Should we be worried about these stats.

We've been decent so far this season, we've shown clear signs of improvement in the way we play but we're lacking a fit striker and a midfielder who can carry and turn on the ball reliably. We really should be looking to bring in a striker in January but I'm not sure when we might be able to get a good midfielder.

In saying all that, I'm fully sure we will improve further as the season goes on, regardless of recruitment. I think it's premature to be worrying about stats like that. Let's wait until at least half the games have been played and see where we stand.
 
The problem with this squad is it’s got the ability to get a drubbing. When we lose we often lose in style.

and considering the cost of our attacking line up we don’t score anywhere near enough goals.

so yeah, big factors in football definatly need work.

Early days yet though.
 
Moby said:
Not that bad really.

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Dont think there's too much to be worried about with these stats tbh.
 
9 games into the season. These stats are useless at such a small sample.

We conceded 67% of goals in 29% of MP. The sample is too tiny for this stat to be meaningful.
 
The only games I would say we should have comfortably beat the teams we played (excluding Brentford) are Southampton, Everton and Leicester. All of these teams we struggled and/or lost to last season and have done in the past few seasons. In these games for me we have been rightfully focussed on controlling the games by keeping possession well and practising those patterns of play we've been working on and we won them all doing so. Yes we didn't score that many but that's much more likely to come once the players have learned to drag players out of position to create space against a deep defence. Don't forget how poor we have been at these things for the last few years.

Our biggest weaknesses were keeping possession, movement off the ball and beating/implementing a press. To expect this to come after less than 10 games in the league is silly. Some will say look at Klopp and Pep. Before Klopp was Brendan Rodgers who's teams already knew how to press and keep the ball. Before Pep was Pellegrini/Mancini both of whom won the league. Even before Tuchel was Sarri. Our players are literally learning things they haven't been taught before. The only manager post Fergie who kept possession well and had a good positional structure in place was LVG (7 years ago) and the only players left from then that play for us are Shaw, Rashford, DDG and Martial (all of whom look better this season than the last).
 
Massive Spanner said:
Conceded is massively skewed by the Brentford and City games. Take them out and we've conceded 5 in 7 which is near the top. I think both were largely freak results that shouldn't happen again this season, but who knows with this team.

Goals will be a massive problem right until we sign a competent CF, no doubt, and probably the difference between us getting top four and not.
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Yh if you calculate the standard deviation I reckon we’d actually be near the top of the league.
 
It is the other way round for liverpool thanks to the 9-0 win they got earlier in the season.
It all will even out eventually especially considering we have a decent defense for once. The problem lies with our extraordinary expensive attacking players who don’t know how to create and finish attacks.
 
Im an old man and dont understand xg and all that shit, but even I can see there is something wrong with our finishing. Defence wise we seem to mainly be ok since pairing Verane with Martinez.
Attack is worrying and we need to definitely get someone in January, whether Ronaldo goes then, or not.
Start giving McNeil a few minutes as well. We will need an able backup, as we cantvrely on Martial being fit either.
I would also drop Bruno and try Eriksen as the furthest forward midfielder, with McTom playing with Casemiro, until we can upgrade McTom as well.
 
bosnian_red said:
Goals conceded is flukey due to the 2 games. Not an issue given I think we're quite good defensively.

Going forward, we'll in 9 games we've played against City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Brighton and Newcastle... The 2 best teams over the past 5 years, a potential title challenger this year, and then the 2 "best of the rest" teams in the league this year. A lot of our stats are heavily influenced by what has been a really tough start to the season, which after next weekend should lighten up.

At the same time though, it's a process. Started badly. Improved massively. But will have some meh games sprayed in inevitably. It takes time to get all the movements right, attacking patterns, and to add, our main (and only real) striker has been out all year basically. Will be different if he can stay fit.
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Even Everton was tricky enough. Up against the best defensive record in the league, away from home.

So that’s six legitimately difficult games out of 9. Throw in the capitulation against Brentford and it’s no wonder all our stats for the season so far look so bad compared to other teams.

The crazy thing is they’re likely to get even more skewed in our next two matches. We’ll be 11 games in with a stupidly high proportion of hard fixtures. ETH could not have imagined a more awkward start.
 
ThinkTank@Cafe said:
9 games into the season. These stats are useless at such a small sample.

We conceded 67% of goals in 29% of MP. The sample is too tiny for this stat to be meaningful.
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Goals scored is a more worrying stat. It's not exactly random that City have scored 34 or something and we're around a dozen. Shows we never should have gone into the season without signing a striker.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Even Everton was tricky enough. Up against the best defensive record in the league, away from home.

So that’s six legitimately difficult games out of 9. Throw in the capitulation against Brentford and it’s no wonder all our stats for the season so far look so bad compared to other teams.

The crazy thing is they’re likely to get even more skewed in our next two matches. We’ll be 11 games in with a stupidly high proportion of hard fixtures. ETH could not have imagined a more awkward start.
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And then when he gets a nice run of fixtures between GW14 and GW19 there's a whole World Cup plonked in the middle to disrupt all momentum.
 
Irwin99 said:
The goals conceded is probably not reflective of our overall defensive strength because of the City and Brentford games. I watched the highlights of the Newcastle game and other than hitting the post twice in quick succession it didn't look like they were all that threatening.

The negative goal difference and the goals scored is a bit worrying. People seem to be pinning their hopes on Martial returning and staying in great form and while he's looked fantastic when he has played this season he's nearly always been a very patchy player. Even a fully fit and firing Martial has only managed 20 goals in one season in his entire career.
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Thing with Martial is even when he doesn't score, his game creates opportunities for others. If you look at our stats when he plays in the CF position, we tend to do well offensively. When I say we desperately need a CF, it's not just because our CF options are not scoring, they're not playing the role well enough to bring others into good positions, so the attack as a whole unit suffers
 
When people look at the stats and say the results against Brentford and City are outliers, I’m wondering if that is trying to stay positive or just not understanding the concept of outlier.
 
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