Inspired by a posting on TiFF, here’s something interesting.
We’ll expect more shots to be on target as the season wears on, but the conversion of said shots into goals isn’t necessarily an outlier. I’d have put money on teams being more bunched on this than they are, but not so: you can be bad at shooting all season. So while Hull and Stoke have benefitted this year and Man Utd and Spurs are struggling (suggesting that this is not all about skill) Birmingham and Reading kept up a good ratio all last season. Which suggests that Brum and Reading were either lucky with their shooting all year or went down because of their defence. Either way, this is something we need to be wary of.
Will a defensive midfielder fix this? Surely not. No, there’s a good suggestion that, to whatever extent our start has been ‘difficult’, this has not been because of our defensive play. We need to make and take chances. Which is why I want Dempsey and Gera in the side. But that’s an argument for another day.
