ucandomagic
Well-Known Member
Airbnb with good internet just 300 yards from the Lane for me tonight – so I get to do the graphs a lot earlier!
A strange game all round. Swansea dominated possession with 66%, and yet only managed one shot on target, at the right end! Swansea’s Josh Tymon became the first opposition player to score for 5 games but, unfortunately for him, it was in his own end! We should have really put the game to bed in the second half as Brooksy was through 2 or 3 times and Big Kieff was also one v one and hit the post.
Our defence continues to be rock solid – with our 2 giants in the centre in front of our cool GoalCooper. I thought Shackleton had a good outing at right back and Campbell and Big Kieff both played well up top. O’Hare ran his blood to water, as always, and Brew Dog looked lively when he came on.
So 5 clean sheets in a row - Won 5, Drawn 3 - what do the graphs and charts look like?
Graph 1 compares our progress against 3 benchmark sets of results. I've taken each match and created 3 sets of results to achieve 3 points totals, which should represent Automatic Promotion, Playoff Certainty and Playoff Possibility. My benchmarks take account of who our opponents are each week. Compared to my benchmarks we are still a couple behind my Promotion lines and on the edge of a Playoff schedule. 16 points from 8 games with a 2-point deduction is a great return but, as the League Table shows, we do still have to play most of the likely main contenders. As usual, by request Graph 1 includes our city rivals’ results, which the majority like to see, and Graph 1A (Graph 1 without Wendy) doesn’t include them for those who don’t like to see it.
Graph 1:
Graph 1A (Graph 1 without Wendy):
Graph 2 compares this season against our last 3 successful promotions from this level (all in second place), in 2005/06, 2018/19 and 2022/23. These earlier season results are the results from the same game day – not the same opponents. On 16 points (with a 2-point deduction) we are 3 ahead of the 13 points that we had in 2018/19 under Wilder. We are still 1 point behind Hecky in 22/23 and 5 points behind Warnock’s great start in 05/06.
Graph 2:
Next, the coloured annotated up-to-date League Table, which highlights where our strengths and weaknesses are against opponents’ league positions. Blades are now in 3rd place and, without the deduction, we would actually be level top, just behind Sunderland on goal difference.
League Table:
I previously posted my predicted league positions for the end of the season and I now post a review of my performance each week in the form of each team’s current position relative to my end of season forecast position – this may be an indication of a team’s over/under performance, or it may just be an indication of my ineptitude as a forecaster!
As the season progresses, the table is tending to converge towards the expected. 15 of the teams are now within 4 places of my pre-season prediction for them. The big overperformers compared to my forecast are still Blackburn and Oxford and the surprising big underperformers compared to my forecast are Luton and Coventry.
Over/Under Performance Table:
My Tuesday Matchday 7 review of performance and position against XG stats last night has the same over and underperformers as above – but also has Burnley as overperformers as they are massively overperforming against both XG and XGA. I’ll be doing the XG comparisons again next Tuesday when I’ll have the XG data for both Matchdays 8 and 9.
So a good start to our 2 home game week.
Another 3 points off the Hatters on Saturday and I’ll really be happy.
Jets v Vikings at Tottenham Stadium on Sunday should then round off a really great week.
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
A strange game all round. Swansea dominated possession with 66%, and yet only managed one shot on target, at the right end! Swansea’s Josh Tymon became the first opposition player to score for 5 games but, unfortunately for him, it was in his own end! We should have really put the game to bed in the second half as Brooksy was through 2 or 3 times and Big Kieff was also one v one and hit the post.
Our defence continues to be rock solid – with our 2 giants in the centre in front of our cool GoalCooper. I thought Shackleton had a good outing at right back and Campbell and Big Kieff both played well up top. O’Hare ran his blood to water, as always, and Brew Dog looked lively when he came on.
So 5 clean sheets in a row - Won 5, Drawn 3 - what do the graphs and charts look like?
Graph 1 compares our progress against 3 benchmark sets of results. I've taken each match and created 3 sets of results to achieve 3 points totals, which should represent Automatic Promotion, Playoff Certainty and Playoff Possibility. My benchmarks take account of who our opponents are each week. Compared to my benchmarks we are still a couple behind my Promotion lines and on the edge of a Playoff schedule. 16 points from 8 games with a 2-point deduction is a great return but, as the League Table shows, we do still have to play most of the likely main contenders. As usual, by request Graph 1 includes our city rivals’ results, which the majority like to see, and Graph 1A (Graph 1 without Wendy) doesn’t include them for those who don’t like to see it.
Graph 1:
Graph 1A (Graph 1 without Wendy):
Graph 2 compares this season against our last 3 successful promotions from this level (all in second place), in 2005/06, 2018/19 and 2022/23. These earlier season results are the results from the same game day – not the same opponents. On 16 points (with a 2-point deduction) we are 3 ahead of the 13 points that we had in 2018/19 under Wilder. We are still 1 point behind Hecky in 22/23 and 5 points behind Warnock’s great start in 05/06.
Graph 2:
Next, the coloured annotated up-to-date League Table, which highlights where our strengths and weaknesses are against opponents’ league positions. Blades are now in 3rd place and, without the deduction, we would actually be level top, just behind Sunderland on goal difference.
League Table:
I previously posted my predicted league positions for the end of the season and I now post a review of my performance each week in the form of each team’s current position relative to my end of season forecast position – this may be an indication of a team’s over/under performance, or it may just be an indication of my ineptitude as a forecaster!
As the season progresses, the table is tending to converge towards the expected. 15 of the teams are now within 4 places of my pre-season prediction for them. The big overperformers compared to my forecast are still Blackburn and Oxford and the surprising big underperformers compared to my forecast are Luton and Coventry.
Over/Under Performance Table:
My Tuesday Matchday 7 review of performance and position against XG stats last night has the same over and underperformers as above – but also has Burnley as overperformers as they are massively overperforming against both XG and XGA. I’ll be doing the XG comparisons again next Tuesday when I’ll have the XG data for both Matchdays 8 and 9.
So a good start to our 2 home game week.
Another 3 points off the Hatters on Saturday and I’ll really be happy.
Jets v Vikings at Tottenham Stadium on Sunday should then round off a really great week.
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
