Shooting Star
Well-known member
Though it wasn’t 3 points yesterday, it was wonderful to come away from a game feeling something close to euphoria. It got me thinking that throughout games I’ve felt that often this season, but by the final whistle it’s usually been deflation. Usually this is because we’ve lost points from an advantageous position. I conducted a quick bit of research to see how long we usually hold to leads.
From my very unscientific study, seven times we’ve held the lead this season and been pegged back. Only once (against Villa) did we come away from the game with three points. Of these seven games we held the lead for:
Man United (2 minutes)
West Brom (43 minutes)
Villa (35 minutes, from Welbeck’s goal to the equaliser)
Southampton (19 minutes)
West Ham (16 minutes and 12 minutes)
Wolves (6 minutes)
On average that’s 19 minutes we’ve held the lead for in these games. From the six we lost points in from that position, we could have had 12 more points from these games if we’d maintained the lead.
I then added in games where we’d lost points from an advantageous position (e.g had gained an equaliser but then went on to lose). If you take these positions into account as well as those above (aside from Villa), we held advantageous positions for an average of 13 minutes before conceding.
Like I said, this wasn’t very scientific and I did this straight before bed, so please forgive me. I imagine there’s a stats website out there that would have already done this work for me.
As we all know, Newcastle was the only game where we maintained a lead from start to finish this season. I think the above is the reason for my unease about how and when we’re going to start winning games. I don’t think scoring is the answer - we can score goals as last night showed. However, we look so uncomfortable when we take the lead in games and as the above shows, we tend to swiftly concede. I think I’d feel better if we were holding a lead until injury time and then conceding, because it would feel like a little bit of luck may see us grind out three points. A win feels very distant and that killer instinct to see off a game is currently absent. This was highlighted to me last night when, with 20 seconds left on the clock, we let a goal kick go straight to Traore, who crossed to an unmarked striker in the box who absolutely should have scored. That would have been a car crash of a goal to concede.
Beating Newport in the FA Cup seems vital to me, only to instil a winning mentality back into the club.
From my very unscientific study, seven times we’ve held the lead this season and been pegged back. Only once (against Villa) did we come away from the game with three points. Of these seven games we held the lead for:
Man United (2 minutes)
West Brom (43 minutes)
Villa (35 minutes, from Welbeck’s goal to the equaliser)
Southampton (19 minutes)
West Ham (16 minutes and 12 minutes)
Wolves (6 minutes)
On average that’s 19 minutes we’ve held the lead for in these games. From the six we lost points in from that position, we could have had 12 more points from these games if we’d maintained the lead.
I then added in games where we’d lost points from an advantageous position (e.g had gained an equaliser but then went on to lose). If you take these positions into account as well as those above (aside from Villa), we held advantageous positions for an average of 13 minutes before conceding.
Like I said, this wasn’t very scientific and I did this straight before bed, so please forgive me. I imagine there’s a stats website out there that would have already done this work for me.
As we all know, Newcastle was the only game where we maintained a lead from start to finish this season. I think the above is the reason for my unease about how and when we’re going to start winning games. I don’t think scoring is the answer - we can score goals as last night showed. However, we look so uncomfortable when we take the lead in games and as the above shows, we tend to swiftly concede. I think I’d feel better if we were holding a lead until injury time and then conceding, because it would feel like a little bit of luck may see us grind out three points. A win feels very distant and that killer instinct to see off a game is currently absent. This was highlighted to me last night when, with 20 seconds left on the clock, we let a goal kick go straight to Traore, who crossed to an unmarked striker in the box who absolutely should have scored. That would have been a car crash of a goal to concede.
Beating Newport in the FA Cup seems vital to me, only to instil a winning mentality back into the club.
