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Saints High On Chances Low On Goals !
Tuesday, 22nd May 2018 10:10

Despite the fact that they were only the 14th highest scoring team in the Premier League last season, only the big 6 beat them in chances created ! So what was the reason why !

Last season Saints scored 37 goals in the Premier League a low total by their own standards of a couple of years ago although ironically one more than Burnley who finished in 7th place.

However startling statistics have emerged that reveal that although the goals for column is sparse, the number of chances created is high, only the top six clubs created more chances than Saints in the season.

Manchester City topped the chart as you would imagine with 360 chances created down to Manchester United in the top six with 276, however in 7th place sit Saints who according to the stats created 254, only 23 chances less, but 31 goals deficit against United in the scoring charts.

But it should be noted these figures are chances created rather than just shots, if you look at the shots figure, Saints total is more in line with their standing in the league, but judging a team by just shots is not always accurate, thundering drives from 35 yards that fly high and wide are not exactly chances, just speculative efforts.

That is why Saints had 448 shots but only 360 chances.

A chance would also be that flashed cross across the goalmouth that no one gets on the end of, a player completely mis kicking in front of goal, even a goalmouth scramble, these are chances where a shot on goal is not got away and perhaps tells the story of why we were in trouble.

It wasn't our ability to create chances that was our problem it was our ability to convert them, how many times did we see that at St Mary's, when we completely dominated games but failed to but them to bed, defeats against Watford, Burnley, Palace and draws against Arsenal, Huddersfield, Brighton and Stoke all saw us create good chances but ultimately fail to take them or in some cases at least more than one of them.

This probably pinpoints the issues we had with playing a lone striker or more to the point not having one that could play the role with the attributes needed.

It highlights all those games when we played Manolo Gabbiadini in that role when we got the killer crosses in but a short player of the Italian's stature was never going to outjump central defenders 6 inches taller than him, it highlights the shortcomings of both Shane Long and Charlie Austin, both good strikers but not suited to that lone role.

So why did we persist in this formation, yes it was creating the chances, but we could all see that we weren't converting them and now the stats back that up, we weren't a poor team we were just playing the wrong formation as many fans were screaming.

But it wasn't as simple as that ! our scoring issues started in January of last season when we lost Fonte to West ham and then days later Van Dijk got injured, at that point we were starting to score goals, when Van Dijk sustained his injury we walloped Leicester 3-0, we went to Sunderland and won 4-0 and we scored 2 at Wembley and then beat Watford away 4-3.

WE had suddenly found our feet going forward, but defensively Puel knew he was screwed, the two central defenders could not mark, nor could they handle pace on the break, two things that enabled us to push men forward under Ronald Koeman.

Puel had to make a decision, try to outscore the opposition or try to sit deep not concede goals and nick one or two at the other end, ultimately he coached us into 8th place, but in doing so he signed his own P45, he could either entertain or he could get results, but he couldn't do both.

In the summer Saints signed Wesley Hoedt effectively a replacement for Fonte, but they failed to deal with the Van Dijk situation either back in August or in January when he had gone, that meant that right from the start Manual Pellegrino had the same choices as Puel to make he could not commit to attacking because he knew the centre of his defence was not up to it, for a while with Hoedt and Van Dijk it worked to a degree, but ultimately the manager could not commit to a second striker because it meant that we got overrun in midfield, nor could he push a man forward in the number 10 role behind that lone striker for the same reason..

So Pellegrino like Puel had no option and once Austin was injured as he was a year earlier , that limited his options even more.

That mean't that as the stats show the likes of Tadic and even Redmond often did their job, they created chances, we just didn't have enough men in the box to make those chances count, that doesn't mean having a second striker but being able to get our central midfielders in there enough.

The defeats at both Newcastle and West Ham were good examples, in both games we went to attack, in both games they blitzed us on the break, it was under two different managers, both committed to attack for two different reasons, Hughes never made the same mistake again, if he wanted validation then the two 3-2 defeats firstly at Arsenal and then at home to Chelsea told him he had to get his team in shape fast.

Saints fans talk about how much better it was to watch under Hughes, although there can be no doubt that the Welshman did a lot to keep us up, the reality is that things did not really change much on the pitch in that Hughes 8 goals scored in 8 games was only a fraction better than Pellegrino's 29 in 30., but in the final four games out of necessity we shut up shop.

The solution to Saints problems is therefore simple, get two central defenders of the quality that we have been used to who can defend against the break and set pieces and not keep conceding sloppy goals, then we can commit men forward to back up the striker, this is the system that worked so well for Ronald Koeman, our failure to replace both Fonte and then Van Dijk has lead just as much to our attacking problems as it has our defensive ones.

The old adage is very pertinent here, a roof tile falls off its easy to fix, you pull out the bottom brick and the whole house starts to fall down.

