That all-important 10th game

[cadleigh]

It's not, of course, it's just a random number. But if you are going to form an opinion on anything, having a baseline is a good start. My doubts about Martin firmed up at Fulham away, which was his match-day 10, so it seems only fair to offer a few thoughts on Duff on his tenthiversary.

We have 12 points (we had 10 at this stage two seasons ago), a goal difference of +2 (was -5), and we are in 15th place and rising (as opposed to 19th and falling), average possession is 54% (was 63%), XG is 1.37 (was 0.94) and XGA 1.42 (down from 1.47). By all measures other than possession (bearing in mind that we had not yet played Cardiff at this point), Duff is doing a better job than the last manager at this point in time.

More to the point, we are now seeing Duff's vision come into focus, and it looks an awful lot like what most of us have been hoping for for what feels like a very long time now - 'keeper who can play the ball on the ground as well as being a safe pair of hands, solid defence, sharp passing, lots of forward momentum, high press and not afraid to use the occasional diagonal long ball a la Ash. Clearly we are not succeeding in doing all of that for 90 minutes yet, but we have been increasing the proportion of the game when we do play that way in every one of the last four matches.

Still very much early days/a work in progress, but I am increasingly optimistic for the future.

 

[cadleigh]

PS the average league position of teams we played against in the first 10 games two years ago, by matchday 10, was 11th, compared to 12th today, so no real difference in the quality of opposition faced.

 

[waynekerr55]

Long may it continue. Happy to be proved wrong after the dreadful start

 

[Dr. Winston]

Interesting read.

There is certainly still a long way to go and even after the Millwall performance Duff was saying the same thing. I tend to feel that we're a couple of players in attacking positions short of where we'd want to be, an issue exacerbated by the loss of Ginelly.

However, you'll never achieve anything in football if you leak goals like a sieve. Martin never understood that, but after an iffy experiment with three at the back hopefully now Duff has settled on a four and we look a lot more solid. If we can keep the defence tight and be competitive up until Jan, then we can look to see who we can add to give us a bit extra in the final third.

 

[cadleigh]

I forgot that Martin didn't have a pre-season before his first campaign, so in the interests of fairness, here are the equivalent figures from last season (this season in brackets).

After Matchday 10
Points: 12 (12)
Position: 16 (15)
GD: -2 (+2)
Goals scored: 10 (15)
Goals conceded: 12 (13)
Possession: 61% (54%)
XG: 1.2 (1.37)
XGA: 1 (1.42)