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Re: Stats

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Wed Jan 19, 2022 10:26 pm

BWFC_Insane wrote:
Wed Jan 19, 2022 3:21 pm
There is a danger of becoming binary in descriptions of teams. You aren’t ‘long ball’ or ‘possession based’. Ultimately all teams will mix it. And some will be more one way or another. But for me Bolton’s problem was doing the same thing too dogmatically rather than finding a way to mix up their approach.

Nobody wants us lumping balls to endlessly. On the other hand our build up play has been too slow as I think Worthy’s stats reflect. So we need ways to speed up our attacking play at times. Which might be earlier balls into the box. Might be going more direct. Might be playing down the channels. But ultimately this league is variety. Wigan are solid, organised. They can play but also win a game of attrition. You can’t do well only when allowed to play how you want ideally.
I hear you, but MK Dons average 59.2% possession, Wycombe 42.2%; MK Dons average 380.4 accurate short passes per match, Wycombe 124.5. These aren't fine margins, they're indicative of huge differences in style. And while all teams will, as you say, mix it up to some extent, "extreme" versions like those can certainly, clearly, confidently be labelled as one or the other.

Yes, we can get lost in oversimplification, but to say Wycombe aren't a long-ball team because they occasionally play a short pass, or MK Dons aren't a possession-based team because they sometimes ping a raker, is somewhat akin to saying Declan John isn't a left-back because he wanders across to the right now and again.

Again, Worthy's stats show that we average more shots per minutes of possession than either the dogmatic McDons or the versatile Wigan, so we're not necessarily being too slow to shoot, we're being not good enough at it. They also show that ball-phobic Gillingham have the division's third-highest shots-per-minutes-possession ratio, but they're in the drop zone because they don't score enough.

Wigan might go up because they can vary their play, but Wycombe might go up with one main style; they did two years ago. So might Rotherham, again. So might MK Dons, who are fifth. I agree that it helps if you have more than one cat-skinning technique, but I'd argue that at least three of the top five (Wycombe, Rotherham and MK Dons) lean heavily one way or the other. The stats certainly suggest so. <taps thread title> :D

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Re: Stats

Post by GhostoftheBok » Wed Jan 19, 2022 11:23 pm

brommers95 wrote:
Wed Jan 19, 2022 7:07 pm
I think our Ipswich approach was based around the fact they pressed quite high, Trafford tried to play out from the back early on which went…badly. So he either thought “feck this, I’m going long” or somebody told him “feck that, go long”.
Staff told him to go direct, after having bollocked the centre backs for their positioning a few times and it not having the desired effect.

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Re: Stats

Post by BWFC_Insane » Thu Jan 20, 2022 9:54 am

Dave Sutton's barnet wrote:
Wed Jan 19, 2022 10:26 pm
BWFC_Insane wrote:
Wed Jan 19, 2022 3:21 pm
There is a danger of becoming binary in descriptions of teams. You aren’t ‘long ball’ or ‘possession based’. Ultimately all teams will mix it. And some will be more one way or another. But for me Bolton’s problem was doing the same thing too dogmatically rather than finding a way to mix up their approach.

Nobody wants us lumping balls to endlessly. On the other hand our build up play has been too slow as I think Worthy’s stats reflect. So we need ways to speed up our attacking play at times. Which might be earlier balls into the box. Might be going more direct. Might be playing down the channels. But ultimately this league is variety. Wigan are solid, organised. They can play but also win a game of attrition. You can’t do well only when allowed to play how you want ideally.
I hear you, but MK Dons average 59.2% possession, Wycombe 42.2%; MK Dons average 380.4 accurate short passes per match, Wycombe 124.5. These aren't fine margins, they're indicative of huge differences in style. And while all teams will, as you say, mix it up to some extent, "extreme" versions like those can certainly, clearly, confidently be labelled as one or the other.