This summer is crucial, but to fix our scoring woes we need to build from the back !

Photo: Action Images



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helpineedsomebody added 12:02 - May 22
mp & koeman had no problems scoring goals they had a attacking playing system
next season if we play 8 at the back under hughes there lies the problem counter attacking football hit long balls & hope
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bstokesaint added 12:19 - May 22
This sounds like a classic case of bending statistics to suit. I didn’t see every game last season, but can’t think of many games where the opposition goal got peppered or the keeper was man of the match. In contrast I’m pretty sure I once read Charlie Austin’s conversion rate is one of the best the PL has had and is only fractionally ‘worse’ than Thierry Henry’s. I appreciate he spent some time out injured, but if we’d have had that many chances you’d have thought we’d have had more goals. It probably didn’t help that if anyone showed any kind of form in front of goal they got benched for the next game. Plus playing Long as lone striker is never going to reap much of a return. I love his work ethic, but he’s no goalscorer.

On the subject of defenders, I think we’ve got our work cut out for the summer. I don’t see Stephens or Hoedt as good enough. There are too many mistakes between them and Hoedt often lunges in and looks like he’s treading water. Maybe we’ve been spoiled with the likes of Fonte, Lovren, Toby and VVD and what we have now is normal. If it is we will certainly need to be scoring more goals next season!
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saintjf added 12:29 - May 22
Nick, quite right. The strange decision taken not to replace Fonte and VVD when it was known in advance both were going has been at the root of the the decline we have seen. I think the club were looking for central defenders that fitted the 'sell them on and make a profit' type player rather than an experienced centre back who could bring stability and leadership to the back. That player may not have had any resale value but would have more than paid for himself over one or two seasons. Experience and leadership was what Fonte gave us.
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SaintBrock added 13:41 - May 22
The statistics make no sense at all so it must depend on how they define "a chance". As said above if stats don't lie than how come Austin didn't win the golden boot?

It wasn't all Yoshida's fault either!
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SaintNick added 14:27 - May 22
I cant say exactly how a chance is defined, but they used the same criteria for all clubs so its a fair reflection, certainly given the fact that shots on goal are higher then they are not defining speculative pot shots as chances.

Look at Saints stats and most games at home we would have a lot of shots, but not that many on target and even less goals
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1970 added 15:41 - May 22
How many shots did we concede? Because this whole season we were never far away from losing even the very first game against Swansea at home they created 4-5 shots on target then there was the wolves debacle and a lot of other games where we couldn't put daylight between the opposition and ourselves I personally cant wait for the transfer window to get into full swing just so I can hear the s**t that les and ralph come out with,like "how strong we are as a squad" and "we don't need much just a little tweak" I'm sure there are managers out there that can do wonders with our squad with a few tweaks but unfortunately you have to pay money to get them which we haven't done for years, I do hope we get shaqiri though he'd be really good in place of the aging davis coyr.
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aceofthebase added 19:44 - May 23
You keep harping on about the central defenders but they spent nearly every game covering Cedric when crosses came over to the far post. When they failed to cut out the crosses you blame the centre backs. I blame little Cedric.
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TeamCortese added 07:38 - May 24
Nick as usual redirects the discussion to our defence despite the headline being about our chances created. This goes to show that we are not clinical enough and that lies down to our attackers, namely: Austin, Gabbiadini, Long, Tadic, Redmond, Carillo and JWP. 9 out of 10 times attackers win you games not defenders.

The majority of all time great players are attackers. Zidane, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Messi, Pele, Cruyff, Le Tissier. These players fundamentally change games. Aside from Beckenbauer and Bobby Moore there are few other cases of defenders being talked about in the pantheon of football history.

If this doesn't convince people that we need to make wholesale changes to our attacking line-up then I don't know what will. For months if not years I've been saying (for our style of play) we need to replace Pelle and Mane.

The fact that we're still talking about replacing them 2 years on is unforgivable. Someone should really have stepped down by now. Either that or more transparency is needed about the club's ambitions.

This is the perfect time to buy Christian Benteke. Palace clearly want to get rid and he'd really suit our style of play.
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underweststand added 10:38 - May 24
Despite the fact that we had goalscoring strikers the previous season, both Redmond and Long failed to replicate their best ever goals season 2016/17 and th result was miserable.

Gabbiadini's whirlwind start barely raised a breeze this time around, but surely (almost) all is forgiven after his goal at Swansea. We will never know what may have transpired had Charlie Austin been fit for the whole season, and it's a tad unfair to criticise Carrillo coming into a side who couldn't score goals anyway, when you consider the size of his fee was so inflated to a level far above his real value. He may well come good next season.

I expect to see TWO new strikers coming in with Boufal and /or Long / Austin to depart. Redmond to stay because he (hopefully) can't be so poor two seasons in a row.
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