Scoring as early as possible is the key

We've scored first in 9 games this season, we've won 8 and drawn 1.

We've conceded first in 7 games this season, we've drawn 1 and lost 6.

We've been leading at half time in 6 of the 8 victories.

We've been trailing at half time in all 6 of our league defeats so far.

The obvious conclusion I draw from that is, when plan A works, we grind out a result. When plan A doesn't work, we struggle with plan B.

Edit: just had a look at some proper stats. Only Port Vale have a better points average than us when scoring first, albeit they've only done so on 4 occasions this season. They've won all 4 when they have. Ironically, Morecambe have the worst record when scoring first in games; the only game they've seen out victory in when they've scored first is against us.

On the flip side, only MK Dons have a worse record than us when conceding first. They've lost on all 10 occasions where the opposition has scored first. So the key next Saturday is to definitely get in early.

 

The key is to score more goals than your opposition, we kept amother clean sheet.
This is another great positive from a hard fought win.

 

Don't eat yellow snow.

 

Who'd have thought of scoring more than the opposition and not conceding. The basturds.

 

And we rarely look troubled when we we're winning the game. I don't know how the game panned out yesterday, but all the victories I've seen have been comfortable with barely any pressure from the opposition. The flip side to that is that other than away to Ipswich where we did force the draw, when we've gone behind we don't look like we're capable of getting back into it. It's odd. We're extremely comfortable in both victory and defeat.

 

I was interested to work this out for that reason really. There was criticism after the Port Vale game that Duff sets us up to defend the lead, rather than go for the jugular when we go in front. To an extent, that might be the case, but there's only the Port Vale game where it hasn't worked.

As you say, without being spectacular, we've looked comfortable when we've gone ahead, with the odd exception (Cambridge was an odd game, we only started to look comfortable when we went down to 10 men).

Aside from maybe the Derby game, we haven't looked like getting back into any of the games we've ultimately ended up losing. Certainly at the start of the season, we lacked depth. I'd argue we've got depth now, whether that's strength in depth is another story.

Score first, and everything is rosey.

 

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Aren't we attempting to score at all points during the match?

 

I think we should score early every game,under big Val we would set off like a scolded cat and overwhelm teams

 

I'm not even sure that Duff does set us up to defend a lead. I don't think he does. Against both Sheffield Wednesday and Bristol Rovers we created chances for the whole 90 minutes and should have scored more really. The first half of the last home game against Forest Green was a bore fest, but in the second we attacked for the whole period, even though we were 1-0 up at the break. Again, we really should have bagged more goals.

We look absurdly comfortable when winning games. I've never known a match at Hillsborough like the one this season. We dominated and it looked easy. (It wasn't, they all worked extremely hard to make it look like that.) It looks to me that when we're not creating further chances after taking the lead it's because the opposition prevent us doing so, not because of the tactics.

The concern for me is when we go behind and the set up isn't working we don't appear to be able to change it around. Against Exeter, Lincoln and Morecambe we never looked like scoring or even put them under any real pressure. Although I do concede the lack of striking options and a number of very similar midfielders really limits the manager in that regard.

 

We didn't often score early under Val through from memory. In fact, we often fell behind and had to come back to win. I recall us coming from behind to beat Wednesday, Preston and Birmingham just off the top of my head. We didn't necessarily need a plan B with Val, as we benefitted so much from the 5 subs rule and the ability to replace the entire front 3 when we had a foot hold in the game.

 

The groundwork has been done, and I'm excited to see where we are this time next year, when we've had a couple of opportunities to address the weaker areas of the pitch. For a transitional season, I think it's actually going slightly better than many hoped at the start of the season.