Interesting stat...entertainment value and improvement

I agree that it's not the greatest entertainment, but I don't think we're anywhere near as bad as some make out. A few posts from folk have been saying we've gone backwards under LJ...it doesn't feel that way to me, that's not to say there isn't room for improvement, and some of the
criticism may well be valid.
I've just compared the stats (lies damned lies etc)

LJ's last 6 games look like this:

Opposition 44 shots 20 on target.
BFC 70 shots 29 on target.


Dannys last 6

Opposition 77 shots 31 on target
BFC 47 shots 18 on target

On that basis the chances for and against are turned on their head....discuss?

 

Who cares how many shots someone had. We had thousands on Saturday none looked like going on very few were on target. The stats obsession breeds dull football and is killing enjoyment. We are closer to the relegation zone than we were then.

 

Stats stats and bloody more stats only stat Im interested in is that come end of match we've scored at least 1 more goal than other team and we've got the 3pts on board,

 

Actually no...we're 13th now, we were 17th then. I hadn't considered league position, but that suggests we haven't gone backwards (although there's time yet!!)

Acting as devils advocate, this is the question I was trying to pose, there are almost twice as many attacking attempts now, and the opposition are restricted to half as many (roughly) but it feels dull. So is it purely wins that make the entertainment no matter how few attacking attempts we make in comparison to the opposition?

 

That all I wanna see Andy mate, have ago if we lose, who give a crap, that why I didn't moan against don't least he went for it

 

Not for me. We beat Burton, but it was dreadfully dull. We beat Swindon and I enjoyed it a lot, particularly second half. That's not to say I wasn't pleased with the Burton result, but the Swindon match was far more entertaining.

 

Not just wins though they help it's more ephemeral than that does your team make you feel happy. At the minute mine doesn't in fact it often ruins a perfectly good weekend.

 

I think this 'boring' tag is somewhat unfair on the LJ. If one team is intent on sitting in, making it hard for the opposition and spoiling the game then try as you might, you're never going to get an open, exciting game of football.

People asked for more shots, we've had more shots but apparently that isn't inducive of exciting football either.

We could play two up front, but when teams are sitting in against you and you're struggling to pass it around them with 5 in midfield then it'll be even more difficult with 4 in midfield. What remains is to hoof it upfront and bypass their midfield. Is that exciting football? I remember when there was talk of Blackwell taking charge. Many said they would refuse to go if we started with the long ball tactics. It may get us wins but it doesn't make the football more exciting.
What frustrates me most is when people scream at the players to get it forward as soon as possible, we do that, and then we lose the ball. Wabara was a prime example yesterday. At one point he looked to check back inside because there was nothing on, he got screamed at by the fans so he attempted to play a forward pass anyway, gave the ball away, and guess what? Was screamed at by the fans.

The other argument is that we just 'have a go'. Do you think we didn't have a good go yesterday? I saw a team really trying to get a winner while the other team just attempted to spoil. We had a good go and got caught on the counter because we were having a go. We conceded and lost the game.
We had a good go at Shrewsbury but got caught on the counter and lost the game. We made a triple substitution at Donny but conceded and lost the game. There's only so much of 'a go' you can have without leaving yourself wide open to the counter. If we'd drawn yesterday the criticism from the fans would have been nowhere near as harsh.

I'm not saying there's nothing that can be done to make it more exciting. We could play two up front and hoof it forwards but that isn't how LJ wants to play and it's not how I want to see us play either. In this league the majority of teams that come to Oakwell are going to sit in and make it hard for us. Crewe refused to play football in the second half yesterday. That's never going to make for an exciting football game no matter what we try. It's not all LJ's fault.

 

We are a million times better than we were this time last season. Unfortunately the ridiculous number of chances we are missing is costing us

 

Some games this season, I've thought were quite boring. I didn't think that on Saturday. I thought we created plenty of chances and always looked to attack, playing the ball forward, not sideways, but still sticking to Johnson's football philosophy rather than just booting it. There was some exciting wing play from Harris, some great overlapping runs from Wabara, and some good intricate interchanges between him and Watkins, plenty of surging runs from Scowen and an excellent all round midfield display from Pearson. Thankfully, he no longer simply sits in front of the back four, plays a simple ball and believes his job is done; he tries to make things happen with his passing and quickly moves in to space to give the recipient another option. He looks 10 times the player because of it. I don't think any of our outfield players had a poor game. But I don't think we were unlucky. Despite our dominance, despite having the ball in the right areas numerous times and despite the number of shots, we didn't test their keeper nearly enough or with the required quality to make the claim that the game should have been ours.

I put our defeat down to two factors:
1 - The Keeper. I believe any keeper on top of his game, even at this level, would comfortably have dealt with both of Crewe's efforts that resulted in goals. The first was a powerful freekick, but Townsend took a step to his right just as the ball was kicked, his weight shifted and made it impossible for him to stop any shot that went to his left. The ball did go to his left, but only just, it was almost down his throat, and he couldn't get to it. The second went in on his near post. It took a deflection but the cross really wasn't that hard and the deflection was far enough away from him for him to react.

