Slumpen Hotspurariat

Question: Are we slumping/swooning/collapsing/running out of steam?

Answer: No.

First, have a look at our possession statistics:

I include both BBC’s and Opta’s statistics, because while they’re often very similar, sometimes they’re not. But in both cases, the five-game trend is similar: we’ve dipped a bit in the past few weeks, but we’re still keeping the ball at a higher level than we did for all of the 2012 side of the season. Sadly, of course, Brendan Rodgers hasn’t yet gotten the FA to award 3 points for victory in possession, but let this be a first silver lining: the lads seem to know what they’re doing and they’re holding the ball better than before.

What about scoring? I started collecting this data to try and figure out if we were being as “wasteful” with our chances as we’re portrayed in the media. Of course, that relies on collecting data for all the clubs. Instead, I’ll have a look at us over the season:

Again, both BBC and Opta numbers are presented. It’s a hairy mess, for sure, but a few more marked trends do emerge. We’ve been hovering around two goals per game for almost the whole season. So that’s nice. But both the BBC and Opta have noted a decrease in our shooting, even during our unbeaten run earlier this year. For Opta, our shots on target have remained steady, but for the BBC, they have fallen as well. I wonder why we may be shooting less and less, despite still being able to score at relatively the same rate. Maybe we’re more disciplined. Maybe there aren’t as many opportunities now as we move more through the middle (with Dembélé and Parker feeding a central Bale) instead of along the wings, bombing in speculative crosses.

Yet again, considering we’re still scoring, it’s hard to get too worried about the decrease in shots. Furthermore, it’s also worth noting how volatile the shooting statistics are (in comparison to goals or possession).

Finally, then, how are our results looking? We all know we had that great run interrupted a month ago, but how does that hiccup look in context?

And here’s where I got a whole lot less nervy once I realised I had forgotten to include the Swansea result in the first draft of this post! The wine-coloured line is the rate at which we need to be getting points in order to finish with 69 points, the minimum for fourth place. We’re currently precisely in line with that rate, despite having briefly fallen behind thanks to Berba (er, thanks to disaffected football). The last time I posted this chart, I suggested that Harry’s 2012 swoon was matched by our own mini swoon in GW9–11. If you consider just the green and yellow lines, they run vaguely parallel, with green’s waiting for the yellow Redknapp flatline in order to catch up with our unreal run in Autumn 2011. But while that string of losses was matched this year by wins, we started losing just as the lads started finding points again last year. Swansea away got us back on track, and we’re now one point behind last year and exactly in line with our earlier fourth place finish. Not great, but not terrible!

Of course, we’re competing against other clubs this season, not Spurs of years past. And the fact that we remain in fourth place despite being behind the curve is not to be discounted. But, still, our position could not be more precarious, considering games in hand and our own run in.

Time to start winning again, lads.

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