Sorry mate but I don't buy this at all
Stats and figures can be chopped up to read anything you like. Why take the first 3 wins out of the picture?
The only figure that is important is that we are sitting 4th in the table and can beat anyone. All you need is consistancy
I didn't say i bought into it. I offered it as a subject to be discussed. I'm not saying we should take the first three wins out the picture BUT quite often a team can start well thanks to good pre season prep and die off as other teams get more organised/fit. Take a look at the prem table to see it's fairly clear Leicester and West Ham won't sustain those positions. Again, I am not saying I fully agree with it at all because I think we've had a fantastic start, it was more a topic that could be discussed on a forum.
I think we're just adjusting to the injures to Maddison and Willis, first 3 games we had a settled side and looked really good, since then we've had to chop and change with replacing Maddison and Willis, integrating Kent and Murphy and illness to Phillips, O'Brien and Lameiras in the last 3 games.
We're still tinkering with personal and system at the moment to deal with injuries and find a better system away from home. Once we've settled on it and have a more consistent team selection I believe we will see improved consistency in results
remove the first 3 games from all of the teams and then see where we are
I think the first 3 games mask the fact that we are actually an average League one team. Especially without Maddison.
We're not good enough at the back and we have too many young lads in our front four who will be too inconsistent to see us push for promotion.
That might be so (and I sort of agree with you) but it's a ma-hoo-sive improvement on last years squad/team and the football apparently is much better. It's going in the right direction.
Since the Crewe game the standard of performance (in my opinion) hasn't been any better than last season. Burton away we were terrible but got the result, it was a similar performance to the Bury game. Didn't go to Chesterfield game so can't comment on that but a lot of league one games are similar, both teams aren't very good and there's usually one goal in it. If we win it gets glossed over and if we lose we get slated.
First three games were brilliant, but let's not forget in seasons gone past we've been brilliant the first few games then just died a painful death. Not saying that is going to happen this year but the performances since Crewe haven't left me feeling comfortable and and confident of a promotion push.
I said 'apparently' as I've not seen us play yet since the Pompey pre-season game but am going on reports on here when the majority have said that actually, our play has been better.
Fair enough, still not sure I agree with that though. I think the fact we've won 5 games have masked the performances a little.
Really? I don't think we've actually got as many points as our performances merit.
Chesterfield match was a very good performance, could have scored 4 or 5 easily. Southend was frustrating but we still should have won, away performances have been pretty average since Milwall but still should have taken at least a point at Bury and maybe all 3. Only rank performance this performance has been Scunthrope and we still should have seen that match out for a 0-0.
Sorry mate but I don't buy this at all
Stats and figures can be chopped up to read anything you like. Why take the first 3 wins out of the picture?
The only figure that is important is that we are sitting 4th in the table and can beat anyone. All you need is consistancy
Southend we could have easily lost though aswell. Southend was a mergh kind of performance where any of the 3 results you couldn't have argued with. Scunthorpe, Bury, Burton and Walsall we were awful in all 4 of those and they were no different to last years performances!
If you take out the last 8 games we'd be in danger of Relegation
I think Its telling no matter who the personnel we still concede from many set pieces.
Though flawed, it's a fair point.Now before I start, this isn't a whinge or a moan, I don't expect us to win every game and I'm ecstatic about our start and the brand of football we are having the pleasure of watching. Before we kicked a ball i had no expectation of us getting in the play-offs or promotion so my expectation won't change although I will see anything above midtable as a huge bonus. We got off to a fantastic start whilst our last 6 games (away especially) has seen a slight drop off and below is a table of where we would stand if we didn't have the first three wins (call it a settling in to the season period for some teams):
Burton 15
Bury 14
Walsall 11
Colchester 11
Gillingham 10
Sheff United 10
Wigan 10
Millwall 10
Southend 10
Shrewsbury 10
Port Vale 9
Bradford 9
Rochdale 8
Barnsley 8
Peterborough 8
Coventry 7
Swindon 6
Chesterfield 5
Fleetwood 5
Scunthorpe 5
Oldham 4
Doncaster 4
Blackpool 4
Crewe 3
So, we would be 16th in the table. My question is, does this represent a fairer assessment of how we will do over the season or are we just having a minor blip?
Could be argued that we caught teams on the hop those first 3 games and that now teams have sussed out how to play against us.
My own personal view is that teams did indeed study how we set our stall those first 3 games and have tried to counter that.
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