Yes, we can get lost in oversimplification, but to say Wycombe aren't a long-ball team because they occasionally play a short pass, or MK Dons aren't a possession-based team because they sometimes ping a raker, is somewhat akin to saying Declan John isn't a left-back because he wanders across to the right now and again.

Again, Worthy's stats show that we average more shots per minutes of possession than either the dogmatic McDons or the versatile Wigan, so we're not necessarily being too slow to shoot, we're being not good enough at it. They also show that ball-phobic Gillingham have the division's third-highest shots-per-minutes-possession ratio, but they're in the drop zone because they don't score enough.

Wigan might go up because they can vary their play, but Wycombe might go up with one main style; they did two years ago. So might Rotherham, again. So might MK Dons, who are fifth. I agree that it helps if you have more than one cat-skinning technique, but I'd argue that at least three of the top five (Wycombe, Rotherham and MK Dons) lean heavily one way or the other. The stats certainly suggest so. <taps thread title> :D
Yep fully agree there are a spectrum of styles and some fall more one way or another. But for example Wycombe weren’t pumping the ball at a central Kevin Davies type from where I sat they simply play in the channels, they are definitely one of the more direct sides I’ve seen. But most of their play was focussed on turning the defence around.

I don’t think the stats show conclusively that we are just not taking our chances I suspect it’s far more nuanced than that. I think having high possession yet creating relatively low chances with that creates pressure. I also think teams in that category almost always struggle. And whilst a Man City had the luxury of over two seasons just adding better and better players till that plan works we, in league one do not have the ability to outspend everyone to such a degree. So I’m fairly sure we to find a healthy balance. Every successful Bolton team I’ve seen has that balance. It may be they sit one side or the other more but still.

I absolutely think a vision for how we play and the sorts of players we recruit is good long term strategy but both summers I feel we’ve let that override the immediate need to build teams for results now. And January seems to be that corrective.

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Re: Stats

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Thu Jan 20, 2022 10:37 am

BWFC_Insane wrote:
Thu Jan 20, 2022 9:54 am
Yep fully agree there are a spectrum of styles and some fall more one way or another. But for example Wycombe weren’t pumping the ball at a central Kevin Davies type from where I sat they simply play in the channels, they are definitely one of the more direct sides I’ve seen. But most of their play was focussed on turning the defence around
...by playing... long... balls :D I think we both know there's a style there, and at this point we're merely carping over definitions - direct-ball or long-ball? To the channels or a target man (and don't forget these lads still employ Akinfenwa)?
BWFC_Insane wrote:
Thu Jan 20, 2022 9:54 am
I don’t think the stats show conclusively that we are just not taking our chances I suspect it’s far more nuanced than that. I think having high possession yet creating relatively low chances with that creates pressure. I also think teams in that category almost always struggle.
Mate, the numbers show we have more shots per minute of possession than MK Dons and Wigan (neither of whom are struggling), but we have fewer shots on target and fewer goals. While there will always be other factors, I think there's an obvious conclusion from the dataset presented. <taps thread title again>
BWFC_Insane wrote:
Thu Jan 20, 2022 9:54 am
I absolutely think a vision for how we play and the sorts of players we recruit is good long term strategy but both summers I feel we’ve let that override the immediate need to build teams for results now. And January seems to be that corrective.
Yeah, I can understand that. It's like summer is his dreaming time and winter his triage. But he's learning as he goes.

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Re: Stats

Post by TANGODANCER » Thu Jan 20, 2022 11:02 am

Being no statistician, but a question occurs. Is the fact of an ever changing team; new players etc, take into account on performance levels? Just wondering...
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Re: Stats

Post by Prufrock » Thu Jan 20, 2022 11:07 am

Must admit I'm not really getting the relevance of shots per minute of possession. I'll take the lowest rate in the league as long as I'm having more shots a game than the other team.

