Goal Difference Vs Top 10 - Are we not scoring enough or conceeding too many?

[tooey]

Attack is the best form of defense. The moment we go in front everybody drops 10 yards, we slow the ball right down and we normally become extremely narrow with our full-backs providing the only real width when we're in possession. What we need is a upgrade on Lennon, somebody that hugs the byline and goes at their fullback. It's all a bit too predictable when you have inverted wingers constantly cutting inside. One thing you can definitely say about Poch, he has his favored system and he doesn't like to deviate too much from it. We need to be far more brave when taking a lead, it may well get you stung a few time's a season, but no more than sitting back and inviting pressure on ourselves all the time.

 

[BK007]

Same old, same old.

We let in goals all the time. We don't score enough.

Not sure why, but we are probably the most open and easy to score against team. W've let in the most PL goals ever.

 

[@Bobby__Lucky]

Same old, same old.

We let in goals all the time. We don't score enough.

Not sure why, but we are probably the most open and easy to score against team. W've let in the most PL goals ever.

Heard that statistic before, a terrible one. on the plus side we are points wise the 5th best team in the premier history.

 

[Strikeb4ck]

We just look clueless against teams that park the bus (been that way for 3 seasons now, shocking) and are too vulnerable at the back.

 

[GLUESODA]

When your goalkeeper is Man of the Match almost every game, it proves your defence is extremely brittle.

My wife (who is not an avid football fan) commented last season that we always seem out-numbered on the field - i've been observing this simple observation over the last year or so and its incredible how other teams positioning always seems spot on, crowded in their defensive duties, and are able to find alot of space between ours.

We generally have to score a stunner to get a goal, but every goal we conceed is fairly soft and generally the outcome of a lapse of concentration, poor man marking, or hopelessly failing to clear our lines

For me personally, our games have become rather predictable the last season and a half. We just have this clumsy, unorganised approch to defending and as a defender myself for the past 15 years, we seem to break alot of basic rules in the way we man mark, our general positioning and the way we organise ourselves at set pieces.

For a while now, our biggest and most glaring weakness is our left side. Most teams we play, especially Liverpool, Man City and Arsenal focus all their efforts on breaking us down in this area to devistating effect

 

[CowInAComa]

We don't score enough.

This has the knock on effect of not killing games off, and giving opponents something to go for right up until the whistle.

We seem to shit our pants when we have a lead.

 

[haxman]

We don't score enough.

This has the knock on effect of not killing games off, and giving opponents something to go for right up until the whistle.

We seem to shit our pants when we have a lead.

Exactly. At 3-0 down with 10 minutes left teams would just give up, whereas at just 1-0 down.....

 

[CowInAComa]

Exactly. At 3-0 down with 10 minutes left teams would just give up, whereas at just 1-0 down.....

Hate to say it but when Arsenal or Liverpool seem to get that goal in front I always feel they actually go up a gear and look to blow the opponent away.

We go into neutral and try and see it out.

 

[DiscoD1882]

Hate to say it but when Arsenal or Liverpool seem to get that goal in front I always feel they actually go up a gear and look to blow the opponent away.

We go into neutral and try and see it out.

we didnt do this under Redknapp and Jol. And it did cost us in quite a few games if i remember correctly. I would be interested to see the stats of goals conceded in the last ten minutes for Jol\Redknapp era and AVB\Pocky

 

[nicdic]

We're definitely better now (in the last few years) in regard to conceding late goals, but we've never been that good at really putting teams to the sword.

 

[yido_number1]

That should help the goal difference!

 

[DiscoD1882]

Probably a good time to bump this with an update.

27th Jan

+\- Goal S +\- Goal Con
Chelsea 19 -11
Man City 13 -8
Southampton 5 -14
Man Utd 4 -9
Arsenal 7 -5
Tottenham
West Ham 3 -5
Liverpool -1 -3
Swansea -6 0
Stoke -9 -3

17th March

+\- Goal S +\- Goal Con

Chelsea 12 -21​

Man City 13 -14
Arsenal 10 -12
Man United 4 -16
Liverpool 3 -12
Southampton -6 -21
Tottenham
Stoke City -13 -7
Swansea City -13 -5
West Ham -7 -5

So to break this down against the top six since the last update in January

1) Tottenham vs Chelsea - Tottenham have scored 7 more goals than chelsea but we've conceded 10 more goals since last update
2) Tottenham Vs Man City - Same goal scored difference since last update, but we've conceded 6 more goals since last update
3) Tottenham Vs Arsenal - Arsenal have scored 3 more goals than us since last update, but we've conceded 7 more goals
4) Tottenham Vs Man united - Same goals scored , But we've conceeded 9 more goals since last update
5) Tottenham Vs Liverpool - Liverpool have scored 2 more goals, but we've conceded 9 more goals then Liverpool
6) Tottenham Vs Southampton - Tottenham have scored 11 more goals than Southampton, but we've conceed 7 more goals

Think this is a pretty telling piece of information if we didnt already know it we are conceding too many goals. our goals scored is fairly consistent with the top four with only Arsenal and Liverpool scoring slightly more than us. But weve conceded more goals against all of the teams above us.

 

[nidge]

When only 4 teams have scored more than you in the league but 13 have conceded less its pretty obvious where we are desperate to improve.

 

[Chris12]

Definitely conceding too many. We have conceded twice as many as Southampton!!

 

[DiscoD1882]

we have conceeded some pretty daft goals this season. Also without Lloris in goalI wouldnt like to think where we would be.

 

[shelfboy68]

Apparantly we have not kept a clean sheet this side of new year fucking diabolical for any team let alone one with top six asperations.

 

[Blackcanary]

Apparantly we have not kept a clean sheet this side of new year fucking diabolical for any team let alone one with top six asperations.

That can't be right as I can think of at least two: Sheffield United home and West Brom away.

This is in no way a defence of our shambolic defending however!

 

[nidge]

That can't be right as I can think of at least two: Sheffield United home and West Brom away.

This is in no way a defence of our shambolic defending however!

They are the only two clean sheets this calendar year.

 

[shelfboy68]

That can't be right as I can think of at least two: Sheffield United home and West Brom away.

This is in no way a defence of our shambolic defending however!

It looks like My bad only one clean sheet in the premier league but yeah your right its still not good enough.

 

[philip]

to be honest - the goals conceded are probably skewed due to big losses v Chelsea, Liverpool and City. Whereas we have not had any big wins this season - even the chelsea game where we scored 5, we conceded 3.......
The only games where we have won by more than 1 goal were the 4-0 win v qpr and the 5-3 v chelsea.

therefore the GD is more down to the fact that we are not scoring enough - IMO.

Completely disagree. We've scored more goals than everyone apart from the top four, 3 more than Liverpool, 6 more than Southampton and only 4 less than ManU. Before Sunday ManU had only scored 1 goal more than us.
Our problem is our defense. We've conceded 42 which is 8th most in the league. And most of those goals have not come in a few big games, we concede in practically every game. We've kept just 6 clean sheets in the league and four of those came in the first 7 or so games.

As my seven year old says, Spurs always win 2-1.

Liverpool have overtaken us and fighting for top four by stopping conceding. They are currently on a 6 game run of clean sheets. Last night they kept another clean sheet and won with a flukey goal.