aggi wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 04, 2023 5:06 pm

I expected our defence to be weak this season, my pre-season prediction was we'd get hammered more than one, but I thought we'd at least score a decent number of goals.

But, we've got one of the lowest numbers of shots attempted, expected goals and actual goals in the league. It's gone under the radar a bit with how poor we've been in other areas of the pitch but we've been struggling to score as well and today really highlighted that:

123EasyasBFC wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 04, 2023 10:40 pm

Doesn’t help when you miss a sitter like JBG did today

taio wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 04, 2023 10:47 pm

Which one - surely not the header?

taio wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 04, 2023 10:47 pm

Which one - surely not the header?

kentonclaret wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 04, 2023 9:06 pm

Had you factored in that our major source of goals Tella would not be here this season, and that our other major source of goals and creativity Benson would not yet have made an appearance or significant contribution?

CrosspoolClarets wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 04, 2023 11:25 pm

Lack of goals isn’t an issue. We have to factor in the opponents who are only about a goal a game conceded, apart from Luton and Bournemouth where we scored two and but for ref idiocy would have scored two.

Then we can look at the players. Foster is scoring. Amdouni has scoring records left right and centre over the last year for Basel and Switzerland. Tresor has record goal contributions last season. Koleosho looks ace. Jay will get a few.

So this is an instance where looking at the stats is an error, because the stats are recording the wrong things. I’m a massive stats guy but stats people have to acknowledge where the data is insufficient and it is in this case. A better stat would be xG vs the xxG of the opponent based on their earlier games home or away, factoring in difficulty, but this is beyond what gets calculated.

northernpowerhouse wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 05, 2023 8:19 am

From the BBC: "Former Belgium and Manchester United midfielder Marouane Fellaini, 35, is a free agent after leaving Chinese club Shandong Taishan."

40 goals in 114 games in China. Knows Kompany. Doesn't suit out style at all. Make it happen!

Kilson810 wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 05, 2023 10:08 am

We are incredibly negative, always looking for the pass backwards rather than a forward pass.

How many times yesterday did we break the Palace press simply to play the ball backwards and let them reorganise

Silkyskills1 wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 05, 2023 12:59 am

I suggested we needed a striker( or two) 8 months ago. But we were in party mood. Criminal that this was overlooked. What we have to offer now up front is shambolic.

aggi wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 04, 2023 5:06 pm

I expected our defence to be weak this season, my pre-season prediction was we'd get hammered more than one, but I thought we'd at least score a decent number of goals.

But, we've got one of the lowest numbers of shots attempted, expected goals and actual goals in the league. It's gone under the radar a bit with how poor we've been in other areas of the pitch but we've been struggling to score as well and today really highlighted that:

Anthonini wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 05, 2023 10:18 am

We got to get Amdouni and Tresor to be more efficient. Benson and Zaroury should offer more as well. I hope not to see much of jayrod though he seems like a great guy with a class mentality.
There must be ways around starting him. Use Amdouni Obafemi or even midfielders or other wingers instead. You can't tell me Zaroury would do less than Rodriguez... Or Larsen with his speed dribbling and shooting...

RVclaret wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 05, 2023 10:51 am

I know you are someone into data/xG, well at least have a decent knowledge of it comparative to most… a neutral fan I got chatting with post last season was betting we’d go straight back down based largely on our significant xG outperformance last season. He pointed out it was the largest outperformance for a promoted side since Norwich and there were many similarities between the two. Essentially with a lot of our goals coming from distance strikes last season, we wouldn’t get those same goal numbers again in the Prem, and only teams like City (best players in the league) can sustainably outperform.