Assuming of course these shots are all of the same quality, but as we know any chat of that sort should be kept for the predictions thread :spank:
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Re: Stats

Post by BWFC_Insane » Thu Jan 20, 2022 11:27 am

Dave Sutton's barnet wrote:
Thu Jan 20, 2022 10:37 am
BWFC_Insane wrote:
Thu Jan 20, 2022 9:54 am
Yep fully agree there are a spectrum of styles and some fall more one way or another. But for example Wycombe weren’t pumping the ball at a central Kevin Davies type from where I sat they simply play in the channels, they are definitely one of the more direct sides I’ve seen. But most of their play was focussed on turning the defence around
...by playing... long... balls :D I think we both know there's a style there, and at this point we're merely carping over definitions - direct-ball or long-ball? To the channels or a target man (and don't forget these lads still employ Akinfenwa)?
BWFC_Insane wrote:
Thu Jan 20, 2022 9:54 am
I don’t think the stats show conclusively that we are just not taking our chances I suspect it’s far more nuanced than that. I think having high possession yet creating relatively low chances with that creates pressure. I also think teams in that category almost always struggle.
Mate, the numbers show we have more shots per minute of possession than MK Dons and Wigan (neither of whom are struggling), but we have fewer shots on target and fewer goals. While there will always be other factors, I think there's an obvious conclusion from the dataset presented. <taps thread title again>
BWFC_Insane wrote:
Thu Jan 20, 2022 9:54 am
I absolutely think a vision for how we play and the sorts of players we recruit is good long term strategy but both summers I feel we’ve let that override the immediate need to build teams for results now. And January seems to be that corrective.
Yeah, I can understand that. It's like summer is his dreaming time and winter his triage. But he's learning as he goes.
You have to look at the quality of chances too. I’m not disagreeing with you I just think that stats and whatever can distort things.

As for Wycombe I don’t dispute that they play a lot of longer balls but it’s not the same as what you might say is a traditional long ball side. There are variations that mean each team plays to their strengths and I don’t think categorising a long ball side vs short passes.

I mean Liverpool won the league on the basis of a very ‘direct’ game full backs overloading and early crosses. It was nothing like Man City. A much more direct way of playing. But not long ball.

That’s my point here that I don’t think at this level being long ball or tiki taka is all that relevant. Few teams are one or the other, I think what matters is playing with the tempo and intensity capable of creating the best chances against teams. You can argue we’ve mainly done that when we’ve had lower possession. As people point out some of that is simply down to how the opposition sets up against us. But I also think variety in your game means you can adapt. Playing sideways slowly just to keep the ball is not going to hurt an opponent unless you have world class gear shifters who can find the gaps and suddenly at a drop exploit them.

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Re: Stats

Post by Worthy4England » Thu Jan 20, 2022 12:09 pm

:fishing:

Far as I can tell, the highest long ball percentage in the division is less than 30%. Surely there are no long ball teams... :-)

The difference between the much touted Wycombe and Rotherham and Bolton is 8 and 4 per game, respectively...Not huge numbers in an absolute sense.

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Re: Stats

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Thu Jan 20, 2022 12:21 pm

Prufrock wrote:
Thu Jan 20, 2022 11:07 am
Must admit I'm not really getting the relevance of shots per minute of possession. I'll take the lowest rate in the league as long as I'm having more shots a game than the other team.
Oh quite. Per Worthy's stats, only Rotherham, Sunderland and Accrington are averaging more shots per game than us. So you'd have to ask Worthy why he's parsing them via minutes of possession, and I suggest his "fishing" emoji tells us... :wink:

While shots per game is more important than shots per minute possession, obviously goals is more important. And only seven teams in the division have scored fewer. We might call it Worthy's Razor. :mrgreen:

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Re: Stats

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Thu Jan 20, 2022 12:30 pm

Worthy4England wrote:
Thu Jan 20, 2022 12:09 pm
:fishing:

Far as I can tell, the highest long ball percentage in the division is less than 30%. Surely there are no long ball teams... :-)

The difference between the much touted Wycombe and Rotherham and Bolton is 8 and 4 per game, respectively...Not huge numbers in an absolute sense.
No, but the conversation was about possession. MK Dons average 380.4 accurate short passes per match, Wycombe 124.5. If you don't think those numbers are different, fair enough.

