A few stats from the season thus far.

[Beefy]

I was bored at work today (no surprise there) and thought I'd have a quick look at the League One table. And I thought I'd share a couple of observations on it. I don't know if they mean anything but they might make a good debating point:

- This time last season we only had four more points than we do today (credit to Southend Neil for that one).

- Despite the general opinion that we have two centre-backs who can't play together, only Leicester (who are 854 points clear at the top) have conceeded fewer goals at home than we have.

- Despite having the second best home defensive record in the division, only the bottom two have conceeded more goals away form home than we have.

- Our top goalscorers are Lee Barnard and Dougie Freedman with five goals each. No League One club has a top goalscorer with fewer goals (although Yeovil are joint bottom with us).

- Despite the relatively poor season thus far we remain sixth in the attendance table with an average gate of more than 7,800. That's twice as high as our average gates were just six or seven years ago.

- Although we're scoring a lot of late goals we're actually a much stronger team in the first half of matches. If games were only 45 minutes long we'd be 11th in the table and only two points off of the play offs.

- Our good form in the first half of matches is fortunate as we're the third worst team in the division at coming from behind at half time. Eight times it has happened and we've taken just one point from those matches (Orient away).

- Sadly don't expect much from Saturday's match at Colchester. We're bottom of the away form chart with just one point taken from the last five matches (again Orient).

 

[ibwiajwa]

Yeah but....

- Despite the general opinion that we have two centre-backs who can't play together, only Leicester (who are 854 points clear at the top) have conceeded fewer goals at home than we have.

A lot of interesting stuff on this article - thanks for going to the trouble of putting it together. We do seem to go ahead and then lose it fairly regularly (it looked like it might happen on Saturday).
As far as the bit I've quoted - don't we keep losing to cricket scores away from home? And isn't the main point that before our recent, and successful, change of formation we made at least one crazy mistake per game?

 

[Pubey]

really like the look of the first stat. a decent run (continuing tomorrow) could see a late surge!

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

- Despite the general opinion that we have two centre-backs who can't play together, only Leicester (who are 854 points clear at the top) have conceeded fewer goals at home than we have.

I'm not sure if it is me, but have we played (m)any of the top teams at home?

The likes of Leicester, Millwall, MK Dons we've only played away.

 

[Beefy]

We've played six of the top ten at home.

 

[Jam_Man]

- Despite the general opinion that we have two centre-backs who can't play together, only Leicester (who are 854 points clear at the top) have conceeded fewer goals at home than we have.

- Despite having the second best home defensive record in the division, only the bottom two have conceeded more goals away form home than we have.

This is a point I made last season as the stats were the same.

I think we try to play away from home the same as we do at home and need to be more defensive.

Personally whilst we could do with a dominating centre half I think Barrett and Clarke are ok and our defensive frailties are more to do with how we play as a team rather than the two centre halves.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

We've played six of the top ten at home.

We've only played 2 of the top 6 at home (the 6th place team is 3 points clear with 2 games in hand) including neither of the top two (who are 7 points clear of the play-off teams), who are also the top 2 scorers in the league.

Overall, our defence is ranked 17th, but the more games Dervitte plays the more I expect that to improve.

 

[Jam_Man]

Overall, our defence is ranked 17th, but the more games Dervitte plays the more I expect that to improve.

I dont think it should be ignored though that yet again our home defence far outweighs our away one.

We have conceded less goals at home than everyone apart from Leicester and its a little dismissive just to say we have only played 2 out of the top 6. We still played Leeds, Peterbrough and Millwall and kept clean sheets.

If we dont play defensively enough away from home and do allow home teams to play too much then one player will not make that much of a difference.

Look at how we play against teams who shut up shop at Roots Hall and those that come to play, we always struggle against the former...

 

[Beefy]

Our defence is ranked 17th because we've conceeded almost three times as many goals away from home as we have at Roots Hall. Yes, we haven't played Leicester yet, but we have played Leeds and Stockport who are both, IMO, better than most of the teams in the Playoffs.

