Fair enough, but I was also thinking in terms of the amount of money spent in the transfer market this summer which should have been enough to produce better figures than that and a side which has more available to it than just plan A.Originally Posted by Eric the Half a Bee
I've been doing some research of my own on the Who Scored site and since detailed records were first kept (13/14) our figures for 2017/18 in terms of passes per game (278.8), long ball accuracy per game (24.6) and short ball accuracy per game (141) are the lowest recorded during that time apart from the following;-
in Neil Warnock's first season with us (16/17), Barnsley played 23.3 accurate long passes per game and last season Norwich played 23.7 accurate long passes per game - having seen Barnsley's 4-3 win over us in December 16, I would suggest that their figure is so low because they used long passes so infrequently and I definitely saw enough of Norwich last season to know that they did the same. This contrasts with us who have no such qualms about playing them, yet we were very poor at getting them right in our promotion season.
Also, so far this season, Millwall are playing 277.1 passes per game, so there's another figure below ours in the promotion season, but, apart from those three teams, our figures for the three categories are the lowest recorded since records began.
Out of interest, our figures in the three categories for 14/15 (I always say this was one of the most boring seasons I've seen at Cardiff City, with the football played under Russell Slade being mind numbingly dull) were passes per game 349, accurate long passes per game 24.6 and accurate short passes per game 212, while they read 320, 28.7 and 182.7 in Neil Warnock's first season with us (16/17) when I always say I quite enjoyed watching us play after he took over. So far this season, our figures are 279.9, 23 (the lowest figure ever in the Championship) and 150 (the second lowest figure ever recorded in the Championship).
Do the stats suggest our promotion in 17/18 was some kind of freak? I would say that they do, but, on the other hand, the lack of precedents tell us that it cannot be said with any authority that it will never happen again - what i would say though is that our low figures under Neil Warnock (Rotherham is the only side since 13/14 to consistently show figures close to, but not lower than ours) are, in part, explained by the fact we spend so little time in games in possession of the ball.
All in all, I think the stats show why there is a lot of criticism around currently concerning the style of our play - we've had a lot to put up with a lot in recent years in home games in particular, where, traditionally, sides playing on their own ground tend to dominate in terms of possession and passes played.
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