Away Match Day Thread 17/02/2024 L1: Wycombe Wanderers v OUFC

[Northstandboy]

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[MarkG]

I keep seeing "this is a poor league" as a re-occurring theme in many threads.

How has that conclusion been reached and how is this measured? Is this based on any empirical evidence and compared to previous League 1 seasons?

Just wondered how this has been established.

Looking at the league table from this day last year

11v11 league table generator

League tables for any day in football history - going back to the start of the Football League.

www.11v11.com

The top 5 all had goal difference of 24 to 36. and points from 57 to 68
Today the top 5 have goal difference of 19 to 29. and points from 56 to 72

It's not truly comparable because of games played (eg Pompey on 34 games).
But the top five were scoring more and therefore a stronger league in terms of getting into the play-offs.

 

[Paul Cannell]

Who's making the judgement on whether said supporters are knowledgeable or not

They could've been watching 300 games a season for the last 20+ years and still be pretty clueless/myopic/ on what they're watching and they've never actually been involved in football in any other capacity at any level, other than watching it. . . But just because they are confident in their opinions, think this makes them qualified to pass judgement.

On the other hand, they could use all available sources of statistical data on individual and team performances over a long period of time and compare and contrast this to reach a conclusion about how said teams and individuals are performing, comparative to previous seasons.

I think it is extremely difficult, in fact nigh on impossible to say with any certainty whether or not a league is poorer from one season to the next, because there are simply too many variables to factor in to make any meaningful analysis.

Of course one must also consider the veracity and relevance of the statistics, definition and relationship of their values and processes for collection and audit. The value, relevance and validity of statistics should be measured by an independent body uninfluenced by the producers of such statistics.

By the way, referees are always worse each season in the same way that policemen are younger.

 

[Paul Cannell]

Looking at the league table from this day last year

11v11 league table generator

League tables for any day in football history - going back to the start of the Football League.

www.11v11.com

The top 5 all had goal difference of 24 to 36. and points from 57 to 68
Today the top 5 have goal difference of 19 to 29. and points from 56 to 72

It's not truly comparable because of games played (eg Pompey on 34 games).
But the top five were scoring more and therefore a stronger league in terms of getting into the play-offs.

And equally a weaker league in terms of average team quality, making it more difficult to get into the play-offs for the average team. Or something.

Best thing we could do would be to call in Kemi Badenoch or some other unbiased expert to decide for us.

 

[Bicester Yellow]

It's the way that many modern "wingers" play. It's how they are taught , i.e Saka, Foden etc. When he plays on the left, it can work with Leigh overlapping giving width. One thing that confused me on Saturday was that when Harris moved out wide, when Goodwin came on, he moved to the left with Goodrham moving to the right. Goodrham is much more effective on the left. I think he will be come a no 10 type player.

Yes, goodrham is definitely more of a number 10 type player going forward in my view

 

[Foley]

Don’t forget Carlisle. They are woeful. Also Fleetwood.

FGR finished with 27 points. Agree Carlisle are very poor but FGR were worse in my view

 

[CCYellow]

One thing I would say though is how many teams have you watched us play and gone 'they're a very good team'? Only one I can think of is Peterborough. No one else looks much beyond 'decent'.

You only think this because they're the only team to really do a job on us and be inside the top 6.

Both games, Derby were a very good team. Lots of people around me in the home game said at 2-0 "we'd do well to win this". Equally Barnsley are a good team. If these teams aren't good, then why do people keep referring to the away wins as evidence of "how good we were"?

Bolton at home were very good. We were also very good defending against them.

Portsmouth looked well organised against us. I can see how they're top. Stevenage looked good, having a chance to equalise at 2-1 (minutes before our third).

Blackpool "battered" us for half an hour at home.

Leyton Orient played very well against us. They had their fair chances to take the lead in that game.

A lot of teams have looked good. We also look good, though. We're one of the better teams. It's no more poor than last season. We're just better than we were last season.

 

[maidenheadox]

I'm not really sure it's something that can be measured. Any analysis into points totals can be looked at either way.

One thing I would say though is how many teams have you watched us play and gone 'they're a very good team'? Only one I can think of is Peterborough. No one else looks much beyond 'decent'.

Derby absolutely battered us for 80 minutes.

 

[holdsteady]

I was thinking the same. Last season according to many, we stayed up because the other teams were so bad!

I think in reality, there are fewer really good teams because the teams that came down from the Championship have been relatively poor ( Reading, Blackpool, Wigan).

The poorer teams are probably better this season (nobody is as bad as FGR were), and Cheltenham , and even Charlton are not that bad!!

Carlisle are having a pretty good go at being this seasons Forest Green, not that you can judge a league by the bottom team, I wouldn't judge the premier league by Sheff U.

