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With almost a quarter of the season in the bag let’s analyse our start…at the point every team had played 10 games!

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1. Position – 18th (+1 from Apr 2023)

Only one place higher than where we finished the “great escape” last term so obviously mildly perilous!

In the “home table” we are also 18th but a lofty 15th in the “away table” but obviously very early days for home/away metrics with only 5 games played apiece.

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2. Points – 11 (1.10 ave. UP from 1.04)

Again marginally better than the average from the last campaign. However, if we focus purely on Wilkinson’s record, he maintained a mean of 1.21 after being appointed in 2022/23 so he is down on that so far this season.

Keeping up a rate of 1.10 PPG will bring in 50/51pts compared to 48 in 22/23…safety a probability with that total…just…

At home we have 5 points from 5 games at a 1.00 average (compared to 1.04 last season so practically identical).

Away from the Bob Lucas two wins give us 6 points from 5 games (1.20 compared to 1.04 last season so faring a little better at this early stage).

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3. Goals scored – 11 (1.10 ave. DOWN from 1.28)

A noticeable concern as we are not rustling the onion-bag as much as a poor season last campaign and we rank 18th of 24 in this metric.

Additionally we have only scored in 7/10 outings(70%) – matching the 22/23 percentage almost exactly.

Additionally we have scored 2+ goals in 3/10 games(30%)…last term we did better, managing 37%.

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4. Goals conceded – 15 (1.50 ave. DOWN from 1.70)

We are conceding less than last season but frankly that was a low bar to shimmy under! Again we rank 18th of the 24 teams for GA.

Just the one clean sheet(10%) is way down on the 10 last season(22%) although not conceding in the next game would mean we aren’t far off.

In four games we have conceded 2+goals 40% of the time, down on the 50% in the previous campaign so another small improvement.

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INITIAL SUMMARY

Our first ten games have been better in comparison to the whole of last season but only by the width of a cigarette paper.

We are scoring less but conceding less with our goal difference up by an insignificant +0.02 per game!

Continue like this and another relegation battle is a certainty…however…our start is at least light-years better than our previous campaign, as we sit on 11 points compared to 2 last time out…so at least we have a semi-inflated life-raft to cling on to when 12 months ago we were sinking fast!

The counter-argument is that 11 points is slightly below par for Bobby based on all 10-game runs last season(see chart below) when he averaged 11.8pts. He also gained more than 11pts on 15 occasions and a lower total just 7 times. (These stats include all overlapping runs – games 1-10 of his tenure, 2-11 and so on).

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Diving into the goals data…

But what else can we tell from the goals data that could help to understand why we are where we are? Well…time of goals scored so far in 2023/24 has been frankly bizarre…

We have not conceded before the 30th minute in any of the ten league games(plus two cup games in fact). That is a feat not achieved in three years and that included the end of our conference south promotion run and into our first conference national season.

In fact we have also scored 4 times in the first 29 minutes so we have a fantastic 4-0 aggregate over that period…but as the clock hits the half hour…that is where our dominance in games appears to crumble.

Just 15 minutes or so later, as the half time whistle blows, our GD in the first 45mins of all games is back where it started…at zero(GF6 GA6).

We then on average maintain parity with the opposition until 10 minutes after the break when, crucially, the opposition generally pull away until on 75 minutes we are “9-12 down”…Therefore in a crucial 20 minute period(when many substitutions and tactical decisions are made) and we are outscored 6 goals to 3.

We make a light rally and close ground to 11-12 down after 85 minutes but in many games this has been a case of “too little too late”.

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CONCLUSION

It’s clear we are currently masters of starting games. If all our matches this season were awarded in minute 29 we would have a W4 D6 L0 record.

The key to our season could be working out how to change our fortunes in the “middle 60” minutes.

Is over-confidence after a good start opening us up too much at the back before half time?

Are changes to style and/or substitutions made in the second half contributing to these negative turn-arounds in games?

Is it more a factor of fitness or tactical nous?

Let’s see where we are after another 10 games and look again!