Lack of goal threat from open play | Vital Football

Lack of goal threat from open play

M

markinkent

Vital Football Hero
Thought this was worthy of its own thread.

Its no secret that we are the leagues lowest goal scorers. We are only really a goal threat from set pieces. Its the only time Hawkins is really a threat and borne out by a CB being top scorer.

I thought I'd take a look at the allegedly more creative players in the squad (league 2 games only)

Jonny Williams - 33 games; 1838 minutes played; 0 goals and 1 assist - 1 assist from someone who should be creating.

George Lapslie - 29 games; 1149 minutes played; 1 goal and 0 assists - nothing not one assist.

Tim Dieng - 23 games; 1504 minutes played 2 goals and 0 assists - not one.



So while we can all question Nads, Hawkins, Walker (either), Bonne and anyone else whose played in that desert that is the Gillingham attack but the root cause is the lack of creativity in midfield.

Mahoney and Nichols have four assists each and then the rest are from defenders.

Jonny Willams scored 10 goals and got 2 assists for Swindon last year.

George Lapslie scored 5 goals and got 5 assists for Mansfield before signing for us.

These players have the ability. It can only be the way we are set up by multiple different managers now or the players around them aren't good enough to give them the ball.

Its baffling and its holding us back.
 
Be interesting to know if the “eye test” bears out these figures.

Assists are good numbers. But a player, say Jonny Williams, might actually lay goals on a plate regularly that aren’t buried by the striker. Not saying he has btw.

So which is it? Do we create more than we score? Do we create very, very little?

Anyone know what our xG figures for the season are? Another useless new fangled scientific number. But it might just show if we should be scoring more or less than we have been on chances created.

My own gut feel is that we create less than average. And then convert less than average of those.
 
Not really sure what it all means but I agree with their summary on goals scored

footystats.org

Gillingham FC Stats, Form & xG | FootyStats

Gillingham FC (England - EFL League Two) stats from the current season. Detailed info on Squad, Results, Tables, Goals Scored, Goals Conceded, Clean Sheets, BTTS, Over 2.5, and more.
footystats.org footystats.org


I asked AI to help :

Remember, xG provides insights into a team’s attacking performance, and Gillingham’s current xG is the fifth lowest in League Two. While they may be underperforming their xG, it’s essential to analyze both chance creation and finishing efficiency2.

Keep cheering for Gillingham, and who knows—they might exceed their xG and climb even higher in the league!

This made interesting reading from Sepember https://totalfootballanalysis.com/t...harris-scout-report-tactical-analysis-tactics
 
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Another quick thought. It seems to me, (actually, it is a fact), that our first half performances all season have created virtually no goals at all. Anyone know how many 1st half goals we’ve scored compared to 2nd half?

I suspect our 2nd half goals, assists and all round creative numbers would be a lot closer to league averages. And our 1st half numbers badly adrift in last place.

What could be the reason that we so often do nothing in the first 45 mins? Is it simply a negative “don’t concede” outlook that has now been ingrained?

Edit - marks excellent link has answered one of my questions.

We’ve scored -

0.35 goals per 1st half
0.59 goals per 2nd half.

That’s almost twice as many goals in 2nd half. If we’d scored the same in 1st half’s we’d have 44 goals and be in positive GD.

Fix our first half negativity please.
 
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markinkent said:
At home I wonder if attacking the empty town end is part of the reason. It must be better to attach a full Rainham end roaring encouragement.
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I said similar a month or so ago. There must be zero atmosphere up that end. It’s couldn’t harm to open that stand to home fans. Would probably create a bit of banter and chants like used to happen with the old Town End and opposition fans.

Should ask Oxford fans if they score many at the open end of their 3 sided ground.
 
OneSirKeefy said:
I said similar a month or so ago. There must be zero atmosphere up that end. It’s couldn’t harm to open that stand to home fans. Would probably create a bit of banter and chants like used to happen with the old Town End and opposition fans.

Should ask Oxford fans if they score many at the open end of their 3 sided ground.
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I'm guessing stewarding/segregation of the away fans facilities is the issue. Would the income cover the costs especially as crowds may fall away along with hopes of promotion.

Something they should look into especially if we have hopes of better crowds next season.
 
