Minority Report - 2019/2020 Monthly Summary – August 2019

I will be reviewing results and performances for each month, based partly upon Minority Report, and partly through statistics, analysis and reflection over the longer period. It will not be a restatement of what was said in the individual match reports, but I will hope to draw conclusions from the patterns that I see being established over longer periods. Most of my commentary will draw on what I have personally seen, and that rules out away games as I only attend at home, but I hope to draw out interesting trends, even if I miss half of the games. I will of course be grateful to those who attend away games if they can fill in the gaps.


The club’s principle policy (buy young, improve and cash in) is designed to make good on the losses that it makes on footballing activities, is not necessarily wrong because the club does need to raise cash from somewhere, but it does tend to make performances on the field very cyclical. Last season was a very good one chiefly because we managed to keep the majority of our players together for the full season. We have been promoted back to the Championship, and if we are to make a good fist of that promotion, we needed to keep the majority of our players together, and we needed to add more quality in the transfer market. The fact that we lost our first choice goalkeeper, and both centre-backs did not bode well for us defensively and when we also lost 19 goal Keiffer Moore, our only tall forward, things looked decidedly dodgy. There was still plenty of time to make the right signings, just provided we tempered our principle policy slightly, by adding some experience as well.


Of course, a second reason for the policy is to keep wages within agreed structures and within an overall budget. Experience is generally more costly in terms of both transfer fee and player’s pay. Could the club answer the pleas of our Chief Coach and find some experience that was of the right quality and who would fit in with our pay structures. Apparently not, because as the transfer window closed, we had signed lots of decent prospects, but our only over 24 signing was goalkeeper Radlinger. It was going to be a tough act to get all those young players up to speed and functioning as a team in time for the 10th match, never mind the first, which was against a team that played in the Premier League last season.


Imagine my shock when we beat Fulham in that first match. There was good passing from the back and steady nerve under the pressure of a Fulham press. Yes, Fulham had their chances too, and there were holes in our defensive structure at times, holes that Fulham did not take advantage of, but it was very encouraging. It was so encouraging that we all ignored a home defeat against Carlisle United in the League Cup, and the usual away defeat at Hillsborough.


In our next home game (Charlton Athletic), Woodrow and Chaplin scored with spectacular efforts which were not enough to earn us victory against the team promoted through the play-offs. The most significant aspect of the game was the Charlton midfield diamond, which freed the Charlton No7, Williams time and time again. Of course, the diamond’s weakness is in its lack of width, and our two full backs (Williams and Sibbick) failed to fully exploit that lack of width when we were going forward. Not for the first time under Stendel, I regretted that we continued to push forward when we had a 2-1 advantage late in a game, when a proper concentration on defence with 2 deep lines of 4 may have yielded a win. The win turned into a draw after a late penalty equaliser.

We lost in midweek again, this time at Birmingham City, and those who went were very critical of our lack of quality, but 2 games in a week early in the season with young players who are still learning about their team-mates and their Coach and his systems will produce fluctuations in quality.


Nevertheless, our next game was against another of last season’s promoted teams, Luton Town, and they were yet to record a win. Hopes were still high until I saw the team. There was no striker in the starting 11, the front 3 consisting of 3 wide midfield players and Pinillos was chosen at left full back. Within 5 minutes of the first whistle, the team was already 2-0 in arrears and the game was already up. By half time, it was 0-3 and it could have been 0-6. The team had no focus, midfield were being outnumbered by their runners and the back 4 were being pulled about all over the place. At half-time, the Coach changed Pinillos for Williams at left back, took off Andersen and moved Sibbick from full back to centre-back and brought on a 4th winger (Green) to play at right full back. We were further weakened when Diaby left the field with an injury and was replaced by Halme. We were severely lacking in height, but Luton failed to exploit that weakness in dead ball situations. We actually won the second half 1-0, but Luton had switched off long before the end.


The month ended with a 0-0 draw at Wigan. Having seen the team just ahead of kick-off, I had written off our chances completely. The team was without Radlinger, Diaby, Mowatt, McGeehan and Woodrow of our usual first eleven. A team was cobbled together with Sibbick and Bahre in centre midfield and Wilks and Chaplin up front. In injury time, Williams was sent off to further compound our problems for the final 4 minutes. Frankly, Wigan are poor this season and that includes Kieffer Moore.


So what had we learned about our new team after the first month. Well aside from the opening win, results have confirmed the fears that most of us had already voiced. Whatever our new owners might believe, there is more to the game of football than just throwing 11 promising kids together and hoping for the best. Achieving balance in team building is far more difficult than they seem to appreciate. We can only hope that they are quick learners (both the players and our new owners), otherwise we will be losing £6m in revenue again next season when we return to League 1. We have a 2 week break before our next match (international break) and we need it badly. We have just 3 games in the month of September against 6 league games and a league cup game in August. There will be more time to work on things, and plenty of recovery time as well. We will hopefully have some of our injured players back and ready for action. Let us hope for better results after the Chief Coach is able to devote more of his time to coaching, and less to firefighting.


