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Slightly sobering statistic

I know I'm going to sound Like Eyeore here and don't want to take anything away from the football we're playing but if you look at the league table, we haven't beaten anyone in the top half. The highest place team we've beaten are Grimsby in 13th. Hopefully next Saturday will change all that...

Comments

  • Yes but we have improved as a team since playing notts county and Luton so difficult to judge

  • Statistics, Schmatistics.

    1. We should have beaten Luton
    2. We're only 12 games into the season, so the fact that we've beaten a team is itself statistically significant. I can't be bothered to do the maths, but I'd bet there are at least a couple of teams that would have been in the top half if they'd beaten us instead of us beating them.
  • A win is a win. Notts County were lucky to get a home draw with Forest Green!

  • edited October 2017

    I've had similar thoughts but, like @OakwoodExile, I feel that at least part of the reason the teams we've beaten are in the bottom half is that we've beaten them. An alternative perspective is that, of the twelve teams we've played, six are in the top half and six in the bottom. Our overall points total, viewed thus, might be seen as an accurate reflection of our standing.

    Very, very early days though. It's looking like a long season ahead to my, Benjamin-rather-than-Eeyore, mind.

  • PS. 13th is in the top half!

  • @HCblue said:
    PS. 13th is in the top half!

    It really isn't.

  • It really is.

  • To make clear: the median is 13.5. Thirteen teams in the top half and thirteen in the bottom.

  • Ah - except that there aren't 26 teams in the league, there are 24! My apologies. :-)

  • Let's pretend there are 26 so my original point about a symmetrical number of top and bottom half opponents holds good.

  • It would certainly have made our game at Torquay less tense.

  • The game did not feel safe at 2-1 and Cambridge got the ball in some dangerous positions where better teams would have scored. We put the ball in dangerous areas and hit the target whereas they missed the final touch. We are still vulnerable at the back even apart from Sido's howler they had plenty of chances. Is it that we are pressing up more that we need a watertight defense or is it just the personnel?

  • edited October 2017

    Perhaps the extra ambition of our play makes us a little more open. I tend to think that, at our level, teams are always going to have a fair number of situations where, with Premier League quality, goals can follow. It's just that not many sides have that quality. I agree that Cambridge had many promising situations. We did, too. Happily, the great thing at the moment is that we have players who can both consistently create those chances and convert them.

  • Everything's going to be alright, yes
    Everything's going to be OK, no doubt,
    Everything's going to be alright,
    Together we can take this one game at a time.
    (With apologies to Bob)

  • Luton robbed us.....we were the better team for the 87mins I was there

  • I would far rather we were consistently beating the mediocre to crap teams (which let's face it is most of the division) rather than just raising our game for the top teams.

    The classic failure of the Gormania days, for example, was the complete failure to beat average teams that stuck everyone behind the ball, and obnoxiously refused to let us walk the ball into the net.

    As limited and sometimes frustrating as the "hoof to Akinfenwa" tactic can be sometimes, it can be a good way of breaking those kind of teams down, since Akinfenwa can often be relied upon to take out two defenders at once, he lays it off, and bang...

    The defence is of course a concern, when you've only really got Bean to properly shield the back four, but I think I'd take that if more attacking football is what you get in exchange.

  • For at least two seasons now we have bemoaned a limited bench and a concentration on defensive attritional football. Now we have attacking football which has it's dangers and options on the bench. I for one am willing to forfeit Brown's clean sheet bonus, if we are scoring goals and winning games. Only lost two...and as @bigred87 points out the Luton game was a robbery and we got back to 2-2 in the County game before the defence collapsed. Of course some Re-moaners will say we've played nobody any good yet except for the two teams who beat us...but we would have been very pleased to be at this stage early in the richie/trev/wwfc doom-mongery.

  • Generous of you to forfeit Scott Brown's clean sheet bonus @wendoverman!l

    Regarding the Notts County defeat, there are a couple of other extenuating factors. Beano had not sprung so impressively on to the scene, it was only Adam El-Abd's third game (partnering Sido of course) and Anthony Stewart was out, injured. Perhaps most significantly, I wasn't there.

  • Against Notts County we were also IMO effectively playing with 10 players for the first half. Sadly, Paul Hayes was so off the pace and ineffective that I don't think there would have been an appreciable difference if he had not been on the pitch at all.

  • edited October 2017

    @HCblue for one minute i thought you were trying to make one of those exceptionally clever maths/statistical anomaly type posts.

    Instead, just plain silly :-)

    It is way too early to be talking of top of the league teams and how we aren't beating the best or any type stuff.
    Port Vale were supposed to be a quality outfit in this league yet sit near the bottom. Still very early days and the range isn't that great.
    Forest Green aside, who looked absolutely dreadful, the rest aren't wildly different.

    Teams must look at our lineup though, and wonder how they'll contain Bayo, CMS, Tyson when fit, Saunders, just for the names they'll know.
    Then you have Eze, who won't be as known, and they have a lot to deal with.

  • Nope. Just being thick, @malone. Sorry to raise your hopes.

  • @Uncle_T and @micra you are both right, of course, it was early days, new defenders and we hailed GA for hooking Hayesy at half-time (for a change). County were a strong side so it was disappointing to get back in and then choke...whereas the Luton game was classic Gaz...leaving on gasping players instead of bringing on fresh legs (in my opinion.) and after leading and Brown saving a DD Hylton pen...it was therefore more exasperating to let slip from our grasp

  • Well at least we’ve got rid of that statistic today

  • Sorry, even after re-reading previous posts I haven't a clue what statistic you are referring to @bookertease.

  • Sorry @micra an obtuse light hearted reference to the fact that Grimsby have now moved up to 12th. We just haven’t beaten anyone in the top 11 now

  • If some of those mid-table teams could win a couple of games it would make us look like potential promotion candidates @bookertease.

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