Thursday, October 25, 2007

Three wins in thirty games

Early this week the Times mentioned this statistic in their daily football email. Fulham have only managed three wins in thirty league games. That's pretty poor and clearly representative of the trough we seem to have found ourselves in during 2007. I wanted to know a bit more about that stat so dug out a few facts to put it in context.

The thirty games is divided equally between Cookies last 15 and Sanchez first 15 (5 last season and 10 this).

Coleman
Home: Wins 1, Draws 5, Loses 2
Away: Wins 0, Draws 4, Loses 3
Total: Wins 1, Draws 9, Loses 5 - Points 12

Sanchez
Home: Wins 2, Draws 4, Loses 2
Away: Wins 0, Draws 2, Loses 5
Total: Wins 2, Draws 6, Loses 7 - Points 12

That doesn't really say a lot other than Sanchez has yet to show any improvement on the form that saw Coleman lose his job, but to some extent the figures are skewed as Sanchez are split between last season (5 games) and this season during which time he has completely rebuilt the squad. I feel like I'm probably going over old ground here but stick with me.

To get a clearer picture of how the last 30 games compare with other Premier League teams, I picked two other sides of similar stature and checked their results.

Fulham
Home: Wins 3, Draws 9, Loses 4
Away: Wins 0, Draws 6, Loses 8
Total: Wins 3, Draws 15, Loses 12 - Points 24

Middlesbrough
Home: Wins 8, Draws 3, Loses 5
Away: Wins 3, Draws 4, Loses 8
Total: Wins 11, Draws 7, Loses 13 - Points 40

Reading
Home: Wins 9, Draws 1, Loses 5
Away: Wins 2, Draws 5, Loses 8
Total: Wins 11, Draws 6, Loses 13 - Points 39

Now that really surprised me. Maybe it shouldn't as we've spent the best part of those 30 games in the bottom 5 of the league but I was shocked at the disparity in the number of games won and the corresponding points gained. I'm not sure I can face trawling through soccerbase to see if there's another team with as bad a record as us but I suspect there isn't. We need to start winning games right now and the fightback begins this Saturday. Come on Lawrie show us you've got what it takes and come on you Whites!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice.

I think it’s all linked to this thing about us never winning by more than a goal. We aren’t ever cleaning teams out (or being cleaned out for that matter), so every single game we play is up for grabs. This means a) that anything can happen, so we’re more at the mercy of luck than others, and b) that this is biting us on the @rse more often than not and we’re not winning games we should.

The game’s all about winning matches and it’s surprisingly how seldom we do this isn’t it?

rich

Chopper said...

Spot on Rich, that's our problem. I knew when I said I wouldn't I'd end up doing this. I reckon the only two teams anywhere near as poor as us (as far as points per a game go) are Bolton & Wigan.

Bolton
Home: Wins 5, Draws 5, Loses 5
Away: Wins 3, Draws 2, Loses 10
Total: Wins 8, Draws 7, Loses 15
Points = 31

Wigan
Home: Wins 4, Draws 3, Loses 8
Away: Wins 2, Draws 3, Loses 10
Total: Wins 6, Draws 6, Loses 18
Points = 24

That Wigan can lose 6 more games than us but still claim the same number of points says it all.

I'm going to stop this now :)

Must .. be .. positive!

Anonymous said...

Have only just caught up with your comments this week. First the Derby game was appalling, they failed to play football, keeping it on the turf and passing the ball around which whatever anyone says about Cookie's time the team then managed to put on a good show. This season has almost been a case of "headball" and whilst Seol makes the effort to run with the ball he frequently over-runs the ball or is easily dispossessed. Kamara wants too much time before releasing a shot when often in a good positon and Healey has yet to impress me. We all thought the season ticket price £299 was a good deal but frankly if they don't improve their standard of play soon next season it will only be a good deal at £99.00! Cookie could have probably done better had he be given the cash that Sanchez has had and frankly if LS doesn't start inspiring some better play it will be him who will be departing when the next transfer window opens. Frankly I'm p**'d off with what we've had to put up with so far. It hasn't justified the journey from E. Sussex for home games and I certainly would not bother to travel to away games, let alone come from Holland or anywhere abroad just to see a Premiership game of such poor standards. Read the Programme for Derby's match and from the Man. Director down they all "talk" a good game but all fail to produce the goods, I'm an old F**t who watched FFC in the days of Johnny Haynes, Joe Bacuzzi, Beddy Jezzard and George Cohen and they all knew how to play the ball around and that was in the days of heavy leather balls and rock hard boots with solid toe-caps!!
Keep on bloging you write well but the message is'nt getting to the management - more's the pity!!

Chopper's Dad

Rob said...

Top stuff Chopper. Been away this week so only just catching up on what's been written. A great analysis of the last 30 games...and has made me even more worried!