Personally, I think one of the issues is that we do not have enough players that are willing to carry the ball.

SC initially seemed to want to play a passing game and I particularly remember the Tranmere away game where it looked like our players were happy to let the ball do the work with short passes, often sideways, and Tranmere players looked happy to watch us do that, knowing that was not going to cut them open.

We need a mixture where players break from that pattern and travel with the ball, as well as deliver crosses and forward/long passes. At least Mahoney and Hutton are certainly capable of doing that but are as inconsistent as the rest.

Although we have clearly not seen enough of him, I really think Hurtado's approach would also have given us something different, and more goals, but due to his "style" his team mates may struggle to anticipate when he intends to deliver the ball to them.
 
markinkent said:
I'm guessing stewarding/segregation of the away fans facilities is the issue. Would the income cover the costs especially as crowds may fall away along with hopes of promotion.

Something they should look into especially if we have hopes of better crowds next season.
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I still thought they should have looked at getting something being sorted for the BMS through this season to be opened the start of next season.

Brad (and KJ) stated our aim was promotion this season. It hasn’t yet worked out, but if they thought we’d be gunning for promotion this season, you can be 100% sure we’d be selling out some games this year and then a lot next season. You don’t want to then be building a new stand during the season leading to a vastly reduced capacity. Get something built now while it’s mainly empty.

It only does the club harm to have what is basically 3/4 of a ground, and the reduced capacity and negative publicity that it brings.
 
It's simple, the players need to pull their fingers out their arses, show more intent, energy, urgency, drive and positive approach from the off. I'd love to see the individual running stats from their body worn monitors for first half in games compared to second half. I'd wager they're vastly different.

The other conclusion is that this group of players simply aren't fit enough to play for 90 minutes. Nearly every other team we play looks fitter, more energetic and able to run for longer than us.

As for midfielders, good midfielders will receive the ball on the half turn, ours very rarely do.
 
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Obvious lack of creativity which I think stems from a lack of proper balance in the side and that is solely down to the recruitment team.

We seem uncertain as to our best formation. And the personnel for it.

Always seems to me that there is too big a gap between the midfield & forward line. We desperately need an energetic ball carrier in the Kyle Dempsey mould.

Confidence plays a huge part & it's self perpetuating. Too many appear frightened to have a shot or take on their opponent. Yesterday was one of the first times players were prepared to shoot.

Throw in a general lack of pace, mobility, movement & natural width and as we've seen you're not going to score many goals.

Going forward in an attempt to reach the play offs we will need to take risks & be more adventurous. Ditch the 5-3-2. 4-4-1-1 for me. Mahoney MUST play out wide & feed him the ball at every opportunity. Williams J on the other flank. Lapslie playing off Hawkins.

Ultimately will need another couple of windows & above all smarter recruitment to get us scoring anywhere near regularly.
 
Think i`ll stick with they eye-ball test. Effective forwards with pace and power tellingly contribute outside the penalty area as well as inside. When in the penalty box, sharpness, strength and a bit of guile tend to characterise goal scorers.

Sad to say, the only person i`d really award the above attributes to is one of our central defenders.

There`s no sugar coating it, notwithstanding injury, diffidence and occasional bad luck, we`ve still had plenty of time to assemble a far more impactive front unit. We simply do not have sufficient quality and sharpness up front to be firm promotion candidates. Which is a great shame, IMO, as elsewhere our line-up is really good and well worthy of a top seven berth.
 
I don't know what it is but teams like Tranmere first half yesterday were incisive and always had a man available around our box. Same most weeks. Compare that to us and we dither, go backwards, choose the wrong option or sling it towards Hawkins and hope
 
We had 26 shots yesterday, with 5 on target. Were all those shots from set pieces? I think, from the low "on target" figures, it's more about the ability of our players to shot straight than goal scoring opportunities.
 
There were loads of shots blocked from around the edge of the area. I think Mahoney had 3 shots blocked in one attacking move alone. Tranmere were getting numbers behind the ball and made it extremely difficult to find space.
 
It's about time that KJ & AH were held accountable for the poor recruitment activity .
Nadesan, Nicholls, Bonne, Hawkins, Walker have been brought in, what have they delivered?
 
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