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Re: Stats

Post by Worthy4England » Thu Jan 20, 2022 2:28 pm

Dave Sutton's barnet wrote:
Thu Jan 20, 2022 12:30 pm
Worthy4England wrote:
Thu Jan 20, 2022 12:09 pm
:fishing:

Far as I can tell, the highest long ball percentage in the division is less than 30%. Surely there are no long ball teams... :-)

The difference between the much touted Wycombe and Rotherham and Bolton is 8 and 4 per game, respectively...Not huge numbers in an absolute sense.
No, but the conversation was about possession. MK Dons average 380.4 accurate short passes per match, Wycombe 124.5. If you don't think those numbers are different, fair enough.
I thought BWFCi said "You aren’t ‘long ball’ or ‘possession based’.." so I sorta assumed the conversation was about both...apologies if not..I don't think they're necessarily mutually exclusive Ipswich average more possession than us, Wigan marginally less and play a lot more long balls than us.

Wycombe have less possession than MK Dons - there is no doubt.

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Re: Stats

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Sun Feb 13, 2022 10:02 pm

You may (or very well may not) remember that last year I had a spreadsheet set up to extrapolate the promotion candidates' final points totals based on recent form (over the last 6, 8, 10 and 12 games). As spring sprung, it painted an increasingly rosy picture of our chances of promotion.

Well, I've just had a little twiddle to update it to this season, and plugged in the results for each of the top 11 teams.

However you cut it, Rotherham are on course for the title and 100+ points - as many as 113 based on their last-six form (having won them all, they're the only team above us in that form table). Wigan are also on course for runners-up with 90+ points.

But the play-offs are very much up for grabs, with seven different teams (none of them being Oxford) on course to qualify across the four different form-table lengths.

If you go on last-12 form, then fairly understandably it's still the four teams that are in there now (McDons, Sunderland, Wycombe, Plymouth), although the Mackems only just hold off Sheffield Wednesday by the tiniest sliver. We're still in 10th, on 70 points.

If you go on last-10 form, Wednesday and Ipswich replace Wycombe and Sunderland. We're in 8th on 73.5pts, only 0.5pts behind the last slot.

If you go on last-8 form, we're not just in the play-offs but above Wycombe, our 80.6pts earning us a semi-final against McDons (winner to play Wycombe or Plymouth).

And if you go on last-6 form, then for the second successive season we finish third, this time on 85pts, facing Plymouth for the right to take on McDons or Wednesday at Wembley.

All of which can be taken with a heart-threatening handful of salt, of course. But it was interesting to watch last season, and if we keep winning I'll keep plugging in the numbers.

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Re: Stats

Post by TonyDomingos » Sun Feb 13, 2022 10:37 pm

Excellent stuff as always, DSB. It's very difficult to call as I suspect our last 8 form is probably closer to our next 15 than our last 12 form, but not to the degree that we'll win every game bar 3 or 4.

Can you remind me of the site that has the league table on particular days plz? (Google isn't helping me.) For my own interest, I'm trying to calculate what the second half of the season has to look like for us to get in the play offs. The first game of the last 23 was a 0-2 home defeat to Wycombe on 11 Jan.
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Re: Stats

Post by Worthy4England » Sun Feb 13, 2022 10:55 pm

https://www.worldfootball.net/table_cal ... eague-one/

This one, you can put in your guesses gor the remaining fixtures, I think, TD

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Re: Stats

Post by nicholaldo » Sun Feb 13, 2022 10:58 pm

TonyDomingos wrote:
Sun Feb 13, 2022 10:37 pm
Excellent stuff as always, DSB. It's very difficult to call as I suspect our last 8 form is probably closer to our next 15 than our last 12 form, but not to the degree that we'll win every game bar 3 or 4.

