Skip to content

Match day thread: Nottingham Forest

18910111214»

Comments

  • @bluntphil said:
    An interesting stat from my commentary notes on Saturday:

    Wycombe completed just 80 passes against Birmingham in their 0-0 draw in their last match – the second fewest by a team in the top four tiers of English football in a league match this season, behind Wycombe’s tally of 78 vs Sheffield Wednesday in October.

    Two games which have produced a quarter of our points tally so far.

    That is interesting, do you have an average per game for Wycombe?

  • I agree, great words.

  • @bluntphil said:
    An interesting stat from my commentary notes on Saturday:

    Wycombe completed just 80 passes against Birmingham in their 0-0 draw in their last match – the second fewest by a team in the top four tiers of English football in a league match this season, behind Wycombe’s tally of 78 vs Sheffield Wednesday in October.

    Two games which have produced a quarter of our points tally so far.

    That can’t be right. I heard that Dobbo had us playing expansive, free-flowing football against Sheff Wed

  • Dobbo had us playing balls on the ground and utilised wingers running wide and crossing balls into the box. Were all the passes successful? No. Were enough of them successful to win us the match? I guess so.

  • Or we were just playing the one team in the league who were worse than us at the time.

  • edited February 2021

    I don’t have the average figure per game I’m afraid @peterparrotface

    As @glasshalffull pointed out earlier in the thread, we took the lead just before HT against Sheffield Wednesday and spent the second half defending, which probably gives us the low passing figure.

    We had very low figures in possession, pass completion etc (not forgetting width per passing sequence) in L1 and it served us well. The large step up in quality has been the major difference this season, but for a large % of our games, we have been competitive despite being on the tiniest of Champ budgets.

  • I always look at the stats on iFollow at half time / post match, and one thing that's caught my eye this season is the passing accuracy in the attacking third. Last season it was typically up around 60%, and regularly above our opposition's. This season it's usually down at around 40%, and mostly considerably lower than our opposition's. In the worst games this season, it's been both and the opposition down there.

    Again, this may not actually tell us anything useful. Could just be that the opposition are much better at cutting out those passes, or just that we make so few passes in the attacking third that the sample size is not statistically significant.

    Disclaimer: Yes I know that the stats on iFollow are sometimes wildly out.

  • Not sure if this helps, but according to the website used by Sky statisticians, we are bottom when it comes to possession with an average of 39.19% per game, Sheffield Wednesday are next lowest on 42.67%.
    Interestingly, Wycombe have enjoyed slightly more possession away than at home.

  • We were bottom on possession last year too, but somehow it just didn't seem to matter.

  • @glasshalffull said:
    Not sure if this helps, but according to the website used by Sky statisticians, we are bottom when it comes to possession with an average of 39.19% per game, Sheffield Wednesday are next lowest on 42.67%.
    Interestingly, Wycombe have enjoyed slightly more possession away than at home.

    Will be interesting tomorrow night then, cheers @glasshalffull

  • I wonder if we'll both manage to get below 50%.

  • @drcongo said:
    I wonder if we'll both manage to get below 50%.

    As you said earlier, it’s debatable if there is a direct link between possession and success. Last season in the Championship, Cardiff had one of the lowest possession stats but made the playoffs. As the old cliche goes, it’s what you do with it that counts.

  • Leicester won the premier league with less than 50% possession didn't they?

  • Correct, they had 44.8% possession. The only teams with lower stats were Sunderland and WBA.

  • Celtic beat Barcelona in the Champions League in 2012 with only 16.4% possession!

    https://www.skysports.com/football/celtic-vs-barcelona/stats/274125

  • My contention is that our main methods of manufacturing chances are as follows:

    1. Work the ball out to the wing and swing in a hopeful cross. Though plenty of teams do this, and you need it as part of the game plan, other teams seem to break into the box from wide more often, as opposed to swinging the cross in from outside the area.

