THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

Agree with WD as usual. The 3 points shows our resilience and desire to fight til the end, we wouldn't have won that last season. But it only papers over the cracks.

We shouldn't be conceding two quick-fire goals like that, and the goals conceded were sloppy. Colchester were (and still are) bottom of the league. This result is only papering over the cracks temporarily. I think we're just lucky we still have a few quality individuals that are better than this level to get us out of a mess sometimes.

As mentioned in the live thread, the whole club feels stale from top to bottom to me, on and off the pitch. Pete and Sweeting need to step down, but while we still get results that isn't in the forefront of everyone's minds.

Jury is out on Alexander really. He's so unpredictable, but while we're winning more than losing I suppose you can't complain much.

The stats say a lot:

- Our xG (expected goals) has been lower than each team we've played, which suggests we're clinical but not getting lots of opportunities or shots away.

- We've averaged around 40% possession each game aside from yesterday when we managed 55% chasing the game.

- Our average conceded goals is 1.75 per game (7 in 4 matches) which isn't sustaintable. Only 4 clubs have conceded more than us.

- On the flip side we've scored 10 goals (only Wrexham have scored more - 13). Worth noting that 8 of them came against Wrexham (who have conceded the most in the league) and bottom of the table Colchester.




In summary we're giving the ball away to easily and too frequently (long balls to nowhere) and are conceding too many goals, but have high quality players who can finish well - they just need more chances to take a shot.

Suggests we need another decent CB for competition and another attacking player (a striker/winger/attacking mid) who can create chances as well as score goals.

Just for the record, our expected goals against Colchester was better. 2 to 1.72.

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Disclaimer: All my comments are my opinions unless stated otherwise. I'm just a fan following my club.

As someone who knows next to sod all about this expected goal stat, how is it worked out, asking for a friend…..not Aliramone.

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Read the MELTDOWN after every game, no bullshit, just giving it straight

Glad you asked. I asked a friend and they said that expected goals is a measurement of the quality of a shot. A team's xG number for a match is an indication of how many goals they could have expected to score, given the chances they created. Hope that makes more sense to you than it does to me.

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Disclaimer: All my comments are my opinions unless stated otherwise. I'm just a fan following my club.

The link below might be useful

https://www.thepunterspage.com/expected ... %20account.

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Disclaimer: All my comments are my opinions unless stated otherwise. I'm just a fan following my club.

Essentially it's how many goals a team should score based on the quality and likelihood of their chances ending up in a goal. So if a player is 6 yards out, open goal, than that would most likely have an xG of 1 (1 goal is expected to be scored).

The reason our xG was low against Wrexham was again the low likelihood of a goal being scored - Leko and Harvie's goals being from outside the box (so more difficult to score).

I know there's a lot more to it than that but that's my understanding.

I suppose on balance you'd rather have high goals but low xG (meaning your goalscorers are clinical and accurate), rather than low goals and high xG (missing lots of good chances).

xG is not adjusted for the level of football and is not that helpful given it was born out of analysis of top-flight games.

Dean Lewington going through for a 1-on-1 with the goalkeeper is the same xG as if Mo was on the ball, and in fact the same xG as if Haaland was on the ball.

The game where we got battered by Tranmere saw them generate only 1.13 xG, making the law of averages suggest they only ought to have scored one goal in the whole game with the chances created.

So when Pete steps down, what then?
Have we got some mystical millionaire waiting to pounce or would you prefer we were Bury or the old Wimbledon and we will rise phoenix like from the ashes or have a merry band of supporters got 50 mill laying about down the back of the sofa.
There's probably 80% of clubs would love to be in our financial position with no risk of points deductions or transfer embargoes. Be careful what you wish for.

If our XG is lower than our scoring it shows the quality of our finishing.

A lot of clueless people seem to think that theres a queue of multi-millionaires waiting outside Pete’s door.

Reality is, getting the level of investment required at a League 2 club is extremely difficult and probably more about luck.