I posted this on another topic, but think it probably deserves its own thread. I was looking at the stats from last night and once again we have dominated possession, set pieces, and shots. However, we lost 2-0. Result aside, it feels like you could copy and paste the same figures for about 80% of our games this season. It got me thinking, so I went through and looked at the goals and assists from our team per player. The list is core squad members, and their stats include their full CCFC career, which obviously means in some cases games across other leagues and not just the Championship.
Fantaky Dabo: 94 games, 5 assists, 0 goals.
Jake Bidwell: 10 games, 0 assists, 0 goals.
Jake Clarke-Salter: 28 games, 0 assists, 0 goals.
Dominic Hyam: 180 games, 1 assist, 9 goals.
Michael Rose: 83 games, 4 assists, 3 goals.
Kyle McFadzean: 112 games, 2 assists, 5 goals.
Ian Maatsen: 33 games, 1 assist, 3 goals.
Todd Kane: 25 games, 5 assists, 1 goal.
Gustavo Hamer: 76 games, 9 assists, 8 goals.
Ben Sheaf: 62 games, 5 assists, 0 goals.
Jamie Allen: 70 games, 4 assists, 3 goals.
Liam Kelly: 144 games, 11 assists, 3 goals.
Jordan Shipley: 160 games, 14 assists, 20 goals.
Josh Eccles: 26 games, 1 assist, 0 goals.
Callum O´Hare: 125 games, 20 assists, 10 goals.
Viktor Gyokeres: 56 games, 5 assists, 17 goals.
Matty Godden: 78 games, 6 assists, 32 goals.
Martyn Waghorn: 23 games, 2 assists, 1 goal.
Tyler Walker: 53 games, 3 assists, 11 goals.
It raises a few points:
- We have some great players in the squad, but there is probably more dead wood not contributing than people think.
- If we are insistent on the wingback system, we need players in those positions to contribute with assists and goals, which they aren´t doing enough.
- If the strikers are having an off day, we are unlikely to score. The midfield are extremely goal shy other than Hamer, who often sits deep anyway.
- There are a few players that had better stats in lower leagues, but aren´t performing to this level.
- Some CBs have more assists and goals than midfielders.
- I know as a CB it isn´t your job to score, but they should be a threat at set pieces. We are extremely poor at utilising them in my opinion (but that is a separate point not necessarily linked to these stats).
People can of course interpret this information as they want to, and I hope we can have a good debate about it. It isn´t just a case of having a go because we lost last night. There is a bigger picture here that probably needs addressing and has been on my mind for a while. Certainly from a personal perspective it gets so frustrating to watch us dominate so many games but come up short too often.
Interested to hear other people´s opinions on this.