After 4 games and having played a variety of opposition with 3 games away and 1 at home our attempts are as follows: Watford On Target: 39 Off Target: 18 Opposition On Target: 25 Off target: 20 Surprisingly very good stats for a team in the bottom three. If you remove the first game where our attempts were just below that of Burnley's we comfortably had more attempts on goal than Coventry and Derby and and just about eclipsed West Ham. Possibly we are not that far away from being an effective team in this league.
Thats slightly surprising. I did not think we had had that many shots. I think it shows we are attacking more and have plenty of potential, but the keepers have been good or blocks have been made, I think we can say we had the best of the game at Coventry. We were just denied 3 points by an incompetent referee and some top class goalkeeping
OK hang on a minute, I've caught a lot of the action and listened back to commentaries and the simple fact is a number of these shots haven't been "clear cut". A team would expect to score every 2 or 3 clear cuts, but too many of the shots have been "dollies" where there's not enough belief in the shots. Yes I think we all believe we should have got more from the Derby and Coventry games, but the simple fact is the refs haven't bought our penalty claims and we haven't extended the keepers enough.
I was at the game on Saturday and I can't remember 11 shots on target. When I saw the stats I was stunned. What is classified as a shot on target?
I would say we have had some clear cut chances in games this season. Eustace missed a good header against West Ham. Green made a great save in that game. On Sat Sordell and Forsyth had clear cut chances. I think it goes to show we have been playing decently and we just need our strikers at the top of their game, a bit of luck and maybe a new addition up top to make the difference.
On the one hand it is difficult to read too much into shots on target stats, because as has been pointed out, it provides no qualitative assessment of each shot. However, on the other hand, even accounting for tame pea-rollers, and assuming the stats are compiled in a consistent manner, it still provides for a useful comparsion with the teams we've played. ok, i'm boring even myself now...
We've had the 3rd highest amount of shots in the Championship. We need to be more clinical but then we haven't exactly had much luck. Also, the Derby, West Ham and (I suppose) Coventry keepers have all played well. Derby have had the 3rd least amount of shots and they're in 2nd.
MAX_WFC has hit the nail on the head. It is about being clinical. I am encouraged by these statistics though, i'd be very worried if we weren't scoring and weren't creating shooting chances either. Hopefully with another addition or two, a fit Iwelumo and bit more luck we will start hitting the net.
I haven't attended any of the games but tune into the BBC every Saturday morning at 10am (we're five hours behind over here) just to see our shot meter steadily grow game by game but the total goals scored stay where it has been for almost three weeks (I've given up on Player to listen to the games - it never works). If I look at last seasons averages, I'd suggest we are (based on the first four games of this season) having a little bit more of the ball and are creating more shooting opportunities per game both of which are promising trends, unfortunately there is a man in South-Wales who is missing from the fold and it's not only a tangible hole, there is the added pressure of a 20yr old feeling like he has to score to drag the team along, that's not fair pressure on Sordell and the quicker we get another striker in (one who has scored in another division this season perhaps?) the better, just to take some of the focus. 2 goals for, 7 against 2 points when we could have had triple that no goals for almost weeks not even living in the country I love and know still love being a Watford fan...is there anything better?
This stats do tell a story, one that we could have got whatever we could out of all four games. We were cruising against Burnley before a very lucky deflection changed the game. Against Derby and Coventry their goalkeepers were superb, and we had good chances against West Ham. No need to panic, but we really could do with a win tomorrow to get some confidence going.
