results-wise, but they're a pretty good side, above average in this league. Just because they were in League 1 last year does not make them poor etc. But the stats don't suggest they're getting less than they deserve, it suggests they're getting more than they deserve. I don't know how decisions have gone for/ against them, so I'll leave that side.
They beat Bristol City and would have been very happy with a draw. Their first was a 25 yarder which went in the middle of the goal, and only came from a ludicrous mistake. BC first was bad defending and a guaranteed goal. Sunderland were wide open, cleared one off the line. Sunderlands second was good play, but not great keeping, but the keeper made up for that later, so cancel that out. Sunderland's third was possibly a foul, but defending was weak. Chris Martin missed a practically open goal late on.
They drew with QPR and probably felt hard done by with the late goals, but they gave away some good chances which QPR didn't really take, but Sunderland did take theirs fair play on that.
They possibly deserved a draw at home against Norwich, but not a win. They should have had a goal at least, but Sargeant missed one from 3 yards out, with no keeper in the goal.
They won at Stoke thanks to some poor keeping, but that could have gone either way, a draw would have been fair.
Possession and passing stats don't mean anything, other than when you have the ball the opposition can't score. It only matters where you have and concede possession as this likely leads to the much more important chances created/ conceded. Ref decisions matter much more than possession also.
You're right though about things evening out over a stretch of games, but that's probably over the course of a season when you've played all sides home and away, but even then a run of bad or good luck can massively override the outcome of even where that ends up. There's nothing saying that we will get good luck, because we've had bad luck, each action is independent from the previous. So overall we're a lot more likely to end up "unlucky" if we have equally good and bad luck going forward, especially since 1/7th of the season has gone already.
Middlesbrough123
Well-known member
It’s a bit frustration, last season our defence was way better we’ve actually made it worse . Its in the managers hands at least to sort it out .
BoroMart
Well-known member
agreed, although I would have to add in that we've had an odd pre-season, strated early, but 7 games in before the window shuts. With a massive overhaul in our playing staff we've struggled to get up to speed. Tacitcs is about familiarity, some of our players have barely trained together. It'll improve and I'm hoping tonight is the start of it, as we show resilience with Clarke, McNair and Lenihan together at the back giving more than they take against the Sunderland forwards. Hopefully two up top in a home match too
CarrickBall
Well-known member
I know we've had this one before mate but there's the telling line above in bold.
Our stats, Boro's stats, the stats that actuall matter, don't suggest we are getting any less than we deserve.
We concede more than we score. We lose more than we win. No clean sheets. 1 win in 8 games. These are the stats that matter, not how many forward passes you have, possession you have, chances you create, how many chances you limit the opposition to.
Unlucky moments can happen in games.. but not 8, 9 and 10 games. Failures then become and internal issue that we have to address, not the footballing gods.
When Boro start defending properly, taking our chances, winning games, keeping clean sheets.. the things you need to do to win football games, I'll start thinking we're on to something.
Pointing the finger at bad luck or refs over a prolonged stretch of games is just excuses.
You don't miss out on your objectives over the course of a season because you're a brilliant team but you're unlucky.
BoroMart
Well-known member
stats such as xG, passing success, progressive runs etc, these are underpinning stats that support the ultimate success factors of scores. Scores are the Critical Success Factor ultimately. stats are the performance indicators that ultimately lead to the CSFs.
Our stats are good, just not leading to the CSFs so far. If the stats stay the same our results will change.
We do need to create less mistakes, and we do need to put good chances away. That will happen eventually if we keep playing the way we have.
Has the "on target" bit disappeared?
Andy_W
Well-known member
Sunderland's in-depth stats/ chances paint a very different picture to ours, they're shown to deserve less, but your mate is looking through rose-tinted glasses, saying they deserve more.
Boro's in-depth stats/ chances show we deserve far, far more (assuming our finishing and keeper can perform at average levels). Not enough to put us top 3, but enough for 4th to 8th, which considering who we've played very is good. But as a measure of who has got what they deserve the least, then we're second. The only other team done over more than us in that respect is WBA, and Luton/ Swansea just behind us. I think some of ours can be explained by us not converting chances which we should expect to, our players are not bad at finishing, not as bad as they've been this year anyway, I would expect better. The goals against is easy to see, a lot of long-range efforts have gone in, and I don't think our keepers are bad at stopping them, they've just been good strikes.