It seems pretty much a similar standard to all of the other seasons we have been here if you go from say 4th to 23rd, the bulk of the teams, its the the third division so a lot of inconsistent teams and players who can look good for a spell then you wonder how they are pros a bit later, doubt this far down they pyramid that will ever change much.

 

[PottersRightBoot]

I'd also say that Peterborough are woeful....at this moment in time. And yet they came here and looked like the best team in the division, but they can't buy a win at present.

Some teams make others look good when they play them, and some teams make others look crap when they play them. So many variables will surely go into why this happens that it is very difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions. All teams and individuals have off days and also have days where everything just comes together . . . and then you have to factor in confidence and momentum, which can always make a team achieve more (or less) than the sum of its parts might otherwise suggest.

You can draw pretty ‘meaningful conclusions’ from the league table.

 

[38yearsofpain]

Based on?

Maybe if you could point to the evidence that teams are misplacing more passes, more shots are off target, more tackles are being missed, more free kicks are being conceeded, less clean sheets are being kept, less goals are being scored, that might be a start. Or even a comparison to previous seasons in terms of points won/goals for/against at this point in the season.

But just take misplaced passes as an example (ie did not reach the intended target). Was it because the player just did a crap inaccurate kick, or was it because of the way the defending team closed the player down to force the error. Was it a forced or unforced error.

Same with shots on/off target - was it unforced, or down to the way it was defended. Or shots/goal ratio - did the keeper have a "worldy"?

Interesting debate on how you define quality. In some ways you can only really assess the following season. Ipswich are in the race to the Premiership whilst FGR are in the fight to avoid falling to the National League. Only Sheffield Wednesday are in the relegation zone in the Championship, that is rare for League 1 promoted sides and only MK Dons are in the mix to return from League 2. That would suggest there was a huge variation in quality between the top and bottom of League 1 last season.
This season there are several teams in transition Reading, Wigan and Charlton. That invariably leads to inconcistency. Fleetwood have an owner in jail and many managerial changes have happened in other League 1 teams.
Those factors all tend to suggest that the league is inconsistent and the evidence of our games suggest that is the case. Whether that is due to lack of quality or teams of similar quality is open to debate.
At this point in time what it does say is anybody in the top 8 putting a positive run together in their remaining games will make the play offs.
The opportunity is definitely real, time will tell if we grab the opportunity.

 

[MustardYellow]

Interesting debate on how you define quality. In some ways you can only really assess the following season. Ipswich are in the race to the Premiership whilst FGR are in the fight to avoid falling to the National League. Only Sheffield Wednesday are in the relegation zone in the Championship, that is rare for League 1 promoted sides and only MK Dons are in the mix to return from League 2. That would suggest there was a huge variation in quality between the top and bottom of League 1 last season.
This season there are several teams in transition Reading, Wigan and Charlton. That invariably leads to inconcistency. Fleetwood have an owner in jail and many managerial changes have happened in other League 1 teams.
Those factors all tend to suggest that the league is inconsistent and the evidence of our games suggest that is the case. Whether that is due to lack of quality or teams of similar quality is open to debate.
At this point in time what it does say is anybody in the top 8 putting a positive run together in their remaining games will make the play offs.
The opportunity is definitely real, time will tell if we grab the opportunity.

Can't both be true? That there are lots of teams who are of a similar quality, and that the quality in question is fairly poor? It isn't absolutely on the floor woeful, but you have maybe 6/7 decent teams and the rest are average at best. The rest make those 6/7 look good.

 

[WEYellow]

The league is and has been for the last few seasons improving in quality every year. Just because a lot of teams are bunched up doesn't make it a poor standard. Teams from 12th above are in the play off race, anyone below that is in danger of relegation if they go on a poor run for a couple of games.

 

[Sheik djibouti]

You can draw pretty ‘meaningful conclusions’ from the league table.

That gives absolutely no indication as to the quality of the league though does it (which was where this started). It is just how they performed relative to each other over 46 individual games.

And we've all been to games where we've come away thinking "how did we lose/not lose that??" Results do not always reflect performance, but the perceived "luck" (probably) balances out over the season, I guess. And then there's the perceived fairness/competence of the performance of officials to add into the mix . . . . .

I just think it's a bold statement for anyone to make that they think a league is weaker/stronger in any given season, which is kind of what I was getting at. Too many variables at play and split second "sliding door" moments. And then to use it as an excuse, or reason to criticise a managers performance just seems too easy and not based in any real evidence.

 

[ZeroTheHero]

The league is and has been for the last few seasons improving in quality every year. Just because a lot of teams are bunched up doesn't make it a poor standard. Teams from 12th above are in the play off race, anyone below that is in danger of relegation if they go on a poor run for a couple of games.

Having watched quite a few games this season (as I am sure you have as well) I really cannot agree that the quality is hugely high this season. Some of the teams I have seen (including Portsmouth who are the leaders) have been very very average and some quite a bit lower than that. I think that last season's Ipswich or Plymouth teams would stand out even more than they did last year.

