Winning/losing goals

[Eric the Half a Bee]

I'll probably get the usual pointless replies from Sludge and NCB on this, but I thought I'd have a look at our wins and defeats since the 2-0 victory over Bristol City. Since then there's been a pretty consistent pattern.

I've made much of the fact our last 12 league wins have all been by a single goal, creating a club record for the same season. 3 of those 12 wins saw the winning goal scored in the first half; 5 of them saw winning goals scored in the last 5 minutes. Norwich City at home was the last time we entered the last 10 minutes of a game in a winning position but failed to get the points.

We've played 30 league games since the luxury of a 2-0 win (against the Wurzels). With 10 minutes to go:

9 times we've been ahead in the game, winning 8, losing 1.

5 times we've been level in the game, winning 2, drawing 3.

16 times we've been behind in the game, winning 2, losing 14.

Every time we've been 2+ goals behind going into the last 10 minutes we've lost the game. When we've been just one goal behind we've lost 5 (conceding again on 3 occasions) but won 2.

In those 30 games, if there's been just one goal in the game (either way), we've won 12, drawn 3 and lost 6. Nathan Blake mentioned on Saturday that teams won't like playing us late on in games if the score is close and he's right. We seem to close out games relatively easily and often have some fight to turn things around. The issue has been the 11 times we've been 2 or more goals down late on and it's been game over. Over the last 30 games the average time of our winning goal stands at 68 minutes. The average time of our losing goal (where further goals have made no difference) is 34 minutes. That's not great.

[Henry Hill]

wHaTS yUr POinT?

[Dave Blue]

Erol seems to believe that it’s easier to defend early doors but easier to nick goals late on.