Can you remind me of the site that has the league table on particular days plz? (Google isn't helping me.) For my own interest, I'm trying to calculate what the second half of the season has to look like for us to get in the play offs. The first game of the last 23 was a 0-2 home defeat to Wycombe on 11 Jan.

Transfermarkt offers that option, although I'm sure there are others. The league table since 11th January can be found HERE.
Last edited by nicholaldo on Sun Feb 13, 2022 11:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Stats

Post by TonyDomingos » Sun Feb 13, 2022 11:05 pm

nicholaldo wrote:
Sun Feb 13, 2022 10:58 pm
TonyDomingos wrote:
Sun Feb 13, 2022 10:37 pm
Excellent stuff as always, DSB. It's very difficult to call as I suspect our last 8 form is probably closer to our next 15 than our last 12 form, but not to the degree that we'll win every game bar 3 or 4.

Can you remind me of the site that has the league table on particular days plz? (Google isn't helping me.) For my own interest, I'm trying to calculate what the second half of the season has to look like for us to get in the play offs. The first game of the last 23 was a 0-2 home defeat to Wycombe on 11 Jan.

Transfermarkt offers that option, although I'm sure there are others. The league table since 11th January can be found HERE.

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Re: Stats

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Sun Feb 13, 2022 11:06 pm

TonyDomingos wrote:
Sun Feb 13, 2022 10:37 pm
Can you remind me of the site that has the league table on particular days plz?
https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/ is an excellent bookmark. And last time I looked, this Ipswich fan site allowed you to construct tables in a given date range. https://www.twtd.co.uk/league-tables/co ... mpionship/

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Re: Stats

Post by nicholaldo » Sun Feb 13, 2022 11:07 pm

TonyDomingos wrote:
Sun Feb 13, 2022 11:05 pm
nicholaldo wrote:
Sun Feb 13, 2022 10:58 pm
TonyDomingos wrote:
Sun Feb 13, 2022 10:37 pm
Excellent stuff as always, DSB. It's very difficult to call as I suspect our last 8 form is probably closer to our next 15 than our last 12 form, but not to the degree that we'll win every game bar 3 or 4.

Can you remind me of the site that has the league table on particular days plz? (Google isn't helping me.) For my own interest, I'm trying to calculate what the second half of the season has to look like for us to get in the play offs. The first game of the last 23 was a 0-2 home defeat to Wycombe on 11 Jan.

Transfermarkt offers that option, although I'm sure there are others. The league table since 11th January can be found HERE.

Marvellous. Thank you. 👍

I've just edited it as I'd initally selected from matchday 23 rather than matchday 24.

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Re: Stats

Post by nicholaldo » Sat Feb 19, 2022 7:36 pm

An updated league table for the second half of the season (for what that's worth, and I think it's worth something) has us in first place on goal difference.

It can be found HERE.

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Re: Stats

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Sat Feb 19, 2022 9:19 pm

A good win for us today, but also wins for 5 of the 7 teams directly above us (3rd down).

Extrapolating the recent form tables (last 6, 8, 10 and 12 games) over the rest of the season, only in the scenario mimicking our last 8 games (ie W6 D1 L1) will we sneak into the playoffs, although last-10 form would take us agonisingly close.
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Worth remembering that Wednesday and Plymouth (plus Pompey) have to come to our place yet, and even our two trips to top-10 teams – Wigan and McDons – seem curiously set up for Wanderers. True, we could arguably do without facing Wigan, but in a weird way we have little to lose after the 0-4 at ours, and they're likely to come at us, which might give us a chance to get at them. Evatt is already looking forward to playing expansive MK Dons on their big pitch. The other four trips are to the bottom three plus Cheltenham. I think we can dream a while yet, so have a good Saturday night.

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