17/18 Promotion Charge

[romavillan]

3 hours ago, Nigel said:

Really could do with 2nd place being still on the cards after this weekend, doesn't matter how slim.

Don't really want to head to milwall with a new sense of disappointment as I can see them handing us a beating at the wrong time. 

It's important now to keep the run going.

It's slimmer than a fasting stick insects thinner cousin's legs but it would really set up an amazing end to the season if cardiff and fulham lose and we wi this weekend. We'd be level on points with flum and a point behind cardiff...

Sunderland beating Fulham must be about 123493851003248 to 1 though surely?

[Vive_La_Villa]

3 hours ago, Nigel said:

Really could do with 2nd place being still on the cards after this weekend, doesn't matter how slim.

Don't really want to head to milwall with a new sense of disappointment as I can see them handing us a beating at the wrong time. 

It's important now to keep the run going.

On the other hand would be nice to be able rest players.

[Nigel]

42 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

On the other hand would be nice to be able rest players.

We are resting players anyway. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

41 minutes ago, Nigel said:

We are resting players anyway. 

Actually I should have said be able to rest Grealish. So important for us. 

[Eastie]

I didn’t realise Fulham’s owner was that rich - being reported he’s offered the FA £800m for Wembley stadium - if fulham and wolves go up I’d expect both to spend very big in the premier league - let’s hope xia will do the same .

i really think fulham will win tomorrow night and go on to finish 2nd - if so will be interesting to see which team we field on Saturday 

[TRO]

On 25/04/2018 at 14:47, BOF said:

And yet the results don't bear that out.  Yes OK we did lose to Brentford, Fulham & Wolves, but they're the only games this season where we've lost and been out-possessed (with the bizarre exception of Reading away 33.1%).

In other words when we give up possession and allow the other team to play football, we very rarely lose.  It's when we have possession and the other team play the counter attacker game that we struggle.  The other times we've lost this season, without exception, are games where we've had the lion's share.  At Derby (we had 67.2% lost 2-0), at Cardiff (65.2% lost 3-0), home to QPR (61.4% lost 3-1), at Bolton (57.2% lost 1-0), home to Sheff Wed (56.4% lost 2-1) & at Norwich (56.4% lost 3-1).

It's worth pointing out though, we have become an awful lot better recently at winning games AND dominating possession.  In fact our last 4 wins all came with >50% possession.

* Possession stats from Sky website

Interesting that.

[Digavilla]

On 25/04/2018 at 21:47, BOF said:

And yet the results don't bear that out.  Yes OK we did lose to Brentford, Fulham & Wolves, but they're the only games this season where we've lost and been out-possessed (with the bizarre exception of Reading away 33.1%).

In other words when we give up possession and allow the other team to play football, we very rarely lose.  It's when we have possession and the other team play the counter attacker game that we struggle.  The other times we've lost this season, without exception, are games where we've had the lion's share.  At Derby (we had 67.2% lost 2-0), at Cardiff (65.2% lost 3-0), home to QPR (61.4% lost 3-1), at Bolton (57.2% lost 1-0), home to Sheff Wed (56.4% lost 2-1) & at Norwich (56.4% lost 3-1).

It's worth pointing out though, we have become an awful lot better recently at winning games AND dominating possession.  In fact our last 4 wins all came with >50% possession.

* Possession stats from Sky website

I maybe wrong , the way I see it we are considered a big gun in the championship, if opposing team like Derby/ Bolton/ Cardiff score first it’s considered a great result,  thus they defend deep & give us procession , knowingly we do not have nippy/skillful/ quick midfielders to break them down, and try to hit on the break.Thus our procession stats %  show highs against those team.

Also in our last 4 wins, 2 of the teams got players send off if I remember correctly ? It’s natural to have high % against 10 men surely ?

[BOF]

13 minutes ago, Digavilla said:

I maybe wrong , the way I see it we are considered a big gun in the championship, if opposing team like Derby/ Bolton/ Cardiff score first it’s considered a great result,  thus they defend deep & give us procession , knowingly we do not have nippy/skillful/ quick midfielders to break them down, and try to hit on the break.Thus our procession stats %  show highs against those team.

Teams have opened the scoring against us 15 times this season.  In those 15 games our possession stats are as follows

65.2% at Cardiff (L3-0), 33.1% at Reading (L2-1), 48.6% at Bristol City (D1-1), 44.7% at Wolves (L2-0), 56.4% v Wednesday (L2-1), 48.5% at QPR (W2-1), 48.0% at Leeds (D1-1), 67.2% at Derby (L2-0), 47.3% at Brentford (L2-1), 37.0% at Fulham (L2-0), 52.1% v Preston (D1-1), 61.4% at Wednesday (W4-2), 61.4% v QPR (L3-1), 57.2% at Bolton (L1-0), 56.4% at Norwich (L3-1)

So we can see that in 7 of those games we had less than 50% possession.  That doesn't suggest the team who opens the scoring tends to sit back and defend their lead.  It's a pretty mixed bag really, both in terms of possession and eventual result.  It's a testament to our home form that 12 of those 15 matches were away from home too.
 

13 minutes ago, Digavilla said:

Also in our last 4 wins, 2 of the teams got players send off if I remember correctly ? It’s natural to have high % against 10 men surely ?

I'd say that's a reasonable assumption, yes, but expanding our possession discussion beyond just victories, we're seeing more of the ball in general. 9 times in the past 12 league games we've out-possessed our opponent.  Compare that with 4 times in our first 12.