There are other teams who have largely had good luck, or put away more chances than they should expect to, or where the opposition have not put away their chances, teams like Milwall, Wigan and even Watford. Watford have largely got away with missed chances against them, but they've scored more than expected but I'd expect that with the players who they have (good finishers, well above this level).
Stats like xG might not mean much to you, but they mean an awful lot to every professional team, and they're the best overall stat which Opta produces, who are the market leaders in this. Compared to shots, shots on target and possession, these stats are night and day. Our xG points is 6 lower than the norm,
Also, if any other team has had so many bad decisions which have led to opposition goals then I would love to see it, we know we've had at least three, probably four, which is a third of the goals we've conceded, that's going to really hurt, and it has done. I don't recall us getting any key decisions which should have been fouls which have led to us scoring, but would love to see this also. Same as we've missed out on a couple of penalties at least, but I've not really mentioned these, as we've got away with a couple of other decisions (albeit less serious) in games where these have happened.
We've not had 8,9,10 games where we've been unlucky, we've only played 7 and we've been very unlucky in four, maybe five, and lucky in one (Swansea). You can't think we massively deserved the Swansea game, because we won it, surely?
The odds of being unlucky in 5 games out of 7, is about 25%, which probably explains why there are around 6 teams who look hard done by on the stats, 6 which look like they've got more than they should have, and around 12 in the middle.
The failures are not scoring chances, that is a player's fault, it's not a team or style fault. Like I say, I don't think our players are worse than average in that respect, so we should have got more. Conceding worldies isn't a failure, and that can largely be attributed to luck.
It is an excuse, but it's a legitimate one, until the refs decisions start to go for us, or teams start missing more chances than they should do. An excuse is fine if it is legitimate.
I've not said we've been brilliant, I've said we deserve to have around 4-6 more points based on chances, which considering who we've played is very good, assuming we do better against lesser teams that's play-off material or above. Being brilliant has nothing to do with bad decisions though.
Loads of teams have missed out on objectives largely due to luck, it's a game of extremely fine margins, it doesn't take much to tip an individual games balance. Then it's not unheard of to have that happen against you over a short number of games. It then becomes difficult to get that back, we're no more likely to be lucky tonight, because we've been unlucky previous.
Funky_Chicken
Well-known member
I think we have been a little bit unlucky with some decisions and key moments - that should balance itself out over a season you would think. Performances have been pretty good and i can’t recall a time when we’ve played well in our opening month of fixtures and still been in the bottom three at the end of it. These next few games have to see us picking up lots of points if we’re serious about promotion.
We’re playing Sunderland tonight not Real Madrid at their peak - i don’t expect it to be easy, they have three or four players who can hurt teams but if can we perform to anything like our best we can win this game.
UTB !
We’re playing Sunderland tonight not Real Madrid at their peak - i don’t expect it to be easy, they have three or four players who can hurt teams but if can we perform to anything like our best we can win this game.
UTB !
Otto42
Well-known member
There’s an element of chance (I prefer that to luck), but you reduce that if you defend well and take your chances. The stats do suggest that we should have scored more than we have based on probability, but we haven’t and that isn’t down purely to luck it’s down to poor finishing and poor defending more than chance. If we fail to go up on goals scored I could take the unlucky argument, but not if we end the season on around 45 points (current projection).
Our stats alone fail to take account of how the opposition plays in certain situations in periods of games, which are influenced by the match situation. As an example, maybe we have good attacking and goal scoring stats because we are always chasing the game?
Our stats alone fail to take account of how the opposition plays in certain situations in periods of games, which are influenced by the match situation. As an example, maybe we have good attacking and goal scoring stats because we are always chasing the game?
Sheriff_John_Bunnell_ret
Well-known member
Hopefully we will have less possession and fewer shots today than the opposition, but more goals.