Our inability to put it together in both halves

[Mr Popodopolous]

I touched upon this in another thread but it's such a glaring theme in the season I think it perhaps deserves a thread of its own.

An obvious point- this season we have either rallied from behind, or thrown away points. Only real middle ground I can remember (in a positive sense as opposed to crap throughout i.e. Fulham the other week) is Fulham away and Leeds at home. Solid first half, stepped it up 2nd with some hanging on. At Fulham got an early lead, ran riot in 2nd.

Very seldom- those 2 aside however- is it the case this season that we have done it throughout? Is it tactics? Substitutions? A mentality problem- one thing is for sure though, it's a huge problem.

Some contrasts:

Quote

 

Scored-Conceded/15 min     Scored-Conc./10 min     Leading/Trailing     Goal types     Goals by half

• Total 
• Home 
• Away

 

Home	0-15	16-30	31-45	46-60	61-75	76-90		1st half	2nd half
Aston Villa	2 - 0	6 - 3	4 - 3	1 - 4	3 - 1	7 - 5		12 - 6	11 - 10
Barnsley	7 - 3	3 - 4	3 - 5	5 - 7	1 - 7	9 - 3		13 - 12	15 - 17
Birmingham City	1 - 0	4 - 3	3 - 3	2 - 4	5 - 3	6 - 10		8 - 6	13 - 17
Blackburn	3 - 5	4 - 5	5 - 2	1 - 2	5 - 2	4 - 8		12 - 12	10 - 12
Brentford	3 - 1	3 - 4	4 - 1	6 - 0	2 - 5	11 - 7		10 - 6	19 - 12
Brighton & Hove	5 - 2	4 - 3	4 - 1	9 - 0	6 - 2	8 - 1		13 - 6	23 - 3
Bristol City	0 - 2	1 - 5	2 - 3	4 - 2	6 - 3	7 - 5		3 - 10	17 - 10
Burton Albion	4 - 2	2 - 0	2 - 6	5 - 2	2 - 3	3 - 4		8 - 8	10 - 9
Cardiff City	5 - 1	7 - 3	2 - 3	3 - 2	2 - 4	5 - 8		14 - 7	10 - 14
Derby County	2 - 1	3 - 3	2 - 2	3 - 3	9 - 2	2 - 3		7 - 6	14 - 8
Fulham	2 - 3	2 - 3	8 - 4	6 - 5	8 - 5	5 - 2		12 - 10	19 - 12
Huddersfield	5 - 0	2 - 2	4 - 4	6 - 2	2 - 2	6 - 3		11 - 6	14 - 7
Ipswich Town	5 - 4	0 - 1	4 - 6	5 - 5	4 - 2	4 - 2		9 - 11	13 - 9
Leeds Utd	0 - 1	5 - 1	3 - 0	4 - 4	4 - 2	8 - 4		8 - 2	16 - 10
Newcastle Utd	6 - 1	6 - 3	3 - 4	9 - 3	5 - 3	8 - 3		15 - 8	22 - 9
Norwich City	9 - 2	8 - 0	2 - 1	3 - 3	5 - 6	10 - 4		19 - 3	18 - 13
Nottm Forest	1 - 1	2 - 5	5 - 4	6 - 2	5 - 4	8 - 6		8 - 10	19 - 12
Preston	5 - 1	3 - 6	7 - 3	3 - 2	4 - 3	7 - 6		15 - 10	14 - 11
QP Rangers	3 - 2	4 - 6	1 - 2	2 - 6	4 - 5	3 - 4		8 - 10	9 - 15
Reading	3 - 1	4 - 1	5 - 2	5 - 3	2 - 3	7 - 3		12 - 4	14 - 9
Rotherham	5 - 1	3 - 3	4 - 5	4 - 2	2 - 5	2 - 9		12 - 9	8 - 16
Sheffield Wed	2 - 1	2 - 2	4 - 6	2 - 0	3 - 2	11 - 3		8 - 9	16 - 5
Wigan Athletic	2 - 3	1 - 2	3 - 4	0 - 1	4 - 4	2 - 4		6 - 9	6 - 9
Wolverhampton	1 - 4	2 - 2	1 - 7	4 - 1	5 - 4	6 - 8		4 - 13	15 - 13

We are the worst at home- pretty much. Wolves are the only ones in a similar boat and that leaves us with a mountain to climb 2nd half, week after week. Now to our credit we did it early in the season, first 3 months in fact- terrific. Players, management, whoever though- cannot keep pulling a rabbit out the hat each week to save us, as we are seeing now. It's just unsustainable such a slow start at home week in week out- it catches up in the long run.

Scored-Conceded/15 min     Scored-Conc./10 min     Leading/Trailing     Goal types     Goals by half

• Total 
• Home 
• Away

 

