Liverpool, Sunderland, Stoke, Aston Villa, Wigan and Southampton. Many people have been worried by Saints start to the season, however the club is one of six clubs that have only won win to their name in the Premiership so far this season. Add to that Norwich, Reading and Q.P.R and you notice that almost half of the top flight sides have one or less wins after the sixth round of games. Southampton may have scored as many goals as Arsenal but many have been worried about the Saints' leaky defence, however if we look at the goals for/goals against ratio the four teams surrounding Southampton, Wigan (0.45), Norwich (0.30), Reading (0.54), Q.P.R (0.27) all have poorer ratios than the 0.55 our side has mustered against some of England's finest teams. Finally if we take the positions of the clubs that each team has faced so far this season and total them, most of the teams come up with figures of between 55 and 60, only QPR has a lower total (39) compared with Southampton (47) and that would be higher if we take into account their game against West Ham tonight. Interestingly teams such as Newcastle (63), West Ham (65) and Swansea (72) who are languishing in mid-table have the highest totals, which may suggest they have played some of the easier teams in the league, or it could suggest that their totals are artificially high due to the poor positions of teams such as Liverpool. Eitherway one can manipulate stats to show whatever they desire, however Southampton look like they are in the middle of the Gaussian curve for most statistics except the quality of opposition that we have already faced and therefore we should not get too worried about our newly established and improving defence, our quick learning manager or only winning one game so far this season. Personally I think if we can win 10 games this season and pick up a few bonus points then we will survive the relegation battles, a point a match, 38, will be more than sufficient. Any thoughts, comments or crazy statistics are encouraged and welcomed .
I truly believe that numbers will set you free. Yours all make sense and give a much more objective view of the world. Thank you.
Good stuff OROW. Anyone who bothered to watch MOTD2 to the end would have seen that we are bottom of the average fouls per game table, by quite a bit. Which shows that we are defending really well, or really badly, or something like that.
It's lies, damned lies and statistics. I only trust statistics when they agree with my world view, so thank you OROW.
Looking at current positions might be flawed as you're restricting the sample size; I'd expect Liverpool to end the season a little higher than they currently are, ditto Arsenal - what are the figures if you take last year's finishing positions (with Reading 18, SFC 19 and WHU 20)?
Goals for vs Goals against is a bit silly mate. If you have a reasonably tight defence you have to score less to win games. You can nick a lucky 1-0 or 2-1 win. I'd rather score less and be tighter defensively. Because we have to be on the top of our game attack wise letting in this many to get a point or more. I'm aware to tighten up defensively you almost always sacrifice goals but at the same time often we naively overload in attack when it's not required and commit too many players who aren't needed up there. With less players committing it gives the opponent less opportunity to counter and a better ability to build pressure with a flurry of attacks as the opponent is unable to push out and release the pressure. So we could tighten up and score just as many if not more if we are wiser about when to stay forward and when to cover.
Sorry, didn't have enough patience or time to recalculate these for you, especially as the table has changed again, who would have thought West Ham would start so well or Q.P.R with all their signings so badly . Statistics can be over analysed to show anything, however the sample size is not yet big enough to be significant. We have conceded a lot of goals but again we have not got a decent sample size to decide if this is a fair representation of the data, having played lots of the higher table end clubs. I don't think it necessarily means that we have to play better to get points, teams that score goals in this division tend to survive even if they cannot defend for toffee as Wigan have shown over the years. It's the teams that are not scoring that are at the bottom. All the teams below Swansea have scored less than 10 goals except ourselves which points to the fact that when you are scoring for fun you always have a chance.
I agree with the original poster 100% at least 54.895 of the time, unless you have to factor in Sundays then .... WTF!?
In the Premier League often the sides at the bottom let in the most and score the least. I suppose even if we are shipping a ton of goals at least we are scoring a lot so we are breaking the mold there. All we have to do is tighten up a bit as we have the quality of a top 8 team or better in attack
Anyone else reminded of '66/67? It was our first year in the First Division. From memory we were second top scorers (at least top 4) behind free scoring Man Utd (Best, Law, Charlton et al) who won the league, while we just avoided the drop having conceded over 90 goals. Big Ron shared the golden boot with George Best. Nail chewing days!
Not quite that old Channon! My first season was in 73 remember seeing Butch Wilkins make one of his first his Chelsea appearances. Both he and I had hair then!
People keep saying how we ship a lot of goals, but six were in one match...a lot of teams have one of those games in a season, even United. In the other games we have lost by 1 or 2 goals...still bad, but possible to turn round.
In the other games we have lost by 1 or 2 goals...still bad, but possible to turn round. ______________________________ Two or 3 would surely be more accurate!
The thing is if you don't have real goal scorers then you won't get goals. (We have Ricky, Gaston, Adam, Jay, Steve Davis) If you leak goals you can improve your defending. I'd rather be Saints than Norwich or QPR, where are their goals going to come from ?????
