TL;DR for the below - looking at stats after 8 games, we're really bloody bad.
Just some basic figures from fotmob for the Championship to lead off with - out of 24, we are:
22nd for possession% per game (39.9%) - lowest is Lincoln with 35.7%
21st for shots on target per90 (3.1) - lowest is Charlton with 2.6
21st for xG in the league (7.7) - lowest is Charlton with 5.9
24th for touches in opposition box (127) - 10 fewer than anyone else
19th for big chances created (12) - lowest is Charlton with 8
So despite Wilder having said this week that we're a team that likes to have the ball, that likes to build in possession etc., we see less of the ball per game than everyone besides Lincoln and Charlton. That alone isn't terrible, but we don't seem to do a lot when we do have the ball. Very low for shots taken against the rest of the league.
Fotmob didn't have a figure for overall shots taken per 90, just shots on target, but I was able to pull data for that from thestatsdontlie. They have us at 66 shots taken in total, the fewest in the league. That works out at 0.11xG per shot, which seems to be around a typical level for that stat, but the fact we take so few shots (8.25 shots per90 based on the fbref figure), that we simply are not capable of matching up to the teams we face, who are far less shy when it comes to attempts on our goal.
The one stat I found on fotmob which we are ranked highly on, is possession won in the final third. We are 2nd in the league on this metric at 4.1 occasions per90 (top is Swansea at 5.0 for reference), but again, we do exceptionally little with these opportunities. We sometimes force errors in the opposition backline, but our squad is so sluggish that we almost never have support get forward quickly enough to take advantage of them. Peck might become the man to do this, but as demonstrated with his 2 of target attempts in the 2nd half at Stoke yesterday, he won't hit the target consistently enough for this to make a big enough difference.
I know the common belief has been that we've looked solid defensively, but we're having to work incredibly hard to keep teams out, yet we are still allowing a pretty high volume of opportunities.
Per fotmob:
2nd highest for interceptions per90 (11.8) - highest is Lincoln with 12.0
6th highest for clearances per90 (30.3) - highest is Lincoln with 35.1
6th highest for xG against (12.3) - highest is Derby with 14.9
Per thestatsdontlie:
2nd for total shots against (131) - highest is Charlton with 135
So despite all the effort we're putting into defending the goal, evidenced by our very high output for clearances and interceptions, we're still conceding 16.375 shots per game to the opponent - almost twice as many as we're attempting. Interestingly, our xG against per shot is lower than what we're achieving offensively (0.09xGa per shot), but with the sheer volume of shots we're allowing, we are giving up opportunities to the opposition to do exactly what Stoke did to us yesterday - fail to create many high quality chances due to our high defensive work rate, but finding the net simply due to being willing to take shots more often than us.
Our numbers indicate that we very poor at retaining possession, poor at creating chances, even in spite of our ability to often regain possession in advanced areas. We also are poor at denying shots on goal, and if our defenders' work rate drops off that is likely to only get worse.
There's some argument to be made, that the absence of some players who offer some unique qualities within our squad (Oné, Seriki being the most obvious ones in terms of physicality and pace) is causing us to be more defensive than we might be otherwise. But I'd look far more deeply at our complete lack of diversity in midfield, our reluctance to use the one player (Donovan) who is available and offers the pace and directness we otherwise lack, the one-dimensional recruitment we conducted in the summer, and our poor tactical setup as major contributors to our current situation.
We are poor at keeping possession as our midfield is consistently overrun. We are often utilising a 2 in central midfield, in a league where a 3 is far and away the preferred set up. We are pressed in midfield often, leading to giving the ball away under pressure, or our midfield is marked out of the game entirely, leading to the defence having no option but to lump the ball away from the box (hence the high volume of clearances we are making).
The most straightforward workaround to this limitation, would be to simply play on the counter. Allow teams more possession of the ball, but being prepared to break at speed when we win it back. We can't do this, because we have almost no pace in the side. Even when we get Seriki and Oné back into consideration, our number of truly quick players is frighteningly low. Plus, the lack of pace, and general match fitness within our complement of central midfielders, means that even if we do try and break, the opponent will more often than not get bodies back to outnumber our attacking complement.
The only way we can even attempt to play on the break at this point, would be to allow Donovan to use his pace and dribbling ability to carry breakaways upfield. And yet, in the last 2 league games, he's played all of ~6mins of football. Didn't come on at all vs Wolves (Wilder mentioned he was nixed due to the McCallum injury - fair enough, but he should have already been on the pitch at Ayew's expense by then), and only brought on yesterday when we were behind. And to get anything from 2-1 down, we would have had to break Stoke down. Considering that we failed to do that in the >85 minutes that preceeded their winner, we weren't going to do that at the end. We barely even managed it against Fleetwood.
We are going to need a startling turn of events over the international break. The players that Wilder claims will be back from injury, I fear will not be enough to make a significant difference to our performances. My expectation for the Lincoln game, is that we will flounder with the ball, as Lincoln's figures indicate that they are happy to sit in and play on the break (ranked lowest in the league for possession, but best for clean sheets (4 from 8 games), and 8th best for touches in opposition box). We don't have the know-how to break into the box and carve open high xG chances, so we'll shuffle the ball around the edge of the Lincoln box for most of the game, and then get dissected by them on the counter. A result of any nature will highly depend on Cooper saving our blushes I suspect.
