| Myth busters for this season - Pragmatic with Passages of Flair FC 23:46 - Apr 25 with 1343 views | unstableblue |
Someone coined Pragmatic FC earlier - love it - but that doesn’t quite cover Town this season
The reaction of fans to this season is a bit weird, and that’s really come out again today on this board - aren’t the facts from today that town played a very good team in strong form, town were ineffective against the WBA challenge for 55mins, deserved some criticism, but defended well and still carved out two clear chances, then took control of the game for most of the second half. And a draw was a fair result. We had more possession, more shots (13) and more big chances (4). Greaves, OShea, Furlong and Walton played really well. Jaden improved us. Burns was very rusty. But we secured a really important draw in a tough game, to really put us in the driving seat.
Yet on this board the weird relationship some fans have with the season has them describing feelings “I can’t stand watching us”, “I’m not enjoying this season”, “we’re awful again” etc etc
Some myths to be busted
We aren’t as good to watch as the 23/24 promotion, that’s true. We have an ability to put in a dud display (Pompey away, Charlton home) on occasion. BUT at times we’ve been bloody good to watch. And we’ve scored some cracking team and individual goals. We’ve had sublime halves of football throughout the season. And have put in strong full match displays including Norwich (twice!), Coventry (twice).
We aren’t as effective this season as the 23/24 season in attack (albeit have higher individual goal scorers, similar shots on target per game, similar XG, higher total big chances this season with two to go,) our pragmatic style has better defensive and possession stats this season.
23/24 was a well gelled, incredibly likeable group, who came under the radar, rode their luck, and built a great momentum, that stumbled along a bit at the end
24/25 is a team who’ve not fully clicked consistently, that has some dud transfers, but many that have bloomed, who are really pragmatic against opponents who treat us not as underdogs but a team to go deep against and play up to.
No one can enjoy this season as much as 23/24; but in context we’ve still played some bloody good football with great individual goals.
In some ways this achievement is just as laudable given the squad shift, transfer duds, and the prem relegation hit.
Furlong, Walton, Matusiwa, Clarke, Philogene, OShea, Taylor… have been great.
With many others improving and giving great moments, McAteer, Nunez, Kipre.
Let’s celebrate it… and get it over the line. [Post edited 26 Apr 0:21]
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| Myth busters for this season - Pragmatic with Passages of Flair FC on 21:48 - Apr 26 with 41 views | pointofblue |
| Myth busters for this season - Pragmatic with Passages of Flair FC on 21:29 - Apr 26 by Swansea_Blue |
People struggle to separate performances and results, as if they only follow us through stats (not aimed at the OP). Results have been ok, well enough to still have us in with a chance of automatics, so you can’t ask for much more than that. We can play well in small spells, but our movement and understanding isn’t there compared to other teams at the top of the division. We are defensively solid in the main though. It’s an inverse to 23/24 when we scored some sublime team goals but were very porous. This year has been the season of individual worldies, at least in the earlier parts of the season. |
It's interesting to say we're good defensively this season, whilst very porous in 2023/24.
Our xGA in 2023/24 was 47.5. Our current xGA, with two games to go, is 44.8. Not that massive a gap, all things considered. Based on xGA we've basically conceded every goal we should have conceded this season whereas, two years ago, for whatever reason, we let in ten goals more. |  |
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