Total points for the month: 5/18

League position at the end of August: 21st.


It is my intention to do some statistical analysis each month. So here goes.


We have had 16 yellow cards (plus 1 red one) this month against 8 for our opponents. Even if you take out the 4 for Mallik Wilks, which he has earned by being a loose cannon, we are still easily outscoring our opponents. We have had an average of 57% possession, so we have earned more yellow cards whilst having a larger share of possession. Exactly what is happening? Well, if you exclude Wilks, we earn most of our cards because referees judge that we have brought down players in order to slow down an opposition attack. They judge it that way because we are often over-committed to attack, and poorly prepared to defend, not getting back into our defensive formation quickly enough. We have registered a total of 99 fouls compared to 82 by our opponents. As I have said many times before, Stendel likes to play the game on the front foot. He likes to try to win the ball back early, but if the press is broken, if we are caught on the breakaway, often our only defence is bringing an opponent to ground and take a yellow card. In fairness, it was much the same at the start of last season whilst the players were learning the system, and things gradually improved as the season progressed and the system began to work much better.


We have had fewer shots than our opponents (77 v 84) but when shots are converted to shots on target, the difference is even more marked (19 v 33). Of course, Cauley Woodrow has only played in 3 games out of the 6, and we failed to replace Kieffer Moore with an experienced forward, which has exacerbated the problem. Indeed, we could not field any forward for the Luton home game. We have not scored in an away game yet. We will need to solve the problem if we are to retain our Championship status at the end of the season, but as I see it, the problem cannot be fully resolved from the treatment table. There is no-one injured who is the obvious missing link. Our missing link is someone who is not currently playing for the club.


Our percentage possession in the game that we won was just 45%. We managed 56% and 50% in the 2 games that we picked up a point, but in the 3 games that we lost we managed 64%, 64% and 69% possessions. Clearly, it is not about how much possession a team has, but about what a team does with the ball when it is in possession. Stendel likes his team to win back possession quickly, and he feels that goals can be scored by winning the ball back in an advanced position. Nevertheless, if the press can be broken, chances can be created against us because too many players were committed to the press. It is a delicate balance and a hard one to get right. If the opposition are creating more chances to score from less possession, it begs the question, are we sure the press is the most effective way of doing things, especially as the press works players much harder, and harder worked players get more injuries. I am far from convinced, but statistics do not offer conclusive proof just yet. It may just be lots of new young players learning the system and making mistakes.

 

When I was a kid, I did attend both home and away. I enjoyed it. However, John McSeveney persuaded me of the error of my ways and I have been only a rare attender since.

Much of my insight has developed since I took up my seat in the east stand upper tier (high above play and to the side). It is far harder to be insightful from a position lower down and behind the goal, which tends to be where away fans are housed.

 

Judging by your pen name, you also went through that season. We talk about how poor some of our teams are now, but there are not many of us still attending who have gone through a season when we were on our way down to the 4th tier, and our team was as poor as that one. I remember the game when it all came to a head just as well now as I did then. It was at Notts County. I watch our left back (Dave Booth) kick the ball into the crowd full the full 90 minutes. Dave Booth was not a bad full back, and he was certainly capable of keeping the ball on the field of play. I reasoned that he had been told to do that by his manager, and if his manager had told him to do that, I reasoned that his manager had no interest in whether I was there or not. In that case, there was no reason to be there. We lost the game 4-0, but it was not the size of the defeat, because I had witnessed many bigger than that. It was the manner of our defeat that persuaded me to keep my cash in my pocket.

 

Played under McSeveney? You have my sympathy.

 

The problem with TV coverage, all TV coverage, is that the camera focuses on the ball and a tight area around the ball. I do not necessarily do that when I am watching live. For example, if I suspect that a player, lets call him Dimitri Cavare for the sake of argument, is not concentrating. Then I will watch him in isolation for a while. I will look at his positioning. I will check if he stays in line when the call of out indicates that the defensive line is intent on catching an attacker off side. I will watch him to see how quickly he tries to recover his defensive position after he has gone forward in support of an attack. The TV cameras do none of this, and if you are only interested in following the ball and the players around the ball, then you will not care. But if you are interested in learning more about the game, and you are interested in forming opinions that are your own, then that sort of thing is important. Many readers of my stuff mistake my writings as being elitist. I hope to god they are not, but I also hope that I have my own mind and my own opinions.

 

Not that I can think of, no. I might have missed part of the build-up though.