As you know, I haven’t seen a minute of League One action yet this season.
I’m looking forward to getting back to the Bank next weekend and finally feeling a part of this season. With one win and one defeat, the euphoria of almost making the top seven has worn off quickly for some, and it appears the goodwill demonstrated by the applause against Portsmouth after their second goal has waned.
I’ve seen a few comments along the lines of us playing too many long passes, not creating enough, and not being clinical enough, and I wondered which of those perceptions were factual. The thing is this: an opinion on how we’re doing is based only on what we see at Lincoln, rather than the whole division. For instance, we’ve scored three, but not scoring five or six may feel like we’ve been wasteful – whereas Cambridge, with an xG of more than four and no goals, might disagree.
How do we rank for a number of the key metrics after just two matches of the season? Are we really long ball and do we really lack creativity? Or is that a perception gathered from just two matches that don’t tell a story at all just yet (spoiler alert – whatever I write from here onwards, it’s two matches or 4% of the season overall)?
Shots
It’s possible we feel we haven’t created enough, but with 21 shots in two matches, we’re in the middle of the pack across the division. The highest number of shots is Huddersfield with 31, the fewest Shrewsbury with 13. However, Huddersfield’s shots are, in the main, quite speculative, and they’ve hugely outperformed their xG.
Shots on target we’re actually third in the division, with 47.6%. Only Bolton and Peterborough have been more accurate, which is a good thing – if we keep shooting, we will score more goals. We’re also second in the division for headed shots, our seven is bested only by Rotherham with eight. Of course, the detractors will say that’s too much long ball, but it points to us getting the ball into the box more.
When it comes to shots from outside the box, we’re 20th in the division, so a majority of our efforts on target come from efforts in the box, which I also think is a huge positive.
Touches in Penalty Area
It’s quite remarkable that so many of our chances have come from inside the box, especially when you note we are 15th in the division for touches in the box. I’m actually encouraged by this—at this stage last season, we were bottom four, and it shows a progression in how we attack. People forget how badly we attacked until Michael Skubala arrived, and now we are attacking, the complaint is not scoring enough—but you have to attack to score, and we’ve got the first bit right.
Also, we may have just faced two teams who are better than we give credit for – Burton have had 47 touches in the box, the third-highest in the division, with Barnely on 40, eighth highest. What is curious is Barnsley only had eight against us, showing we stifled them somewhat this weekend, even if we did lose.
Long Passes
Ah, the get-it-forward brigade would have been happy this weekend, as I’m told we started to go really long. We only played ten more long passes than Barnsley, with seven more accurate than our visitors, but how do we rate in the wider division? It’s no surprise that Wycombe are top with 128 and Peterborough, known for their passing game, bottom with 83. But where are we? Second? Third? Surely we must be given the criticism of always going long.
Well, no, we’re not. On 110, we’re actually 11th, pretty middle of the range. We’re actually third for long pass accuracy (59.1%), meaning it’s not just hopeful punts, but actually, we have a high success rate with our long balls compared to others. Only Stevenage (shock) and Barnsley have a better return from their long passes.
We’re also doing quite well on progressive passes (explanation here), which is another huge positive. We’ve played 156 of these passes, the seventh highest in the division. However, our accuracy is a little lower, 68.6% or 13th, just below average. This could be a lack of accuracy from the passer, a missed run, a checked run, that sort of thing.
Defence
We have exhibited some quite poor defending, but on the whole, we should be doing better. Only one team (Birmingham) has had fewer shots against than us on 15. The divisional average for shots against is 22.54, and the worst performers, Mansfield, have faced 42 shots. We’re also sixth for % success of defensive duels, 67.7% putting above the average of 65.5%, and only behind Orient, Burton, Wrexham, Wycombe and Bolton in terms of success.
Our xG against makes decent reading – 1.99, which underlines how individual mistakes have hurt us, as we’ve conceded four goals. That puts us behind seven teams, one of which is Barnsley. I underestimated them this weekend, and despite us being the better side, there’s not as much shame in losing to them as I felt there might have been at full time.
Maybe we do need to be a bit nastier – we’ve committed the joint-lowest number of fouls in the division (19), and picked up the second-fewest yellow cards. However, fouls and yellow cards wouldn’t have stopped the silly goals we’ve let in, but the numbers speak for themsevles – we’re not actually doing bad, aside from in the odd individual moment.
Conclusion
This might seem obvious, but there are two factors I think we need to improve upon. However, it is important to note that these are not fundamental issues – in the main, we’re doing alright. We move the ball well, and we’re accurate when we go long, but we’re certainly not a ‘long ball’ team. We create chances, and we don’t face an awful lot, showing that we’re organised and heading in the right direction.
Of course, with an xG of 2.20 and actual goals of four, the assertion we ‘need someone who knows where the goal is’ isn’t entirely accurate. That said, we have touches in the box and create plenty of shots, so perhaps we need a little bit of luck going forward as much as we need a new face.
If we can cut out those silly defensive mistakes, I think we’re going to be a top ten team again. There’s evidence in the numbers that we’re doing some things right, and one defeat against last season’s beaten play-off semi-finalists doesn’t change that.
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