    2. Flick ons. This has not really been working too well this season at all, perhaps due to a combination of Bayo slowing down and second tier teams being more wise to it. Nothing wrong in having it in the arsenal, of course.

    3. Set pieces. With JJ, these are always a real danger. Without him, not so much.

    Though the above are all valid, they don't seem to be working enough, and I feel as though we need to mix in more:

    1. Work the ball into the box with short passes, and attack through the middle, not just out wide.

    Though it is easier to attack from wide areas, as defences will show you out there, a lot of the better teams show more danger through the middle. Not only does it put tremendous pressure on a defence, but there is always the danger of a late arriving midfielder catching a loose ball perfectly from the edge of the area. Part of the reason I don't think Gape, Thompson, and the rest of the midfielders don't score much, is that we never even seem to be in this position.

    The reason I banged the Freeman drum, and now the Mehmeti drum, is that they can offer those clever passes through the middle of the park which keep a defence off balance. Even if you don't work the ball into the box, there is a chance of a Gape or Thompson coming in and connecting with the loose ball.

    As a caveat, I feel as though Uche has offered danger all over the edges of the area, and has been able to create his own shot, his goal against Brentford being a great example. The interchange which led to him hitting the post from inside the area against Birmingham is an example of what we need to see more of.

  • I am a fan of Jonathan Wilson's work on football tactics and it is very interesting to read how teams have learnt to combat possession football and possession statistics these days tell me more about what style of football is being played rather than which team was 'dominant' in a game.

    I'm afraid that I can understand why Wycombe are not a team beloved of neutrals. Soaking up pressure and hitting teams on the counter is an exhilarating way of playing football. Playing the type of game expounded by Charles Reep is not. Generally speaking Reep-style football has had success at lower levels, but the higher one goes the harder it is because those low percentage long balls get cut out more and more by competent defenders, and short passing moves just don't get you close enough to the goal.

    It does appear that our basic style has been 'found out' simply by playing teams who can afford better players, and a squad which I would suggest is probably a lower half of League One squad which had a brilliant first half of last season thanks to a straightforward scheme and excellent team spirit now exposed.

    But we got here by playing basic football, and as Stoke, Bolton and others have found as teams who rose the ladder playing a more 'old fashioned' style of football have found out, changing your style once you have done so is very challenging and strewn with opportunities for disaster. We have set out our tactics and now we must live by them until such time as the squad is rebuilt.

  • Interesting, but why must we live by tactics which are already failing?

  • @drcongo said:
    I always look at the stats on iFollow at half time / post match, and one thing that's caught my eye this season is the passing accuracy in the attacking third. Last season it was typically up around 60%, and regularly above our opposition's. This season it's usually down at around 40%, and mostly considerably lower than our opposition's. In the worst games this season, it's been both and the opposition down there.

    I think this hits the nail on the head. This season our crosses and passes in to our strikers haven't been good enough. Not just for this level but compared to the last few seasons.
    Possesion on its own means nothing. Where it matters is around both penalty areas. Stop the opposition in your half and be cynical at the other end. It could be better defending but some of it is a lack of composure.

  • Our inability to stop opposition crosses is killing us.

  • By conceding possession via the long ball so often, we are giving opportunities to a higher grade of player that we have ever faced before on a regular basis.
    If you keep giving this level of the player the ball, they are gonna hurt you.
    Not really rocket science.

  • @Forest_Blue said:
    Our inability to stop opposition crosses is killing us.

    Tonight v Wednesday was a classic example.

  • @EwanHoosaami said:

    @Forest_Blue said:
    Our inability to stop opposition crosses is killing us.

    Tonight v Wednesday was a classic example.

    Agreed...again and again...and we were undone by those crosses. Wednesday knew our weaknesses, basically "Get crosses into the Wycombe box and you will score".

  • Here's a quote from Jim McInally who played under Brian Clough..."Brian wanted everyone doing their own jobs and keeping things simple. The job of a full-back like myself was to stop crosses, and you'd occasionally be allowed to bomb forward when we were at home."

Sign In or Register to comment.