[Jareth]

Would be mental if we are still in contention come the final game of the season. All eyes on us and Hull Cardiff - obvs good if Fulham screw up on Friday but it literally will not happen bar something very unlucky. If results go our way I'm hoping we are at least close to Fulham on GD so we go into final game with a shot. 

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

4 hours ago, romavillan said:

It's slimmer than a fasting stick insects thinner cousin's legs but it would really set up an amazing end to the season if cardiff and fulham lose and we wi this weekend. We'd be level on points with flum and a point behind cardiff...

Sunderland beating Fulham must be about 123493851003248 to 1 though surely?

That's some of the most creative stuff I've ever seen.

[Digavilla]

7 minutes ago, BOF said:

Teams have opened the scoring against us 15 times this season.  In those 15 games our possession stats are as follows

65.2% at Cardiff (L3-0), 33.1% at Reading (L2-1), 48.6% at Bristol City (D1-1), 44.7% at Wolves (L2-0), 56.4% v Wednesday (L2-1), 48.5% at QPR (W2-1), 48.0% at Leeds (D1-1), 67.2% at Derby (L2-0), 47.3% at Brentford (L2-1), 37.0% at Fulham (L2-0), 52.1% v Preston (D1-1), 61.4% at Wednesday (W4-2), 61.4% v QPR (L3-1), 57.2% at Bolton (L1-0), 56.4% at Norwich (L3-1)

So we can see that in 7 of those games we had less than 50% possession.  That doesn't suggest the team who opens the scoring tends to sit back and defend their lead.  It's a pretty mixed bag really, both in terms of possession and eventual result.  It's a testament to our home form that 12 of those 15 matches were away from home too.
 

I'd say that's a reasonable assumption, yes, but expanding our possession discussion beyond just victories, we're seeing more of the ball in general. 9 times in the past 12 league games we've out-possessed our opponent.  Compare that with 4 times in our first 12.

Agree,  we are definitely getting more procession, especially after Grealish returned to the from injury.

Hopefully we make those procession count in the playoff ! 

 

[Eastie]

37 minutes ago, Digavilla said:

Agree,  we are definitely getting more procession, especially after Grealish returned to the from injury.

Hopefully we make those procession count in the playoff ! 

 

It’s possession .

[Digavilla]

14 minutes ago, Eastie said:

It’s possession .

Oops... Typo mistake. Sorry

[Villarocker]

2 hours ago, BOF said:

Teams have opened the scoring against us 15 times this season.  In those 15 games our possession stats are as follows

65.2% at Cardiff (L3-0), 33.1% at Reading (L2-1), 48.6% at Bristol City (D1-1), 44.7% at Wolves (L2-0), 56.4% v Wednesday (L2-1), 48.5% at QPR (W2-1), 48.0% at Leeds (D1-1), 67.2% at Derby (L2-0), 47.3% at Brentford (L2-1), 37.0% at Fulham (L2-0), 52.1% v Preston (D1-1), 61.4% at Wednesday (W4-2), 61.4% v QPR (L3-1), 57.2% at Bolton (L1-0), 56.4% at Norwich (L3-1)

So we can see that in 7 of those games we had less than 50% possession.  That doesn't suggest the team who opens the scoring tends to sit back and defend their lead.  It's a pretty mixed bag really, both in terms of possession and eventual result.  It's a testament to our home form that 12 of those 15 matches were away from home too.
 

I'd say that's a reasonable assumption, yes, but expanding our possession discussion beyond just victories, we're seeing more of the ball in general. 9 times in the past 12 league games we've out-possessed our opponent.  Compare that with 4 times in our first 12.

So, we have just 2 wins and 3 draws from the 15 games in which the opposition scored first this season. Wow! Not much bouncebackability shown there! Let's hope we don't go a goal behind at any time in the play-off games!

[Vive_La_Villa]

1 hour ago, villarocker said:

So, we have just 2 wins and 3 draws from the 15 games in which the opposition scored first this season. Wow! Not much bouncebackability shown there! Let's hope we don't go a goal behind at any time in the play-off games!

This is my biggest criticism of the team under Bruce. We rely so much on quick counter atrack that once a team takes the lead and can sit deep we have no play B.

[Vive_La_Villa]

This is where automatic promotion was lost in my opinion. 

Reading, Shef Wed, QPR, Bolton, Norwich. 

5 points from that lot (teams you should be at least getting a point against) and we are second now. 

[ciggiesnbeer]

13 hours ago, romavillan said:

It's slimmer than a fasting stick insects thinner cousin's legs but it would really set up an amazing end to the season if cardiff and fulham lose and we wi this weekend. We'd be level on points with flum and a point behind cardiff...

Sunderland beating Fulham must be about 123493851003248 to 1 though surely?

 

Yeah seems unlikely. Sunderland's players just gave up months ago. At this point they just want to avoid getting injured so they can get a transfer away in the summer.

[Nigel]

19 hours ago, romavillan said:

Sunderland beating Fulham must be about 123493851003248 to 1 though surely?

Bet you a quid!

[Jareth]

15 hours ago, Eastie said:

It’s possession .

Many looked at the obvious error and chose not to correct, but you, you just couldn't help yourself could you? 

[Rob182]

31 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Many looked at the obvious error and chose not to correct, but you, you just couldn't help yourself could you? 

I just thought he was using some fancy lingo that I didn't understand. So I just nodded and agreed "hmm, I suppose he's right, they were getting more procession"

 

..."but, that would be an ecumenical matter"