Away	0-15	16-30	31-45	46-60	61-75	76-90		1st half	2nd half
Aston Villa	1 - 1	3 - 3	1 - 5	0 - 3	2 - 5	1 - 5		5 - 9	3 - 13
Barnsley	0 - 2	4 - 1	4 - 4	3 - 4	5 - 3	8 - 5		8 - 7	16 - 12
Birmingham City	3 - 3	2 - 5	3 - 5	4 - 1	3 - 5	0 - 7		8 - 13	7 - 13
Blackburn	0 - 3	2 - 3	2 - 4	1 - 5	6 - 6	4 - 5		4 - 10	11 - 16
Brentford	2 - 3	2 - 8	3 - 3	2 - 6	7 - 1	5 - 9		7 - 14	14 - 16
Brighton & Hove	2 - 5	4 - 1	0 - 2	2 - 4	7 - 2	6 - 3		6 - 8	15 - 9
Bristol City	3 - 4	2 - 4	7 - 2	3 - 7	3 - 4	6 - 9		12 - 10	12 - 20
Burton Albion	1 - 4	4 - 5	4 - 3	3 - 5	1 - 2	3 - 11		9 - 12	7 - 18
Cardiff City	0 - 3	3 - 3	4 - 6	4 - 6	4 - 2	8 - 8		7 - 12	16 - 16
Derby County	4 - 3	1 - 2	3 - 2	1 - 1	2 - 2	4 - 6		8 - 7	7 - 9
Fulham	0 - 1	3 - 3	8 - 1	3 - 4	5 - 4	6 - 4		11 - 5	14 - 12
Huddersfield	2 - 5	4 - 2	3 - 6	2 - 4	2 - 4	6 - 2		9 - 13	10 - 10
Ipswich Town	2 - 1	1 - 2	1 - 7	3 - 4	3 - 4	3 - 4		4 - 10	9 - 12
Leeds Utd	1 - 2	3 - 5	4 - 1	2 - 4	6 - 2	6 - 8		8 - 8	14 - 14
Newcastle Utd	3 - 1	7 - 2	4 - 1	5 - 2	3 - 1	5 - 3		14 - 4	13 - 6
Norwich City	2 - 3	4 - 5	4 - 4	7 - 4	4 - 10	1 - 6		10 - 12	12 - 20
Nottm Forest	3 - 6	3 - 5	4 - 4	2 - 4	2 - 12	5 - 5		10 - 15	9 - 21
Preston	1 - 2	5 - 4	3 - 3	1 - 1	2 - 5	5 - 5		9 - 9	8 - 11
QP Rangers	0 - 5	3 - 1	2 - 3	4 - 5	2 - 5	9 - 4		5 - 9	15 - 14
Reading	3 - 2	3 - 3	2 - 7	2 - 6	3 - 7	8 - 7		8 - 12	13 - 20
Rotherham	2 - 7	1 - 7	2 - 7	2 - 11	2 - 6	3 - 14		5 - 21	7 - 31
Sheffield Wed	3 - 2	4 - 2	2 - 3	4 - 3	1 - 2	4 - 7		9 - 7	9 - 12
Wigan Athletic	2 - 6	1 - 3	5 - 2	2 - 3	3 - 2	5 - 6		8 - 11	10 - 11
Wolverhampton	2 - 7	1 - 2	6 - 0	3 - 1	4 - 2	4 - 6		9 - 9	11 - 9

Ironically, on the road shows a different pattern. I can accept Saturday may happen as Newcastle are promotion bound. Less forgivable however is some of the other games- Derby and Sheff Wed away, 3-5 points donated in a 2nd half depending how you measure it as to whether a draw at Sheff Wed could have been acceptable.  Am sure there are other games too but those two stick out for me. We are by no means the worst in the 2nd half away from home but there's certainly a marked drop off!

 

 

[Jin]

Problem solved! Play the 1st half away and the 2nd half at home! Simple. 

[BobBobSuperBob]

Got to say it's a very strange trend / habit

To some / largish degree some occurrences can be put down to the lead capitulations that have been discussed - low confidence, panic etc etc

The second half rallies seem a while ago now and would be seen as not unusual for most sides by the very nature of the game, especially on home turf (And to a large degree the home rally will effect our away second half performances)

As for the hardly ever two halves in consistency - bizarre - the easy / obvious answer would be we've been done tactically for at least part the game but you would have to go back and properly scrutinise each game to gauge how much truth there is in this 

It would appear that Saturday was on the right lines 

From what I've seen and particularly from those that travelled , I get a brief resume as 

Spirited throughout

Bright football first half and threatened goals and got two

Defended pretty well throughout

Kept shape generally throughout

Pushed back second half and limited attacking threat (But in front of 50000 at SJP hardly a surprise)

I do get the impression ( If I'm wrong those who went please correct me) that we were consistent in a number of aspects on Saturday and the only inconsistency was Newcastles performance and we played well when they weren't at it and were under the cosh when they got rolling (As I said no shock / disgrace)

So as for Saturday , despite surrendering a two goal lead in the second half I see a hope of putting a full 90mins together 

Are we about to turn a corner ?

As I've said on other threads we will know a lot more by 5pm Saturday

My honest answer about why we've been so inconsistent half wise  - I can't make it out at all !

[italian dave]

And at Fulham, although we took the lead, we were poor first half and very lucky not to be behind at half time. 

Conversely, I really felt at Derby that despite the apparent 'game of two halves' we got the game plan spot on 2nd half, and if Taylor hadn't missed the easiest chance he'll ever get, soon after their first, we'd have won easily.

None of which goes any further to explaining it! Somehow we've gone from conceding a goal being a wake up call to it being a cause for panic! Got to be a confidence thing that? 

 

[Ireneisagavsgod]

Couldn't agree more I haven't got a clue as to why it is either . I don't want to start another lj out thread but this is one thing that is down to the coaching staff imo

[Jerseybean]

6 minutes ago, italian dave said:

If Taylor hadn't missed the easiest chance he'll ever get, soon after their first, we'd have won easily.

Ditto Tomlin and the missed penalty at Sheffield Wednesday.