End of season analysis: Game by game thread

[90sSpursBook]

Before you read on just a few important views to express:

Poch will almost certainly achieve par finish of the season of 6th place with a Cup Final as a bonus.
He is not solely responsible for the negative things that have happened this season
There are several players in the squad who he inherited who he does not want. However:

I have analysed all our results and performances for the season and there are some concerning stats. I have graded each as follows:

A* - Team performance AND result above expectation against a superior team - x2

Chelsea (h), Arsenal (h)

A - Performance and/or result above expectation - x6

QPR (h), Arsenal (a), Everton (h), Man U (h), WBA (a), Saudi Sportswashing Machine (h - Capital One Cup)

B - Won game with a decent performance - x8

So'ton (h), Swansea (a), Burnley (h), Sunderland (h), Swansea (h), QPR (a), Saudi Sportswashing Machine (a), Burnley (h - FA Cup)

C - Decent performance and/or result but NOT both - x6

Sunderland (a), Man C (a), Liverpool (a), So'ton (a), Man C (h), Chelsea (Capital One Cup Final)

D - Poor performance but good result - x5

West Ham (a), A Villa (a), Hull (a), Leicester (a), Leicester (h)

E - Below par performance but drew - x3

C Palace (h), West Ham (h), Burnley (a - FA Cup)

F - Poor performance and lost - x3

Liverpool (h), Chelsea (a), C Palace (a)

U - Totally unacceptable performance and result - x8

WBA (h), Saudi Sportswashing Machine (h), Stoke (h), Man U (a), Burnley (a), A Villa (h), Stoke (a), Leicester (h - FA Cup)


For me next season I would, using this scale, expect the following:

A* - A minimum of 2 (includes home and away games in League against Arsenal, Chelsea, Man U, Man C and Liverpool)
A - A minimum of 8
B - A minimum of 8
F - a maximum of 4
U - A maximum of 3

 

[Baleforce]

well that's all quite subjective, and takes no account of strength of schedule and injuries/suspensions thoughout the season

we could conceivably fail in your A* category and lose all 10 games but finish with over 80 points, would that still be a failure?

it's to far out to make these judgements

 

[Finney Is Back]

GPRD81 - I think you might have been rather generous there in some cases….
I don’t think Everton home or Man Utd home were A grades. We sneaked a 1 goal win at home to Everton in a reasonably even game and sneaked a 0-0 draw at home to Man Utd where we were very much second best for the first 70 odd minutes of the game and were spared a defeat due to Falcao missing 3 or 4 one on ones.

Also in your B ratings I’m not sure how Swansea is in there, they hammered us for the entire first half and we were only a poor day from Bony in front of goal away from a comprehensive defeat. In the QPR away game we were also fortunate to win.

My grades would be:
A* - Team performance AND result above expectation against a superior team - x2
Chelsea (h), Arsenal (h)

A - Performance and/or result above expectation – x3
QPR (h), Arsenal (a), Swansea (h)

B - Won game with a reasonable performance - x8
Everton (h), So'ton (h), Burnley (h), Sunderland (h), Saudi Sportswashing Machine (a), Burnley (h - FA Cup), WBA (a), Saudi Sportswashing Machine (h - Capital One Cup)

C - Decent performance and/or result but NOT both – x7
Man U (h), Man C (a), Sunderland (a), Liverpool (a), So'ton (a), Man C (h), Chelsea (Capital One Cup Final),

D - Poor performance but good result – x7
West Ham (a), A Villa (a), Hull (a), Leicester (a), Leicester (h), Swansea (a), QPR (a)
E - Poor performance but drew – x4
C Palace (h), West Ham (h), Burnley (a - FA Cup), Burnley (a),

F - Poor performance and lost – x4
Chelsea (a), C Palace (a), Leicester (h - FA Cup), A Villa (h),

U - Totally unacceptable performance and result – x6
WBA (h), Saudi Sportswashing Machine (h), Liverpool (h), Stoke (h), Man U (a), Stoke (a),

The worry for me is that there I only really saw 5 performances that were at a level better than I had hoped/expected to see, and just 13 performances overall where we played at a decent level and won the game.

That compares with a whole 21 games where we played poorly and worse still of those 21 games, in 6 of them we were absolutely terrible.

Looking at the results in this way suggests to me that overall we have probably gone backwards this season compared to the latter half of last season. It also makes me slightly worried over whether our good results in the middle part of the season were just the lucky result of purple patches occurring together for Kane and Ericksen?

 

[K.D.D.D.D.Soc]

Surely the fact that Kane and Ericksen are the only players who can make a positive impact on a game is our main problem? Would Mourinho, Klopp, Guardiola or Simeone do much better with our current squad? More to the point would they come here! We cannot compete with the top teams in recruitment unless we qualify for CL regularly. The best we can do is play in a way that gets points, forget about showboat football just get the results in a tactical system rather than individual brilliance of one or two players. Even a Sugardaddy owner wouldn't help us now the fair play rule has pulled the ladder up.

 

[Spurmac1974]

Surely the fact that Kane and Ericksen are the only players who can make a positive impact on a game is our main problem? Would Mourinho, Klopp, Guardiola or Simeone do much better with our current squad? More to the point would they come here! We cannot compete with the top teams in recruitment unless we qualify for CL regularly. The best we can do is play in a way that gets points, forget about showboat football just get the results in a tactical system rather than individual brilliance of one or two players. Even a Sugardaddy owner wouldn't help us now the fair play rule has pulled the ladder up.

Theres a good point, would a proven winner like the above do better with our group of players.....of course they would!

 

[Craig_J]

Theres a good point, would a proven winner like the above do better with our group of players.....of course they would!