 

[Jam_Man]

Looking at last season we conceded 8 more at home for the season than we have now, so thats about right if we can get an odd clean sheet and not get spanked in the last 9 games :)

Away from home we conceded 35 and now 33. So our away record is going to be far worse.

Looking at the tables our away form really is where we have lost it whilst at home we could get fairly close to what we achieved previously.

Last season home W12 D6 L5
This season home W 8 D2 L4

Last Season away W10 D4 L9
this Season away W2 D5 L8

 

[JD]

We still played Leeds, Peterbrough and Millwall and kept clean sheets.
.

And this weeks lottery numbers are.......

Southend vs Millwall = Tues 3rd March

 

[Shrimpador]

I was bored at work today (no surprise there)

- Although we're scoring a lot of late goals we're actually a much stronger team in the first half of matches. If games were only 45 minutes long we'd be 11th in the table and only two points off of the play offs.

If you worked that out yourself, you must have been very bored!

:zzzzz:

 

[Jam_Man]

And this weeks lottery numbers are.......

Southend vs Millwall = Tues 3rd March

Lol. Watch this space. 12-0. Guaranteed :)

 

[The Big Shrimp]

Anybody got the stats about injury time goals or goals in the last 5 minutes?

 

[HudsonNo1]

I have to agree with whats been said above that we try to play the same away from home as we do at home. Most teams across the country will go for it at home playing for example a 4-4-2 formation, and then shut up shop away playing a 4-5-1, and the majority of the time it works out.

Its something that i think we should do, although it can be boring and dull to watch and its always nice to see a team go away and try to attack, the stats dont lie.

 

[fredheim_holm]

Looking at the tables our away form really is where we have lost it whilst at home we could get fairly close to what we achieved previously.

Last season home W12 D6 L5
This season home W 8 D2 L4

Last Season away W10 D4 L9
this Season away W2 D5 L8

That says it all to me. I know Tilly & Brush will know this, but it's got to be sorted. Having Grant/Francis at right mid will help with this but I guess it's down to overall tactics.

 

[SUFC-Shrimper]

Anybody got the stats about injury time goals or goals in the last 5 minutes?

That could be quite intresting...we seem to be scoring quite a few in last 5 mins....for example, crew away, orient away, northampton at home and of course tranmere at home. ok not in the league but chelsea and telford away. Probly more, that was just of the top of my head.

i wonder where we would be, if anyones got a spare 5mins :)

 

[pringlejon]

That could be quite intresting...we seem to be scoring quite a few in last 5 mins....for example, crew away, orient away, northampton at home and of course tranmere at home. ok not in the league but chelsea and telford away. Probly more, that was just of the top of my head.

i wonder where we would be, if anyones got a spare 5mins :)

how can you forget that col u goal :stunned:

 

[SUFC-Shrimper]

how can you forget that col u goal :stunned:

:scared: i new there would be a few i wouldnt remember lol.

Cant belive i didnt remeber that one!!!!! i was there aswell.

 

[Southend Neil]

This is a point I made last season as the stats were the same.

I think we try to play away from home the same as we do at home and need to be more defensive.

Personally whilst we could do with a dominating centre half I think Barrett and Clarke are ok and our defensive frailties are more to do with how we play as a team rather than the two centre halves.

I dont think we should play more defensively away if we had Barrett and Clarke at centre half. This would just invite more pressure and they are simply not good enough to deal with it.
Also if an away side goes 1 up against us at the Hall, they will just sit back and not go for more, eg Huddersfield, Yeovil. If we go 1 down away then teams will continue attacking. This could explain the difference between our home and away defensive records.

We have tried everything over the last 2 years, taller fullbacks, defensive midfielders, more commanding goalkeeper etc. We still let in goals because Barrett/ Clarke remained together and they just aren't good enough whatever you surround them with. The only solution was to actually seek an upgrade in that position and now we have one, I fully expect us to let in less goals per game.

For what its worth, the main reason we have let in even more goals this season compared to last is the fact that a certain midfielder is now playing for Charlton. His excellent play helped cover the weaknesses of those behind him.