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A worrying trend?

Pirate55 said:
Sorry I don't agree. I pointed this worrying trend out in the OP back in December. We continue to have problems in the last ten minutes of games conceding important goals in the second half of the season as well as the first e.g. Leicester, Arscum, WBA, Chelscum off the top of my head.

I would like some statto to compare the points we "won" in the last ten minutes as opposed to the points we "lost" in the last ten minutes. My feeling is that this has been a season long issue and we need to find a solution to it next season if we want to progress.
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The bold line first...the only solution we need to find, is putting away more of our chances. End of. There is simply not other problem with this squad. It creates lots of chances and it concedes few. We have the best defensive record in the Prem and the best goals-for. We are most likely going to finish second.

You have chosen four matches. Four matches where we have conceded fairly late. Each match saw us miss what I think we would all consider GOLDEN chances to put the game to bed. It would've been nice to have had a 'sniffer' on he bench, and in fairness, Son tried to play that role but certainly played better when given a few games together and also when not on as a sub (Watford excepted). But let's face it, that is where we had some issues, some room for improvement, because if you want to get 'statty' it's probably worth checking out how many chances we created in the later stages of those games which didn't go our way/where we suffered poor luck/got done by a bad decision.

I think you're guilty of trying to bend facts to suit a narrative you put out early-doors. I think the season shows that we have actually been very strong for 95 minutes of most games we've played.
 
90291Spur said:
I am not denying that we were letting in late goals and that this is a worrying trend. I'm merely stating that, in my opinion, it's not down to us having run out of 'legs' (which I thought was your point when you said There are those that are concerned that with our high tempo and high press, the players run out of steam towards the end of games), it's down to making mistakes.
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Of the games Pirate mentioned...

Leicester (home I am assuming - away was poor and we learnt from switching off on that one!)...foul in the box resulted in slip and goal.
Arse - hardly a mistake, simply a goal. Soft IMO, I can think of two phases where Sanchez should've been given no room/got taken out.
West Brom - clear foul in box
Chelscum - again, do not think the goal was even close to a mistake, brilliantly taken, and I would argue that Kane should've had a free-kick before the ball broke when sandwiched by those two tossers.

I actually cannot think of many mistakes off the top...Walker's OT OG, Verts at Palace might be the two glaring ones, perhaps Hugo was soft a couple of time, but one of the thing I think we did supremely well was cut out a lot of the mistakes we used to make.
 
thfcsteff said:
The bold line first...the only solution we need to find, is putting away more of our chances. End of. There is simply not other problem with this squad. It creates lots of chances and it concedes few. We have the best defensive record in the Prem and the best goals-for. We are most likely going to finish second.

You have chosen four matches. Four matches where we have conceded fairly late. Each match saw us miss what I think we would all consider GOLDEN chances to put the game to bed. It would've been nice to have had a 'sniffer' on he bench, and in fairness, Son tried to play that role but certainly played better when given a few games together and also when not on as a sub (Watford excepted). But let's face it, that is where we had some issues, some room for improvement, because if you want to get 'statty' it's probably worth checking out how many chances we created in the later stages of those games which didn't go our way/where we suffered poor luck/got done by a bad decision.

I think you're guilty of trying to bend facts to suit a narrative you put out early-doors. I think the season shows that we have actually been very strong for 95 minutes of most games we've played.
Click to expand...

While I agree with you that turning the many chances we create into goals will undoubtedly help us next season, it doesn't answer the key question I posed as to whether we are an "80 minute team".

Let's look at some facts against our closest rivals in that vital last ten minute period this season. Only against Emirates Marketing Project away did we score a " meaningful" goal in that period. By meaningful, I mean a goal which turns a defeat into a draw or a draw into a win. Let's examine the other games.

