ExiledAjax

Cooking the books a little there surely? We went out in the first round of both cups last season - so total goals scored was 64 in 48 - 1.33 per game. This season we played 7 cup games, scoring 14 (if my counting is correct) - so that's (55+14)/53 = 1.30 per game. As I say; at best plateauing. Can you get top 6 with a record of 1.33 or 1.30 goals per league game? The answer is yes (you can even do it with worse), but the teams that have managed it this season have conceded 1 or fewer per game. We've conceded 1.22 per game in the league (1.24 if we include cup games) so we need a further big defensive improvement unless we drastically improve up front. Yes at home our shots ratio is positive - slightly. Away is poor though and roughly the same as last season. Overall we still tend to allow 2 more shots than we take (although I concede that is down from 3.8 last season). But this is attacking output v defensive. I said our defence has improved. Attack hasn't though. Excuse the rough nature of the following, but you can see it's pretty flat across the last 92 matches, and also we broadly track our xG so it's not luck or misfortune that's keeping our numbers down - they are about what we deserve. Season Goals Shots Shots on target Shots on target % Goals/SoT xG 2021/22 Home 33 253 89 35.2 0.37 30.89 Away 29 223 78 35.0 0.37 26.61 Total 62 476 167 70.2 0.74 57.5 2022/23 Home 30 262 83 31.7 0.36 31.85 Away 25 187 94 50.3 0.27 25.64 Total 55 449 177 81.9 0.63 57.49 That away shot on target % though...woof. Shame we didn't convert more. Anyway, Pearson improved us hugely in 2021/22, and he's improved our defence hugely this season. Next season is, for me, about building on that and improving the supply to the forwards so that they can finish the chances and get us those extra dozen or so goals that should bring us the extra 10-15 points we need to get to the mid-60s and so give lady luck the chance she needs to push us into 5th or 6th. The million dollar question is: Can Pearson et al do that?

Not every metric..shots for and shots on target for are down slightly on last season. We've scored 7 fewer goals in the league. XG for is also very, very slightly down. All are up compared to when Pearson took over, but our attacking output has worsened or at best plateaued compared to last season. Our improvement this season has been in defence. Improve the attack to the same degree next season and we might finish top 10.

Who...the jury is currently out on.

You need squad depth to cope with 46 games and the injuries that come. For well documented financial reasons we lack depth. We were never in a position, with the tools required, to take advantage of the opportunity presented by Watford and Norwich's weak showings. We've improved our Goal Difference massively, improve it by another 10-15 next season and we're in with a chance. Some great performances, @NickJ's drawings, Conway's coming of age, Sam Bell, Cam Pring, Vyner, and some bold decisions in January. On the negative side we lost a top CEO, launched some awful kits without any consultation or communication, and had a weird little protest around Christmas. A solid season overall, but next season anything could happen.

Close. 60 was always a hard ask.

Solid season. Well done everyone.

The ultimate mid table GD. Currently W15 D14 L17 GD -1

Smashing stuff

87% pass completion so far, and we've made more than twice as many accurate passes as QPR. Lovely.

Game's sparked into life a bit after a scruffy and cagey opening 20 mins. Been end to end stuff for the last 5 minutes or so.

First 5 mins all QPR

Yes it's risky, yes it rarely leads to a goal, yes it's not their job...but I love centre backs who run forward with the ball up the middle of the pitch. Webster and Ayling were a joy.

HWR to play League Cup first round in August maybe? Suspect he'll get some exposure in the pre-season friendlies as well. Depends on Bajic's future a bit I guess.

Some very Scottish flavour to the strikers today.

They had two shots, cumulatively those two shots generally had about a 9% chance of scoring the Gas a goal. They got lucky and the 10/1 chance came off.

I see what you did there ? And yeh, we've all been robbed of drama by financial ineptitude.

If Everton cannot sell those players then you're essentially expecting a modern day version of our own Ashton Gate 8. Possible I grant you, but unlikely in the modern world of the rich and litigious.

They also reportedly only have wage reduction relegation clauses in the contracts of players signed this season. If that's true then any player signed prior to last summer is entitled to their Premier League wages for the rest of their contract. So a fire sale would be necessary in order to not have multiple Jack-Rodwell-at-Sunderland types on £50k a week.

Unless there's an option for clubs to operate outside of it. That's how it works atm with iFollow. We opt to not use iFollow, but agree to match it's prices. The FAQ says it will "effectively" replace iFollow and club streaming, but that leaves room for options. And you're correct that international streaming might operate differently.

Quite probably. General life expectancy of a prompted is less than 10 seasons. Most go through the cycle.

Even without that Brighton could buy our entire squad about 4 times over I expect. Ludicrously well run club that's milked every penny out of the Premier League and sucker clubs like Chelsea.

They are in the Premier League and this season have already collected about £100m in transfer net spend. They reportedly collected another £20m(ish) in compensation for Chelsea's poaching of Potter. Selling Mac Allister will net them even more. Yes. Yes they can afford it.

Player's player is the prize I'd want if I was a player tbh. It's the real quiz. If I'm Tommy Conway I'm fuming that Scott was eligible for YPOTY after winning last season btw.

If we're top 6 in January 2024 and look reasonably likely to make a play off push then I think you'd see at least 1,000 half STs sold (I'd probably buy one and I live 150 miles from AG). Were we to actually get promoted then (subject to pricing) yeh I expect we'd shift something like 17,500 - everyone would renew and I guess you'd see a decent number of new sign ups. That first season up in the top flight I think we would see sell outs for all of the "Big 6" home games, and we'd get pretty close for the other 13 games. I'd just add that personally I would rather we sold out AG as it is than add another 10,000 seats and only fill 80% of it. I went to the King Power the other day (32,000 cap) and it was full

That's happened only 4 times in the last ten seasons, and one of those was Abraham returning to Chelsea. The other 3 are Baldock in 13/14, Reid in 17/18 and Webster in 18/19. We've not sold or released our POTY in the same summer as his award win since Webster.