Survial

By Tom Bason
June 23 2011

Now that the dust has settled on last season’s results, it’s time to take a look at the results we managed. 40 points were reached with a game to spare, but where exactly did those points come from?

Title Challengers

Against the title challengers, surely there are very few expectations? But we managed to turn Molineux into a fortress, gaining nine points from the four home games. Away from home, it was as to be expected, failing to score in three of matches. However, any team averaging over a point against these teams will be happy.

Pushing For Europe

Conversely, our home record against the teams just below was abysmal. Each of these home games were live on Sky, but whereas the two Saturday lunchtime games against Merseyside teams were disappointing, the emotional match against Tottenham was the best 90 minutes I saw all season. The concession of three goals in each home match is a worry. The four points gained away from home is a good return, with Liverpool being the highest ranked team we won away points against.

Mid-Table Mediocrity

Those teams in the mid-table were our biggest friends in terms of winning points, seeing our highest point/game ratio. Our home form was particularly good, losing only two of the seven matches, while Sunderland, West Brom and Stoke were all dispatched. Away from home, wins at Aston Villa and Sunderland were vital towards the end of the season, but these were offset by poor performances and results at Newcastle, Stoke and Bolton.

Relegation Dog Fight

Rather like last season, this is the main area for concern. In our ten matches against the teams around us, we mustered eight points, with just one coming away from home. Perhaps most worrying is the nature of defeats at Blackburn, Wigan and West Ham; each of them was a deserved defeat that could have cost us. This is definitely an area to be improved on next season; we can't be being beaten two and three-nil by the teams at the bottom of the league. Our home form was slightly better, but again, defeats to Wigan and Blackburn should be cast as disappointments, while only Blackpool was beaten comfortably.

It is clear that our away form was very poor, winning just 12 away points all season. This, coupled with our unique inability to beat the teams around us made survival a lot tougher than it should have been. We needed elements of luck to beat Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City at home, something that we cannot rely on next season. Maybe we sucker punched them, but the chances of us doing that again are low.

Stat Man - A Look Back At 2010/11 Results

Discussion started by Wolves , 23/06/2011 18:38

Wolves
23/06/2011 18:38

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ernesto hunt
23/06/2011 19:32

Tom, would not disagree with your comments on these figures. Deeper analysis would tell us a lot more. How team selection, injuries, suspensions etc etc effected any of our results would be interesting to know, but the effort to glean that info one can only imaagine.

What it does tell us, and what it told me as the season unfolded and what I based my unswerving belief that we would survive was our rising to the occassion against supposedly better teams. This shows a quality is in there somewhere but needs an extra tug to get it out. This is called 'pride', the second great motivator after 'confidence'.

Heres a question, Tom. Can you get a guage on how much 'energy' is put into game, both by the team and the individual players?

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toomb
23/06/2011 20:00

ernesto - energy would be a difficult measure to quantify I'd have thought. There was an interesting piece on stats on the Financial Times website a few days ago: [www.ft.com]

I'd guess the only real way would be to look at distance and speed run, but I'm not really sure if that's what you're after



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Dudley Wolf
23/06/2011 22:08

Regarding energy, doesn't Mick have the boys fill out a questionnaire thing after each game saying how much effort they put into each match. I seem to remember that was his reason for making 74 changes before playing Man U away when he got slaughtered for it. I'm not sure if they ever get made public, but anybody consistently putting in less than 10/10 surely wants to hang their head in shame.

Very interesting read this, and I would hope that we start to make Prem progress by at least despatching the majority of bottom half clubs at home, pick up a couple more points on the road against the same lot, and then celebrate the unexpected and bonus wins safe in the knowledge that they aren't shaping our season. Jamie O reckons we're capable of this, and has just signed away the best years of his career to try and prove it. I hope the rest of the team cam justify it for someone who is clearly a "proper" premier league player!

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ernesto hunt
24/06/2011 14:56

GPA eh, Tom! There we have it. Have we got that scientific yet at the Molinieux? We are making many of the right sounds on the website, but is it just spin - do you know?

And you! Aren't you the one wasting his time with fantasy football? What would you really want to be known as at the end of your days - a top class Fantasy Football Manager or the guy that created the best GPA analysis system?

Did you know why David Duckham was so successfull. His timing of when to drop his shoulder was what gave him the ability to go around a player. In fact it was the player reacting to the twitch of his shoulder - he never swerved at all. And pepes used to say he had the best body swerve ever!

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toomb
25/06/2011 19:26

Part of my love of Football Manager are the stats it uses, it appeals to me. I far prefer it to playing FIFA/PES where you're actually controlling the players.

I am currently looking at something similar, a study of strikers who were transferred in 07/08 season and looking at the contribution they've made to their clubs. It's nothing like as high-tech as GPA would be, but it's a start and I should be giving a presentation on it at a conference in Madrid in September



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