Leicester. Away - late equalizer robs us of a win. Home- late goal sends us to defeat.
Arsenal Away - late goal robs us of win. Home - ditto ( and against 10 men we were hanging on for that )
Emirates Marketing Project Away our only meaningful goal in the last ten minutes. Home - we romp to victory so last 10 is inconsequential.
Man U Away lost 0-1 and never looked like equalizing in last 10. Home victory was secured well before last 10.
Liverpool Home and away failed to secure a victory in last 10.
Everton ditto
West Ham Home - victory was secured well before the last ten and we still managed to concede a late goal. Away - defeat by a single goal we never looked like equalizing in the last 10 minutes.
Chelscum - home - failed to score in last 10 to break the deadlock. Away - late goal robs us of victory and after that for the last 10 /13 minutes we created diddly squat.

Can you now perhaps see a worrying trend here?

I think we need to address this issue next season.
 
Pirate55 said:
While I agree with you that turning the many chances we create into goals will undoubtedly help us next season, it doesn't answer the key question I posed as to whether we are an "80 minute team".

Let's look at some facts against our closest rivals in that vital last ten minute period this season. Only against Emirates Marketing Project away did we score a " meaningful" goal in that period. By meaningful, I mean a goal which turns a defeat into a draw or a draw into a win. Let's examine the other games.

Leicester. Away - late equalizer robs us of a win. Home- late goal sends us to defeat.
Arsenal Away - late goal robs us of win. Home - ditto ( and against 10 men we were hanging on for that )
Emirates Marketing Project Away our only meaningful goal in the last ten minutes. Home - we romp to victory so last 10 is inconsequential.
Man U Away lost 0-1 and never looked like equalizing in last 10. Home victory was secured well before last 10.
Liverpool Home and away failed to secure a victory in last 10.
Everton ditto
West Ham Home - victory was secured well before the last ten and we still managed to concede a late goal. Away - defeat by a single goal we never looked like equalizing in the last 10 minutes.
Chelscum - home - failed to score in last 10 to break the deadlock. Away - late goal robs us of victory and after that for the last 10 /13 minutes we created diddly squat.

Can you now perhaps see a worrying trend here?

I think we need to address this issue next season.
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Whilst that does look like a trend in our play have you thought of it that in games we haven't scored in the last 10 minutes it could also be the opposition deciding we've got a point/3 points lets defend our position and thus not allowing us to create the winning goal.
 
camspur said:
Whilst that does look like a trend in our play have you thought of it that in games we haven't scored in the last 10 minutes it could also be the opposition deciding we've got a point/3 points lets defend our position and thus not allowing us to create the winning goal.
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After today's game, we have now lost 20 points from winning positions. Despite all the good progress that has been made this season, this is a serious flaw which must be eradicated next season if we want to progress.
 
Pirate55 said:
After today's game, we have now lost 20 points from winning positions. Despite all the good progress that has been made this season, this is a serious flaw which must be eradicated next season if we want to progress.
Click to expand...

I think, without wishing to be trite, this is obvious. And I think you can see (and read) the manager agreeing. I would say that losing points from a winning position is something we will tighten up on (comes with the territory of being a young squad - they will learn how to shut down games and close them out, especially those 2-0 ones). But I do not think it is because we are an '80 minute team', in fact, early season, a large part of our problem was that we were learning how to hammer sides from the KO and were thus far too slow in the beginning.

Let's just agree that despite the wonderful strides made this season, there are improvements to be made. We surely know that, and most importantly, our manager does!!!!!
 
Pirate55 said:
While I agree with you that turning the many chances we create into goals will undoubtedly help us next season, it doesn't answer the key question I posed as to whether we are an "80 minute team".

Let's look at some facts against our closest rivals in that vital last ten minute period this season. Only against Emirates Marketing Project away did we score a " meaningful" goal in that period. By meaningful, I mean a goal which turns a defeat into a draw or a draw into a win. Let's examine the other games.

