Mithrandir
Key Player
As I'm sure all of you know by now, I wasn't a happy camper with last night's performance. I'm just going to highlight a few areas that really pissed me off about our execution.
First up, below we have the distribution of the target zones for Birmingham's and our passes (Birmingham on the left, us on the right). Take a look at the difference between the two teams, they couldn't be any more different. We had 112 out of 510 total passes that targeted the final third, which accounts for about 22% of our passes. Birmingham, on the other hand, had a whopping 181 out of 338 total passes target the final third, which accounted for almost 54% of their passes. That's a night and day difference and shows how much we were under the cosh. You can also see that when we had possession, we were content to just sit back and slowly pass the ball about the back four. 201 of our 510 passes were in our own defensive third, which accounted for over 39% of our total passes. Compare that to Brum, who attempted a measly 26 out of 338 passes in their defensive third. That's less than 8%!
We were never going to have a chance to counterpress, because Brum rarely allowed themselves to lose possession in their own half. Below you can see pictures of where Birmingham lost possession, and then where we lost possession. Birmingham only lost possession in their own half 12 times out of 47 total occasions, or a little over 25% of the time they lost possession. For us, on the other hand, we lost possession in our own half 14 times out of 38 total occasions, which is almost 37%.
The last graphic is below, which is a culmination of all the points I've raised so far. I don't think since I've been looking at football data that I've ever seen such a lopsided distribution of the action areas of the pitch before. 43% of the match was played in our defensive third, while only 19% of the match occurred in Brum's defensive third. That's a 24 percentage point spread! That's fucking unacceptable.
I'm definitely not a person who is going to criticize teams for passing the ball about, trying to move the opposition around to try to create chances. That wasn't what we were doing last night though. We were hiding. We were fucking cowards. We kept the ball about the back four and holding midfielders because we were too fucking scared to go toe-to-toe with a physical, well-drilled squad, and not skilled enough to play around a very untechnical opposition. There is much more to attacking than just passing the ball about the backline. There was just nothing attacking about this at all. I don't want anyone to think I'm calling for Potter's head or anything, but this match had more than a passing similarity to the worst of us under Paul Clement. Eerily similar to me in fact.
There's a lot of work to do. Hopefully we can get some players in before the loan window closes, but this was a really really disappointing match for me to watch.
First up, below we have the distribution of the target zones for Birmingham's and our passes (Birmingham on the left, us on the right). Take a look at the difference between the two teams, they couldn't be any more different. We had 112 out of 510 total passes that targeted the final third, which accounts for about 22% of our passes. Birmingham, on the other hand, had a whopping 181 out of 338 total passes target the final third, which accounted for almost 54% of their passes. That's a night and day difference and shows how much we were under the cosh. You can also see that when we had possession, we were content to just sit back and slowly pass the ball about the back four. 201 of our 510 passes were in our own defensive third, which accounted for over 39% of our total passes. Compare that to Brum, who attempted a measly 26 out of 338 passes in their defensive third. That's less than 8%!
We were never going to have a chance to counterpress, because Brum rarely allowed themselves to lose possession in their own half. Below you can see pictures of where Birmingham lost possession, and then where we lost possession. Birmingham only lost possession in their own half 12 times out of 47 total occasions, or a little over 25% of the time they lost possession. For us, on the other hand, we lost possession in our own half 14 times out of 38 total occasions, which is almost 37%.
The last graphic is below, which is a culmination of all the points I've raised so far. I don't think since I've been looking at football data that I've ever seen such a lopsided distribution of the action areas of the pitch before. 43% of the match was played in our defensive third, while only 19% of the match occurred in Brum's defensive third. That's a 24 percentage point spread! That's fucking unacceptable.
I'm definitely not a person who is going to criticize teams for passing the ball about, trying to move the opposition around to try to create chances. That wasn't what we were doing last night though. We were hiding. We were fucking cowards. We kept the ball about the back four and holding midfielders because we were too fucking scared to go toe-to-toe with a physical, well-drilled squad, and not skilled enough to play around a very untechnical opposition. There is much more to attacking than just passing the ball about the backline. There was just nothing attacking about this at all. I don't want anyone to think I'm calling for Potter's head or anything, but this match had more than a passing similarity to the worst of us under Paul Clement. Eerily similar to me in fact.
There's a lot of work to do. Hopefully we can get some players in before the loan window closes, but this was a really really disappointing match for me to watch.
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