Only a point worse off?

[calvoboy]

Just out of interest, I was looking at how we've done this season compared with the same games last season (not counting WBA and Blackpool as they weren't in our league last year, and I don't think it's as simple as substituting them with either the relegated teams or last year's newly promoted teams). I was pretty shocked to find that we are only one point worse off than we were last season from the same fixtures.

I know the performances, and the manner with which we've been getting the results, are important too. But only one point? After the turmoil off the field, selling Macher and replacing him with Poulsen, and adapting to a new manager's way of doing things. I find that surprising.

Match + difference in points this year:
Arsenal H +1
City A -1
Birmingham A 0
Man Utd A 0
Sunderland H -2
Everton A -3
Blackburn H 0
Bolton A 0
Chelsea H +3
Wigan A +1

Any thoughts? Does it just show what a bad year we had last year? Has the fixture list conspired against Roy making our situation look worse than it is?

[-V-]

Think people have just forgotten how bad we were at start of last season. We lost so many games it was incredible. I think we lost every single game in October bar one

[Lecter]

Just out of interest, I was looking at how we've done this season compared with the same games last season (not counting WBA and Blackpool as they weren't in our league last year, and I don't think it's as simple as substituting them with either the relegated teams or last year's newly promoted teams). I was pretty shocked to find that we are only one point worse off than we were last season from the same fixtures.

I know the performances, and the manner with which we've been getting the results, are important too. But only one point? After the turmoil off the field, selling Macher and replacing him with Poulsen, and adapting to a new manager's way of doing things. I find that surprising.

Match + difference in points this year:
Arsenal H +1
City A -1
Birmingham A 0
Man Utd A 0
Sunderland H -2
Everton A -3
Blackburn H 0
Bolton A 0
Chelsea H +3
Wigan A +1

Any thoughts? Does it just show what a bad year we had last year? Has the fixture list conspired against Roy making our situation look worse than it is?

The fixture list hasnt made Roy look bad

Some of our most abject performances have come against the worst opposition

[Fredo]

I think if we used some of the tactics from last year, we would be easily in that top 4 at the moment.

[dww]

Think people have just forgotten how bad we were at start of last season. We lost so many games it was incredible. I think we lost every single game in October bar one

I don't think that is true. I think what is happening is that people are looking at the performances as well as the past record of Hodgson and wondering if there is any evidence that either performances or results are likely to improve.

In the good passages of play we have seen there is hope we could do better in terms of the personnel. In terms of the tactics adopted I don't think there is.

I think basically everyone agrees that for various reasons the performances last season were unacceptable. No matter who was in charge we had to show improvement, especially as the league has weakened again. We haven't. In fact even the defence you are putting up suggests we are in fact slightly worse than last season when we were abject. I didn't actually think worse was a possibility but Roy has changed my thinking on that.

[danperkins]

I don't think that is true. I think what is happening is that people are looking at the performances as well as the past record of Hodgson and wondering if there is any evidence that either performances or results are likely to improve.

In the good passages of play we have seen there is hope we could do better in terms of the personnel. In terms of the tactics adopted I don't think there is.

I think basically everyone agrees that for various reasons the performances last season were unacceptable. No matter who was in charge we had to show improvement, especially as the league has weakened again. We haven't. In fact even the defence you are putting up suggests we are in fact slightly worse than last season when we were abject. I didn't actually think worse was a possibility but Roy has changed my thinking on that.

IMO it has got much more competitive, i think the results thus far have proved that. The promoted teams are far stronger and playing much better football than previous years, going to the likes of Newcastle,Blackpool.West Brom etc is not considered a given anymore.

[saj]

Just out of interest, I was looking at how we've done this season compared with the same games last season (not counting WBA and Blackpool as they weren't in our league last year, and I don't think it's as simple as substituting them with either the relegated teams or last year's newly promoted teams). I was pretty shocked to find that we are only one point worse off than we were last season from the same fixtures.

I know the performances, and the manner with which we've been getting the results, are important too. But only one point? After the turmoil off the field, selling Macher and replacing him with Poulsen, and adapting to a new manager's way of doing things. I find that surprising.

Match + difference in points this year:
Arsenal H +1
City A -1
Birmingham A 0
Man Utd A 0
Sunderland H -2
Everton A -3
Blackburn H 0
Bolton A 0
Chelsea H +3
Wigan A +1

Any thoughts? Does it just show what a bad year we had last year? Has the fixture list conspired against Roy making our situation look worse than it is?

Im a big fan of statistics so yes you are correct. But the reality is, we are playing poorly. The fact that we haven't had more possesion than our opposition in most of our games this year says it all really. The points gained may be on par with last season, but we are playing much worse football. Wigan outplayed us - BADLY. Never can I recall a piss poor team outplaying us in that manner under Benitez - the only game I can think of is Cystal Palace in Rafa's first season (we did have John Welsh playinng in that game though!). Rafa obviously lost a few games to turd opposition but at least we played OK football.

Roy may get a top7 seven finish, but his style football will never get us challenging for the title. His ability to change a game tactically is virtually non existent.

[-V-]

From my point of view I find it a bit silly that people seem to be so sure that our dreadful start last year was just down to bad luck and bad performances. The tactics were also shocking. Every time we lost or conceded goals at the starts of last season we became even more defensive and played even deeper. That was our biggest problem, the negativity. We played very very deep and obviously the Lucas/Mascherano combo which we persisted with was a major handicap. We have played alot of terrible games this season and I don't support Hodgson but I'll never forget our outrageous gameplans from last season either.