 

[WEYellow]

Having watched quite a few games this season (as I am sure you have as well) I really cannot agree that the quality is hugely high this season. Some of the teams I have seen (including Portsmouth who are the leaders) have been very very average and some quite a bit lower than that. I think that last season's Ipswich or Plymouth teams would stand out even more than they did last year.

Is this not because we're a better team than last season? Portsmouth have improved ten fold from last season too

 

[Littlemore Local]

This season in the league points have been deducted by an average of 0.5 pts per team. So there's that.

 

[38yearsofpain]

Having watched quite a few games this season (as I am sure you have as well) I really cannot agree that the quality is hugely high this season. Some of the teams I have seen (including Portsmouth who are the leaders) have been very very average and some quite a bit lower than that. I think that last season's Ipswich or Plymouth teams would stand out even more than they did last year.

I like to hear the comments from other fans, and I accept the argument that all football fans are deluded. Under Manning setup Stevenage and Orient (Game after Manning left) fans said we were the best team they had played. Derby, Pompey, Barnsley all thought their teams were playing shite. Manning's teams mostly managed to break the press and protect the ball in most games. There were obvious examples where we failed, Cambidge and Wigan away spring to mind.
I actually think the current trend of pressing at our level means the games are of poorer quality because sides struggle to play out without panic. Consequently the game fragments and teams look lacking in structure. The increasing use of analysts has lead to sides weaknesses being exposed before games and those weaknesses are exploited. The increasing reliance on fitness means teams struggle to carry a maverick because work rate is everything.
Does that mean the quality is worse. Individual players almost certainly not, but in terms of ability play as a team and as entertainment, definitely yes.

 

[Jster]

My impression is that it all seems a lot more athletic and physical this year, at the expense of quality on the ball. Lots of pressing, aerial balls and emphasis on set pieces. No wonder we struggle at times - we have a shorter than average team that would still just rather get the ball down and play. But it's a rare side (Burton) that indulges us.

 

[Sheik djibouti]

I like to hear the comments from other fans, and I accept the argument that all football fans are deluded. Under Manning setup Stevenage and Orient (Game after Manning left) fans said we were the best team they had played. Derby, Pompey, Barnsley all thought their teams were playing shite. Manning's teams mostly managed to break the press and protect the ball in most games. There were obvious examples where we failed, Cambidge and Wigan away spring to mind.
I actually think the current trend of pressing at our level means the games are of poorer quality because sides struggle to play out without panic. Consequently the game fragments and teams look lacking in structure. The increasing use of analysts has lead to sides weaknesses being exposed before games and those weaknesses are exploited. The increasing reliance on fitness means teams struggle to carry a maverick because work rate is everything.
Does that mean the quality is worse. Individual players almost certainly not, but in terms of ability play as a team and as entertainment, definitely yes.

I think that is an extremely good point. Football increasingly requires the sh*t to be analysed out of every single aspect of the opposition, so that nothing, or as little as possible is left to chance. It not only relies on exposing weakness, but also neutralising threat they pose. Does it make for better, more entertaining football, or a more boring cagey, chess-like affair? I guess that all depends on what the team think their analysis has revealed (and how reliable it is too).

I guess that also depends on a whole raft of variables which can alter the course of the game in a split second. It would be an extremely tedious spectacle without all those variables, not to mention human error. And this makes it an often entertaining and often frustrating experience for most of us, most of the time!

And I apologise for commandeering the Wycombe match thread for this debate, maybe we ought to move it to a thread of its own!

 

[Joey]

I keep seeing "this is a poor league" as a re-occurring theme in many threads.

How has that conclusion been reached and how is this measured? Is this based on any empirical evidence and compared to previous League 1 seasons?

Just wondered how this has been established.

I said pre season I'd expect it to be a weak league and I think it has been. We lost Ipswich, who were the best team I've seen down here by a mile, Plymouth who got 100 points and Sheffield Wednesday who always spent a fortune. They were replaced by a decent but nothin special Blackpool side and a couple of clubs in absolute chaos in Wigan and Reading. None of them are any factor at all in the automatic race and Blackpool are the only ones with a shot of the playoffs, and that's unlikely. Usually you'd expect a couple of the relegated teams to be in the shake up but they're all much worse than those who went up last year, basically every team in and around it has been able to move up a few places in the table.

I also didn't much fancy Stevenage, Northampton and Leyton Orient to do much, the fact they're all top half either means I got them wrong and they're actually pretty good, that the league is weaker meaning they've had an easier time of it or more likely a combination of both. If their time had come a year earlier I'd have backed Wrexham and Stockport to be right up there this year.

Next season I reckon a couple of relegated teams will be competing and at least one of the promoted teams. We've not had that this time and I've not seen anyone that impressive bar Peterborough, who have since gone off a cliff.