This isn't the first time Townsend has made mistakes. It's almost a weekly occurrence. He punched one in to his own goal against S****horpe. His entire performance against Swindon was truly bizarre as he went wandering about, out of his area, at every opportunity, and even when the opportunity wasn't there, to no positive effect and we were very, very lucky it only resulted in one goal against. The winner for Donny may have been well struck, but again it went in at his near post.

Townsend may go on to be a great 'keeper, but right now he's a bag of nerves, he's costing us goals and games and I find it astonishing that he has kept his place after the performances he has put in.

2 - One up front.

I don't have a problem with the system. However, on Saturday, Crewe completely gave up on the idea of winning the game in that second half. Wabara, Scowen and Pearson abandoned all their defensive duties and pushed forward. Nyatanga, Mawson, Smith and Townsend twiddled their thumbs for 40 of the 45 minues with nothing at all to do. Meanwhile, Crewe put two centre halves on Winnall, as they had no one else to mark, and took him out of the game. Had we brought on another forward, they could have no longer done that. Not only would we have had another goalscorer on the pitch, it would have freed up the one we already had.

I accept that it's sometimes beneficial to try to outnumber the opposition in midfield. But on Saturday we had them beat. Crewe are not a well drilled, organised, defensive unit. They like to play pretty football. When they try to park the bus, they get beat, which is why they are bottom of the league. We didn't struggle to pass it around Crewe, we did so at will. Our problem was that there was no one in the box to pass to or get on the end of a cross once we were through them. And then, to add insult to injury, when we finally make the substitution, we take off our most dangerous midfield player. Harris had his full back all ends up. The lad was on a booking. We'd finally brought someone on to get on the end of his crosses, but we sub him. Bizarre.

If some of our squad don't play well, I'm not sure it's the managers fault. Lee Johnson doesn't tell our players to find the opposition with their passes or punt a cross in to the crowd. He doesn't tell them to look lethargic or fail to control the ball. Sometimes poor performances are down to the players. But sometimes they're down to Johnson's selections, his formations and his tactics, and on Saturday I believe it was one of those occasions and it was all LJ's fault.

That's not to say I want him sacking or anything barmy like that. But while we do seem very willing to accept a player can have a bad game, less so a manager. Well, a manager can have one too and I think the Crewe match was a very good example.

 

I think that's fair and accurate.

 

We are dire!
It was dire last season.

Carp seems to be the order of the day for Lee Jay.
Carry on as we are and he will have plenty of time to fish for them when he bites the dust!

 

I absolutely agree Andy.

 

Two really good posts from Blivy and Jay. I agree with much of both of them. At the match me and my dad were discussing whether to change it up top and to be fair to Johnson it's a catch-22 situation. We were consistently getting to the by-line in the second half, probably the key place you want the ball, much of which was due to the formation. But the goal wasn't coming due to either poor use of the ball or some terrible finishing (how did Watkins miss that header at the back post?).

So do you stick with what is working formation wise and hope the players finally put the move together to score, or change formation to add an extra striker but risk not getting the ball in to goal scoring areas?

One point Jimmy Cricket made in another thread that I think was correct. If Johnson is going to play one up front it can't be Winnall. He doesn't move enough across the line or drop deep to hold the ball up and let midfielders run beyond him. Personally I'd play him in place of Watkins. His run second half shows he can cut in and to be fair under this formation the winger is expected to become a striker when the ball is on the other flank.

 

How are we closer to the relegation zone now when we we're then? If Wilson would have still been in charge for the Crawley loss, we we're 20th beginning of February.

It's October the 12th and we're 13th.

 

To almost everyone's surprise, including the players I would imagine, we sack our manager. The club is now in a bit of turmoil, we hastily appoint the academy staff to take on the first team, who put in by far their worst performance of the season (and many other seasons), with the result being one of the worst in the last 35 years (Crawley were relegated). I don't think you'd get many arguing against the fact, whether they rated Wilson or not, that the sacking of the manager had a big influence on that result. But we now want to include that result in Wilson's managerial stats despite him having already gone?

Here's how we are closer to the relegation zone now than when Wilson was sacked:
On 12th February 2015, the day of Wilson's sacking, we were seven points from the play-off places and seven points clear of the relegation zone.
Today, we are six points from the play-off places (Sheff Utd again as it happens), one point closer, but only three points clear of the relegation zone. Three points is closer to the relegation zone than seven points. We were a win a draw further away from the threat of relegation than we are right now.

This is not a justification to sack our manager. Sacking Wilson was stupid, sacking Johnson would be equally so. But it is how things are.

 

There are lies, damn lies and statistics.

 

In my opinion the people upstairs have created this scenario where after a poor (ish) run the manager's position is up for debate. If you sack a manager fairly regularly then this is what you get. Bad results ? New boss please. Because that works every time.

 

It's the 12th of October Jesus Christ