In august we were beaten by Spurs and Villa. In september/october/november we were beaten by Fiorentina, Sunderland, Chelsea, Lyon, Arsenal, Fulham and Everton. Thats a hell of a lot of defeats and alot of it was down to negativity. Btw we also lost Wigan away last season. Same old same old with Liverpool

[calvoboy]

Should probably point out that I didn't put this up as a defence - I just found it interesting as I felt we would be much worse off in comparison with last season than we actually are. Thought others might find it interesting too.

[dww]

IMO it has got much more competitive, i think the results thus far have proved that. The promoted teams are far stronger and playing much better football than previous years, going to the likes of Newcastle,Blackpool.West Brom etc is not considered a given anymore.

I think it is more competitive because more teams are worse. less top players, defenses look shocking almost universally. It's a piss poor league quality wise and the success of the promoted teams is more a damning indictment of the dross that was there than an indication that they are particularly better than teams who have been in the division previously.

[Drago]

**** last season - **** this season

What's new?

[GTi]

**** league this season, which in turn is making it more competitive. Out of interest how many games do you think we should have won this season? And i mean won convincingly? I cannot think of one personally.

[Exiled_red]

Just out of interest, I was looking at how we've done this season compared with the same games last season (not counting WBA and Blackpool as they weren't in our league last year, and I don't think it's as simple as substituting them with either the relegated teams or last year's newly promoted teams). I was pretty shocked to find that we are only one point worse off than we were last season from the same fixtures.

I know the performances, and the manner with which we've been getting the results, are important too. But only one point? After the turmoil off the field, selling Macher and replacing him with Poulsen, and adapting to a new manager's way of doing things. I find that surprising.

Match + difference in points this year:
Arsenal H +1
City A -1
Birmingham A 0
Man Utd A 0
Sunderland H -2
Everton A -3
Blackburn H 0
Bolton A 0
Chelsea H +3
Wigan A +1

Any thoughts? Does it just show what a bad year we had last year? Has the fixture list conspired against Roy making our situation look worse than it is?

The fixture list hasn't made Roy look bad it's the performances that are the problem! Yes we were poor last year but we were much better than we are this year. Also last season we were struggling to get results as we had so many injuries, we were forced to change the team almost week on week, this year we a have a fairly settled team.

Also while I can see why you have taken results of the promoted teams out and no compared them directly with one team or another I don't think this approach is valid, as all the relegated/promoted teams account for up to 18 points a season. If one season we win all those points and the next season we lose them all, we could match results in every other game and be 18 points worse off, this is not an insignificant amount!

If we take the averages of the points we obtained in the home games (3pts) and away games (1.33pts) last season and apply them to the new teams this season we are 4 points worse off (not 1) which would make a significant difference - it would currnetly put us in 5th on 20points 1 point behind City and 3 ahead of Newcastle.

[Fredo]

From my point of view I find it a bit silly that people seem to be so sure that our dreadful start last year was just down to bad luck and bad performances. The tactics were also shocking. Every time we lost or conceded goals at the starts of last season we became even more defensive and played even deeper. That was our biggest problem, the negativity. We played very very deep and obviously the Lucas/Mascherano combo which we persisted with was a major handicap. We have played alot of terrible games this season and I don't support Hodgson but I'll never forget our outrageous gameplans from last season either.

In august we were beaten by Spurs and Villa. In september/october/november we were beaten by Fiorentina, Sunderland, Chelsea, Lyon, Arsenal, Fulham and Everton. Thats a hell of a lot of defeats and alot of it was down to negativity. Btw we also lost Wigan away last season. Same old same old with Liverpool

That was down to our inability to 'break teams' down. Nowadays, teams are having to break us down, we don't create half as much.

Tell me when, last season, we've been in positions such as being outplayed, outpassed and outthought by teams such as Blackpool, Sunderland, Blackburn (at times) and the likes? It's been a recurring theme this season, which to me indicates that we would be much higher up the table with the seemingly 'negative' tactics from last season.

[danperkins]

I think it is more competitive because more teams are worse. less top players, defenses look shocking almost universally. It's a piss poor league quality wise and the success of the promoted teams is more a damning indictment of the dross that was there than an indication that they are particularly better than teams who have been in the division previously.

Personally i think Newcastle/Blackpoool and West Brom play lovely football and its the highest standard, and thats technical standard of football i've seen from any group of promoted teams coming into the premier league.

IMO the league is still the best league in the world, maybe not the most technical but definitely the toughest to play in, best tempo and the most exciting. Top players come and go, the premier league lost Ronaldo & Alonso recently two massive loses and will probably lose Cesc/Torres/Tevez next season. But then players like Van Der Vart come in, a breath of fresh air, and we see the resurgene of likes of player like Berbatov,Malouda and the young talent of Bale,Nani etc and i'm sure more will come class players will come in next season.

Its swings and roundabouts, Barca and Real are flavour of the month and the tax situation helps attract big money players on big wages, sure its rare that superstar will be loyal to a club and stick around forever,seems that most of the top foreign players will eventually go back to the sun and the lifestyle (could you blame them?)

Anyways IMO the league is much more competitive, if you look in the Champs league, Spurs are top of their group, Man United are top of their group, Chelsea are top of their group and Arsenal are top of their group. English teams are still very strong and very much competitive at the top tier, well apart from us of course, but even then we are top of our group in Europa League and Man City joint top of theirs. Shows how strong all the English teams are.