Today's football 12/11/22

Originally Posted by dunk

You don’t just add 50 goals to the frontline though. They may be capable of finishing, but the supply has to come from midfield, full backs, controlling the game, none of which we have.

it's not like we haven't created chances mate. Missing sitters has been the theme of the season. £#%&!ing hell we managed 3 in the first half alone today

We created next to £#%&! all at Villa. And have failed to create anything on plenty of occasions this season. There’s been a few games we’ve looked dangerous, but nothing like enough consistently.

Originally Posted by dunk

We created next to £#%&! all at Villa. And have failed to create anything on plenty of occasions this season. There’s been a few games we’ve looked dangerous, but nothing like enough consistently.

Villa you’re right. Today they should have scored another 2-3 atleast. Most games they make chances and don’t take them. A competent forward should change that.

I also think we lack depth and in the last few weeks the legs just go. Maybe that’s why they’re playing this , pass from deep over the top. They don’t have the legs right now to properly control games? I don’t know , either way, we can improve our chance creation but our finishing is the bigger issue

Originally Posted by Sparky***

it's not like we haven't created chances mate. Missing sitters has been the theme of the season. £#%&!ing hell we managed 3 in the first half alone today

I find it bizarre when people say we don't create chances - this season at least. The chances are there, but we lack a natural top-level striker. It's obvious.

Originally Posted by shenwen

I find it bizarre when people say we don't create chances - this season at least. The chances are there, but we lack a natural top-level striker. It's obvious.

Where are all these natural top level strikers?

Kane, Lewandowski, benzema?

That mutant at city isn't even a footballer. Liverpool paid 100m for a fella who misses far more than he scores.

Originally Posted by shenwen

I find it bizarre when people say we don't create chances - this season at least. The chances are there, but we lack a natural top-level striker. It's obvious.

We could/should have been about 4-0 up at halftime yesterday. I’m giving Martial the benefit of the doubt as it’s his second game in months, but even if he does start bagging more frequently, we need to sign a centre forward who isn’t made of glass.

Originally Posted by NedKelly

We could/should have been about 4-0 up at halftime yesterday. I’m giving Martial the benefit of the doubt as it’s his second game in months, but even if he does start bagging more frequently, we need to sign a centre forward who isn’t made of glass.

Should have scored his header, but I thought he looked good otherwise. The attacking play is so much more fluid with him there instead of Ronaldo.

I hope that isn’t too disrespectful or a betrayal.

Originally Posted by NedKelly

We could/should have been about 4-0 up at halftime yesterday. I’m giving Martial the benefit of the doubt as it’s his second game in months, but even if he does start bagging more frequently, we need to sign a centre forward who isn’t made of glass.

We need one anyway - we have him and that's it now Ronaldo is gone.

Martial is gonna Martial anyway - can't be relied on.

Originally Posted by shenwen

I find it bizarre when people say we don't create chances - this season at least. The chances are there, but we lack a natural top-level striker. It's obvious.

Sometimes we do create chances, at lot of the time we don't. How much of this is down to Ronaldo playing, or Elanga, or Donny, I don't know, but that just emphasises the problem. Just dropping a 35 goal a season tap in merchant into the forward line won't cut it. We need more than that.

Originally Posted by windy waffles

We need one anyway - we have him and that's it now Ronaldo is gone.

Martial is gonna Martial anyway - can't be relied on.

Exactly. I'm happy with how Martial is playing, but the fact is he's hardly played this season at all. Keep him around, but bring in another solid striker to give us options.

Originally Posted by Joe Biden

Where are all these natural top level strikers?

Kane, Lewandowski, benzema?

That mutant at city isn't even a footballer. Liverpool paid 100m for a fella who misses far more than he scores.

Ronaldo

Originally Posted by shenwen

I find it bizarre when people say we don't create chances - this season at least. The chances are there, but we lack a natural top-level striker. It's obvious.

If you give 'XG' any credence, we should have a full 1 goal more scored in the league.

Creating good chances is still a big problem for this side. Which is why we are behind the likes of Brighton and Brentford in that particular stat and they have both outscored us.

I can understand us worrying about chances created when we haven’t created any chances.

Not so much in a week where we’ve scored six in two games and missed several other chances.

Because the game a week and one day ago we created £#%&! all and as a club are currently sat on +1 GD and are among the lowest scorers in the league?

Oh, and as Coracao says above, the xG ain't great either, which is apparently the measure of chances created.

Originally Posted by dunk

Because the game a week and one day ago we created £#%&! all and as a club are currently sat on +1 GD and are among the lowest scorers in the league?

And our response to that was to go and score six in a week. Why pick out the game from a week ago, but not the ones that followed?

We were shite and created £#%&! all at Villa. Agreed. Most other games we create plenty (and miss a lot too. Another issue).

We have a negative goal difference because when we lose, we lose badly. When we win, we perhaps don’t win as comfortably as we should. Like yesterday. Should have been 2 or 3 up at half time, but it wasn’t for a lack of creating chances.

xG literally measures chances and the quality of them. The xG stats for the season state we've not created enough to score more than we have

Not saying I put much stock in it, but it's there

I've watched us, we generally create very little, aside from the Spurs game and the one against the Cypriots at OT (which doesn't count as not PL) and maybe yesterday, we don't create anywhere near enough.

Not taking one side or the other, but isn't XG more a measure of chance conversion rather than chance creation?

Someone could cut back 20 balls across the 6 yard box, but if no-one is there to try and apply finish and convert the chance being created, then it won't count towards any sort of XG stats.

I could be wrong, and to be honest I think XG is a complete and utter £#%&!ing nonsense. But for the sake of discussion...

Originally Posted by dunk

xG literally measures chances and the quality of them. The xG stats for the season state we've not created enough to score more than we have

Not saying I put much stock in it, but it's there

I've watched us, we generally create very little, aside from the Spurs game and the one against the Cypriots at OT (which doesn't count as not PL) and maybe yesterday, we don't create anywhere near enough.

We scored two. I’d say the martial header, the The Scottish Player header and the Eriksen shot wide on half time were clear chances where we should score.

That’s five clear chances I’d expect us to score. Not sure how many more we should expect.

I watch us and see a side still working towards what they want to be. Decision making and finishing in the final third still leaves a lot to be desired and I think this is the biggest contributor to us not having as many goals as perhaps we should. but I don’t see a team just hoping something will happen Like we’ve seen in recent years.

I’m not saying it’s perfect and we can still do better, but I don’t think it’s the glaring issue people make it out to be and it usually comes up at odd times. You had pundits pointing it out afte the Chelsea game. Where we scored as many as the home team who score a penalty. Again, not sure how many goals were expected to rattle in at Stamford bridge.


Edit: Sorry, Dunk. I misread part of your post and thought you’d said we didn’t create enough yesterday.

You’re not wrong. xG is a measure of how likely a shot is to go in, based overwhelmingly on the distance and angle from the goal the shot was taken

It’s a nonsense statistic, and using it to prove we haven’t made many chances is strange

Originally Posted by Ethers

You’re not wrong. xG is a measure of how likely a shot is to go in, based overwhelmingly on the distance and angle from the goal the shot was taken

It’s a nonsense statistic, and using it to prove we haven’t made many chances is strange

It only ever seems to get mentioned when pointing out a disparity between goals scored and expected goals. Which probably indicates it’s got £#%&! all to do with goals scored in the first place.

Par League horseshit. We have eyes.

It's pretty obvious we don't create enough, for those who do actually have eyes.

Something that needs to massively improve if we are to compete again. We've scored 70 or more once in the league in the last 7 seasons. We are on course to fall someway short again. Because we don't create anywhere near enough.