So in reference to your discussion point, could this be partly the case? Tella and Benson both had the largest xG outperformance in the league last season, now we’ve had neither, plus theres been a massive step up in quality. I think Kompany has tried changing the play style slightly to try and be more creative centrally, whereas last season it was all out wide. But that relies quite heavily on Foster’s availability, of which has been 50% so far.

taio wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 05, 2023 11:08 am

All knowledgeable fans will know it's much harder to score in the PL than the championship without needing to look at data.

jojomk1 wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 05, 2023 11:30 am

Correct
So we needed decent striker options
Jay is too old
Obafemi couldn't get into the Championship side last season when fit
Amdouni is a No 10

But we've plenty of wide men to feed the crosses in !!

Shambles from VK and his recruitment team

aggi wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 05, 2023 10:40 am

I think part of the issue is we often break with one, maybe two, players. Players get near the box, look up and don't have any options.

boatshed bill wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 04, 2023 5:10 pm

I suppose that VK would have expected most of our goal threat to come from Foster, supplemented by Obafemi (shortly)

BabylonClaret wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 05, 2023 10:58 am

Last time Amdouni started in Jays position we got bounced

KRBFC wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 04, 2023 11:00 pm

I agree it’s surprising we’re struggling for goals but really not with Jay upfront. I thought he was really poor today, why did he try and score a dipping header from the edge of the box? He had a good yard of space to either lay it into JBG for a tap in or touch it down for a 1v1, summed us up, good moment should’ve turned into a good chance with a little more quality and care.

Also I don’t think rotating wingers every game is helping much, though I do understand VK still trying to figure out his best side and spreading opportunity around. No point playing out of form wingers just for continuity reasons but then how do you find form without a run of games.

spt_claret wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 05, 2023 12:18 pm

It's because we're not really an attacking team anymore.
Attacking teams try and get the ball at goal, get shots away often and accept a level of risk in the play.
We're as defensive as Dyche but with a different philosophy to it.
Dyche's philosophy was sit deep, frustrate, be physical, hit on the break where possible (2017-18 and 2019-20 especially), go direct and hope for a successful cross, snap shot or set piece if not.
What we're doing now is no less defensive, our approach seems built on "if we have the ball the opposition can't score", simple and obvious theory but we don't look willing enough to risk losing the ball for us to score. It's fine to have that attitude when you're 1 up. When you're behind and have the ball for the sake of it all you're doing is doing the opposition's timewasting for them.
We spent enormous swathes of time yesterday just faffing about with the ball. I can understand patience and trying to force positional errors but Palace cottoned on quickly that all they needed to do was sit back on Koleosho/Amdouni with a few guys, and have 1 or 2 players press our CBs, we wouldn't play aggressively and would eventually either mishit a pass (As O'Shea did regularly) or get halfway up the pitch, turn back, go all the way back and try again. And we seemed far too happy to do this as if figuring it means they won't score another- even though they then did.

Rileybobs wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 05, 2023 12:52 pm

We were similar last season though, and often struggled when the opposition put men behind the ball. A couple of ways we played through this were by Beyer carrying the ball forward, and THB playing a line-breaking pass. We were crying out for the latter yesterday. I also thought that Brownhill hid away from the ball and was reluctant to show for it from the CBs and keeper - I think it was Trafford who bollocked him at one point in the second half when he could have received the ball but signalled that he didn't want it which forced Trafford to spray the ball out wide and he overhit it into touch.

We've got to be a lot braver and better at playing through the lines as we have players like Berge and Amdouni who are very comfortable at receiving the ball on the half-turn.

Nonayforever wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 05, 2023 1:02 pm

Last seasons goals by Benson will be almost impossible to replicate.

claretgimmer wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 05, 2023 2:16 pm

I was led to believe that investing in all these pacey wingers/forwards was to enable us to break quickly assuming we would be under pressure a lot more than the previous season, yet when we do get possession we slow it down as keeping possession seems more important than getting the opposition defenders running back towards their own goal we allow their whole team to get back behind the ball then struggle to break them down as there is no space for our pacey players to run into, yesterday it was obvious that the ball over the top for Kolesho to run onto as he had Ward on toast took 25 or so minutes for the penny to drop and the quality wasn`t that good when we tried it. The tactics are to rigid and predictable hence the lack of goals. IMO of course.