To be fair Mourinhio, a proven winner, has only ever managed well... proven winners. That's not to take anything away the jobs he ahs done where he has been but without signifcant investment and being able to get rid of some of the players Levy might be demanding a return from (e.g. Capoue, Lamela) I seriously doubt he would do any better than what Poch has. If anything considering how we performed this season and last season (i.e. getting points from certain games that we didn't deserve to) I'd say we've done quite well to finish where we have this season and last.

 

[LutonSpurs]

Here is a video to help

 

[LutonSpurs]

Here is a video to help

This video is excellent, really. some of the Kane stuff had me teary.

 

[Robspur12]

GPRD81 - I think you might have been rather generous there in some cases….
I don’t think Everton home or Man Utd home were A grades. We sneaked a 1 goal win at home to Everton in a reasonably even game and sneaked a 0-0 draw at home to Man Utd where we were very much second best for the first 70 odd minutes of the game and were spared a defeat due to Falcao missing 3 or 4 one on ones.

Also in your B ratings I’m not sure how Swansea is in there, they hammered us for the entire first half and we were only a poor day from Bony in front of goal away from a comprehensive defeat. In the QPR away game we were also fortunate to win.

My grades would be:
A* - Team performance AND result above expectation against a superior team - x2
Chelsea (h), Arsenal (h)

A - Performance and/or result above expectation – x3
QPR (h), Arsenal (a), Swansea (h)

B - Won game with a reasonable performance - x8
Everton (h), So'ton (h), Burnley (h), Sunderland (h), Saudi Sportswashing Machine (a), Burnley (h - FA Cup), WBA (a), Saudi Sportswashing Machine (h - Capital One Cup)

C - Decent performance and/or result but NOT both – x7
Man U (h), Man C (a), Sunderland (a), Liverpool (a), So'ton (a), Man C (h), Chelsea (Capital One Cup Final),

D - Poor performance but good result – x7
West Ham (a), A Villa (a), Hull (a), Leicester (a), Leicester (h), Swansea (a), QPR (a)
E - Poor performance but drew – x4
C Palace (h), West Ham (h), Burnley (a - FA Cup), Burnley (a),

F - Poor performance and lost – x4
Chelsea (a), C Palace (a), Leicester (h - FA Cup), A Villa (h),

U - Totally unacceptable performance and result – x6
WBA (h), Saudi Sportswashing Machine (h), Liverpool (h), Stoke (h), Man U (a), Stoke (a),

The worry for me is that there I only really saw 5 performances that were at a level better than I had hoped/expected to see, and just 13 performances overall where we played at a decent level and won the game.

That compares with a whole 21 games where we played poorly and worse still of those 21 games, in 6 of them we were absolutely terrible.

Looking at the results in this way suggests to me that overall we have probably gone backwards this season compared to the latter half of last season. It also makes me slightly worried over whether our good results in the middle part of the season were just the lucky result of purple patches occurring together for Kane and Ericksen?

A very good objective analysis until the last paragraph which does show bias against Poch. I liked Tim a lot but your conclusion has overlooked a number of factors.

1) how our performances have improved against quality sides this season compared to the last one. The A* performance was against the eventual champions when they were sweeping away all before them.

2) that Poch had to manage squad rotation more than Tim especially as our season had started earlier this time around due to Europa league qualifiers.

3) Poch has brought on both Kane and Rose much more than Tim did. In fact Rose in particular was awful at times in the latter part of last season.
4) if you say our good form was down to simply eriksen and Kane being in a purple patch how do you then discount the same for Eriksen and Adebayor under Tim?

 

[Daisuk]

I made my own little table.

West Ham (A) – poor performance
Limassol (A) – average performance
QPR (H) – great performance
Limassol (H) – decent performance
Liverpool (H) – poor performance
Sunderland (A) – good performance
Partizan (A) – poor performance
West Brom (H) – poor performance
Notthingham (H) – didn't see
Arsenal (A) – good performance
Besiktas (H) – decent perfomance
Soton (H) – good performance
Emirates Marketing Project (A) – decent performance
Asteras (H) – good performance
Saudi Sportswashing Machine (H) – poor performance
Brighton (h) – decent performance
Aston Villa (A) – poor performance
Asteras (A) – didn't see
Stoke (H) – poor performance
Hull (A) – poor performance
Partizan (H) – can't remember
Everton (H) – great performance
Chelsea (A) – decent performance
Palace (H) – can't remember
Besiktas (A) – can't remember
Swansea (A) – decent performance
Saudi Sportswashing Machine (H) – great performance
Burnley (H) – didn't see
Leicester (A) – horrible performance
Man U (H) – good perfromance
Chelsea (H) – great performance
Burnley (A) – didn't see
Palace (a) – decent performance
Burnley (h) – didn't see
Sunderland (h) – good performance
Sheff U (h) – poor performance
Leicester (h) – didn't see
Sheff U (a) – decent performance
West Brom (a) – good performance
Arse (H) – great performance
Liverpool (a) – decent performance
Fiorentina (h) – decent performance
West Ham (h) – decent performance
Fiorentina (a) – poor performance
Chelsea (N) – decent performance
Swansea (H) – great performance
QPR (a) – decent performance
Man U (a) – poor performance
Leicester (h) – decent performance
Burnley (a) – horrible performance
Villa (h) – horrible performance
Saudi Sportswashing Machine (a) – good performance
Soton (a) – poor performance
Emirates Marketing Project (H) – good performance
Stoke (a) – horrible performance
Hull (h) – decent performance
Everton (a) – good performance


Great Performances – 6
Good Performances – 10
Decent Performances – 16
Poor Performances – 12
Horrible Performances – 4
Didn't see - 8

So that's roughly 16 over average performances, 16 average performances, and 16 below par performances. Damn, evenly matched.

 

[Jordinho]