*WARNING* Data driven blog – no tactics or video here. *WARNING*
I think the title is an awfully apt one, don’t you? A couple of draws away from a second successive Top 6 spot, yet at points we were teetering on the edge of those draws going against us and finding ourself in a dog fight – that’s just how tight the league was this year for large spells.
It’s fair to say that we have earned the joking nickname of Drawdee FC among some circles. 5 draws more than our nearest challengers in the Draw League ( Hearts & ICT on 10 each) which is more than both our Win and Loss tallies. So there’s probably nothing better to analyse than this. Why so many draws? What could(‘ve) been done to stop this?
The balance of our draws is even as can be – 7 at home and 8 away, so that isn’t the source issue. Looking at the core numbers I am lead to the thought that we have different issues home and away.
In the home draws, we have been the Bookies favourite for 6 of the 7 games (Celtic are the exception), and in those games we have taken more shots than the opposition (75 -v- 56), and hit more of them on target (43 -v- 26) giving a Shots on Target % match of 57% -v- 46%. This isn’t any real difference to the home game average of 55% -v- 47%, so we can disregard that as a major issue.
Looking across the spectrum however, we are committing LESS fouls in the games we draw at home than those we win by a very large margin. In winning games we are committing 12.7 fouls per game compared to 8.7 in draws, a very large discrepancy compared to the difference to losses which is 9.8 fouls a game (see table below).
Compared to away from home results it is even more stark. We average 11.3 fouls away from home. Broken down to Wins – 10.75, Draws – 11.625 and Loses – 11.5. This is a much flatter share, which can easily come down to a number of lesser factors.
A fairly reasonable conclusion to take from this is that the game where our players show more “dig” and enforce our control on the game, we win. Games where we withdraw or allow teams to play more expansively, we are losing points. It becomes evident we must find more aggression and control over games to win them.
Away from home is much harder to break down looking at core numbers, but indeed there is even an argument that it is a bigger issue. We amassed just 20 points away from home this season (with 1 more to go), which is the third worst road record in the league behind United (15 pts) and Ross County (18 pts), and is tied with Hamilton.
This could be more of a tactical issue as of the 6 games where there were goals in the draws, we managed to blow leads in 4 of them. Shoring up the defence would be a great way to stop leaking these single goals which lead to points hindering us from making the Top 6 – and is a full reversal from last season being a side so reliant on away points. We are currently 5th in the Home Table standings on a fine 28 points – a draw converted in to a win away from being tied 4th with St. Johnstone.
That’s my short review of one of our issues this season – expect a full 1500 worder once I’ve re-charged my batteries battering Baseball Statistics in Chicago.
Keep It Dark Blue.
Dundee Tactics 