1st half good, 2nd half bad

Pogue Mahone

Closet Gooner.
Joined
Feb 22, 2006
Messages
138,364
Location
"like a man in silk pyjamas shooting pigeons
Thinking back to all our big games this season (in the PL) we’ve usually been at our best before halftime. Against City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs and even Liverpool at the weekend (to a much lesser extent!) if the game finished at half time you’d think we were more than a match for all these teams (obviously ignoring the score, because it’s hard to score against big teams if you’re only allowed half a match) I honestly don’t think I’ve seen us look as convincing as we’ve looked in these first halves since Fergie retired.

Slightly strangely this hasn’t been true in Europe, or cup games. And all the goals from our subs show that ETH is quite good at in game management and reacting to the way a game is developing. Hence we’ve scored a good few late goals.

So is the strong start against big teams just a random thing? Or is there something underlying it? If so, what?
 
We were better against City in the second half at Etihad.

We were good all game v Spurs.

We were fine in the second half at home v Arsenal.

Think you’re reaching a bit
 
Weren't we 4-0 down at City & 0-0 with Spurs at half time?
 
Based on zero stats I thought we were better after the break and late on.
 
Think you have this the wrong way around fella
 
When Eriksen was playing we were usually much better in the first half and poor from the restart until the subs started coming on. I wouldn’t say it’s been as obvious since he got injured because, on the whole, we haven’t been as good in the first halves.
 
some games 1st half good 2nd half bad other games 1st half bad 2nd half good my head is spinning
 
OrcaFat said:
When Eriksen was playing we were usually much better in the first half and poor from the restart until the subs started coming on. I wouldn’t say it’s been as obvious since he got injured because, on the whole, we haven’t been as good in the first halves.
Click to expand...

Good point. Was thinking that. We tended to get worse and worse as Eriksen tired.
 
afrocentricity said:
Think you have this the wrong way around fella
Click to expand...
Often we’ve been very good in the second half, so the point doesn’t really hold as a generalisation. But the OP does say that he’s thinking of matches involving our bigger opponents. It might hold in that sense.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
City away we were crap in the first and second half. It was the home game we started better than them.

And scores don’t always reflect dominance. Arsenal at home was a good example. Despite the late goals I remember us being better in the first half than the second.
Click to expand...
I'm not suggesting the scorelines reflect dominances but I just don't really agree with your general point. I think like others have said, maybe it's a reasonable point that we're considerably better in one half than the other in many of these games; Spurs being the only one we really good in both halves off the top of my head. I'd probably say across the season we've had a lot more good second halves than first halves.
 
JB7 said:
I'm not suggesting the scorelines reflect dominances but I just don't really agree with your general point. I think like others have said, maybe it's a reasonable point that we're considerably better in one half than the other in many of these games; Spurs being the only one we really good in both halves off the top of my head. I'd probably say across the season we've had a lot more good second halves than first halves.
Click to expand...

You’re probably right. I was thinking of a very small sample of games.
 
The simplest answer is usually the right one...we've been playing so many games these days we are just fading from fatigue in the 2nd half. Mystery solved.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I don’t think so. Not in big games. Although yeah, it’s been flipped a few times as well. Maybe the better thing to discuss is why we’re so often good in one half and bad in the other, no matter what order?
Click to expand...

Probably because we are still only months in to a rebuild job that is going to take longer than one window to fix?

Seems everyone has got a little carried away given how well EtH has done with the squad he’s inherited.

Such performances are pretty common when trying to implement a new philosophy and integrate personnel. Along with learning to adapt to a new league.

Look at Pep and Klopp’s introduction to English football.
 
TheReligion said:
Probably because we are still only months in to a rebuild job that is going to take longer than one window to fix?

Seems everyone has got a little carried away given how well EtH has done with the squad he’s inherited.

Such performances are pretty common when trying to implement a new philosophy and integrate personnel. Along with learning to adapt to a new league.

Look at Pep and Klopp’s introduction to English football.
Click to expand...
That’s right, and I do think that we have let our expectations run away with us a little in view of what Erik has already achieved. Compare the timeframe with Lego Pep, for example, who has taken… what is it, three years?…to get the Arse to where they are now.

I know Sunday was a harrowing experience, but we’re still well ahead of any reasonable schedule.
 
Maybe the stats will prove me wrong, but it's my impression that we've been better in the second half than in the first half for most of the season. That was obviously not the case against Liverpool.
 
I thought our performances (not the results entirely) definitely got better in the second halves after WC in most games, as I thought ETH was getting a handle on how to manage them with the squad we had and because we didn't have to keep a tired Erik (who is a good player) for another twenty minutes or so on the pitch in the second halves.

But in those games against big teams, things were sort of mixed up.
 
Wrong way around. Quite often sloppy in the first and better in the second.
 
Apparently players have their own mind regarding importance of each game.

You can see how hard we play against Barca, for 2 legs of not-so-important game, and how we gave up against Liverpool. You can see how hard Barca players worked.

When 1 or 2 players dropped their gear, may be the Captain himself, or at least failed to kick their ass, hence the entire team just dropped gear. Why bother...
 
So looks like this thread was a weird premonition of the future.

In our last 15 matches we’ve won the first half 9-3 and lost the second half 16-9 on aggregate. Even if you take out the six we conceded against Liverpool that’s still more than 3 times as many second-half goals conceded compared to the first half. If you take away the 3 late goals we scored after Fulham lost their mind (and two players) then it looks even worse.
 
Thread title summed up my hometown team in playoff final yesterday. Battered the favourites and should be 3-0 up at HT. Instead concede equaliser near the break and then flap at a corner in last minute to lose
 
You must log in or register to reply here.