Leicester. Away - late equalizer robs us of a win. Home- late goal sends us to defeat.
Arsenal Away - late goal robs us of win. Home - ditto ( and against 10 men we were hanging on for that )
Emirates Marketing Project Away our only meaningful goal in the last ten minutes. Home - we romp to victory so last 10 is inconsequential.
Man U Away lost 0-1 and never looked like equalizing in last 10. Home victory was secured well before last 10.
Liverpool Home and away failed to secure a victory in last 10.
Everton ditto
West Ham Home - victory was secured well before the last ten and we still managed to concede a late goal. Away - defeat by a single goal we never looked like equalizing in the last 10 minutes.
Chelscum - home - failed to score in last 10 to break the deadlock. Away - late goal robs us of victory and after that for the last 10 /13 minutes we created diddly squat.

Can you now perhaps see a worrying trend here?

I think we need to address this issue next season.
Click to expand...

Without going through the last 10 mins in each of those games, I feel confident in saying we created chances we could not finish. I still maintain not finishing our chances/being clinical enough, is the main area of address. Even today you can clearly see that had we been sharper first-half we'd have won comfortably, and even in stoppage time you might argue that Forster didn't make a great save from the Shagger more than he simply had to score!
 
thfcsteff said:
Without going through the last 10 mins in each of those games, I feel confident in saying we created chances we could not finish. I still maintain not finishing our chances/being clinical enough, is the main area of address. Even today you can clearly see that had we been sharper first-half we'd have won comfortably, and even in stoppage time you might argue that Forster didn't make a great save from the Shagger more than he simply had to score!
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But the facts clearly speak for themselves. To fix a problem you first have to recognize it. Our last ten minutes in games has simply not been good enough all season. We certainly never created anything against Leicester, WBA or Chelsea after they scored and a solitary chance today. We just haven't finished games strongly all season, with just a couple of exceptions

Is it the Bielsa double training? Is it our unrelenting tempo? Is it the high press? Is it lack of concentration? Is it our inability to defend set pieces? Do we give away too many soft free kicks allowing opponents to pressurise our goal? Is it we don't create enough chances after 80 minutes? Is it that we can't defend deep? Is it all down to lack of experience?

I don't know the answers but Poch needs to find the solution next season if we want to progress .
 
Pirate55 said:
But the facts clearly speak for themselves. To fix a problem you first have to recognize it. Our last ten minutes in games has simply not been good enough all season. We certainly never created anything against Leicester, WBA or Chelsea after they scored and a solitary chance today. We just haven't finished games strongly all season, with just a couple of exceptions

Is it the Bielsa double training? Is it our unrelenting tempo? Is it the high press? Is it lack of concentration? Is it our inability to defend set pieces? Do we give away too many soft free kicks allowing opponents to pressurise our goal? Is it we don't create enough chances after 80 minutes? Is it that we can't defend deep? Is it all down to lack of experience?

I don't know the answers but Poch needs to find the solution next season if we want to progress .
Click to expand...


The discussion has now veered to a general 'we have issues to solve if we wish to progress' which, again, Poch and many have noted. I think you also need to look at other statistics to put things in some sort of reasonable 'reviewable' order. I think, personally, our shortcomings have been due to lack of experience. There again, you're talking to someone who felt that we would finish 5th and would've been happy simply to see progress and stability. 'Facts', as you would surely agree, are only worth the content they're presented in...
 
thfcsteff said:
The discussion has now veered to a general 'we have issues to solve if we wish to progress' which, again, Poch and many have noted. I think you also need to look at other statistics to put things in some sort of reasonable 'reviewable' order. I think, personally, our shortcomings have been due to lack of experience. There again, you're talking to someone who felt that we would finish 5th and would've been happy simply to see progress and stability. 'Facts', as you would surely agree, are only worth the content they're presented in...
Click to expand...
@Pirate55 does have a point though: we struggle to create chances towards the tail end of games, especially when we're tied or behind. Be it physical or mental, it's something that has occurred enough times this season to raise an eyebrow. What the underlying cause is is a different story and we can debate that ad nauseum. But the observation is a valid one.
 
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