• The first stage of the forum upgrades has now been completed but they remain in a degraded state and are still being worked on.
    Please read this thread for more details.
    New user registrations are currently disabled.

Poor 2nd Half of Season Myth

Well said. Even if RLB teams do tail off (ridiculous to state as fact in a sample size of 2 seasons), still over a point a game. Some teams do well at the start, some at the end, some perform similarly throughout the season … who cares which one we are?
 

scotch said:
Picked up 19 points from the last 17 games.

Averages to 42 points over a season, which would be looking at around a 16th place finish most Premier league seasons.

For a newly promoted team via the playoffs as well, that outcome is still a fantastic achievement and benchmark.

Think a lot of people are being blinded by how good a start we had (28 points from 18 games, 1 loss in the first 11 games) and the fact that we've had 8 defeats in the last 15, so been beaten every other week - (we've not drawn many games)- but normally had a win to bounce back.
Click to expand...

^THIS


And yet, as seen by some of our unhappy supporters:

1st Half of Season: outstanding
2nd Half of Season: better than expected (reality), but not better than expected after the 1st Half of Season.
 
League Wan said:
It's no myth like, we haven't been at the level since Christmas basically. Good start has made it worse mind
Click to expand...
Good starts
It's no coincidence that we did exceptionally well early on both seasons under Regis.
24/25 Pre-season. First match day was a double-header fitness job. By the next game v Forest RLB had identified this starting line-up: Patterson, Cirkin/Alese/09/Hume, Jobe/Neil/Rigg, Clarke/Mayenda/Roberts as his best 11 and pretty much stuck with that through the next pre-season games and into the earliest games. We won the first 4, and 9 of the first 12. Alese' injury and Clarke leaving meant Mepham and Mundle took their roles - and that was basically the team for the season. Others came in for injuries (hence Le Fee finding himself LW), and Isidor became first choice, then Mayenda again. While other teams were messing around, early season experimentation, finding what works, we were getting points in the bank.

Regis is very quick at getting his teams well organised. This season there was amazement amongst pundits that RLB had got so many new signings working together effectively, so quickly. He talks about a 'layered' approach and gets that defensive foundation across quickly Then adds new layers when it's established and tweaks later.

We get our act together quickly. Other teams do get themselves sorted. But don't knock Regis for stealing a march on them .

Tailing off
We have tailed off. But why? Was it down to Regis? Or player availability?

Last season it seemed to be more a squad depth issue, and late season fatigue due to playing the same 11. A masterstroke to take things easy for the meaningless last 5 game before the playoffs.

This season since late December we've lost 6 players (3-4 starters) to AFCON. And since then we have suffered injuries to our captain Xhaka, Roefs, Mukiele, Traore, and Ballard (who is now also suspended 3 games). Did people expect us to be doing just as well with such significant player absences?
 
scotch said:
Picked up 19 points from the last 17 games.

Averages to 42 points over a season, which would be looking at around a 16th place finish most Premier league seasons.

For a newly promoted team via the playoffs as well, that outcome is still a fantastic achievement and benchmark.

Think a lot of people are being blinded by how good a start we had (28 points from 18 games, 1 loss in the first 11 games) and the fact that we've had 8 defeats in the last 15, so been beaten every other week - (we've not drawn many games)- but normally had a win to bounce back.
Click to expand...
We'll see at the end of the season. If we lose the last 3 we'll have 11 defeats in the last 18, so it would be a much worse second half. I don't think that will happen, but anyway overall it was an incredible season back in the Prem!
Let's build on that! Another 3-4 signings like Xhaka/Mukiele/Alderete and we can dream big.
 
Quillips said:
This season since late December we've lost 6 players (3-4 starters) to AFCON. And since then we have suffered injuries to our captain Xhaka, Roefs, Mukiele, Traore, and Ballard (who is now also suspended 3 games). Did people expect us to be doing just as well with such significant player absences?
Click to expand...
Our form during AFCON was decent.
 
I think we’ve done really well all in all. There was a bit of a drop off after we beat Burnley which was ended by the draw at Bournemouth. We’re now having a second poor spell but it’s only 3 games since we beat Spurs.
 
At the halfway point we were in 7th, one point out of 6th but only four points out of 14th. Now we are in 12th five points out of 6th but still four points out of 14th. A four-point gap has opened between us and 6th in 15 games. Unacceptable!

Bournemouth has moved into the top 6 and Chelsea has dropped out. Chelsea, Villa and Everton are on similar form to us in the second half of the season. It's not as big a drop off as some are making it out to be.
 
Zen Den said:
Well said. Even if RLB teams do tail off (ridiculous to state as fact in a sample size of 2 seasons), still over a point a game. Some teams do well at the start, some at the end, some perform similarly throughout the season … who cares which one we are?
Click to expand...

These relentless moaners come up with inane stats about his teams tailing off and never give him any credit for the fact that they overachieve so massively at the start of seasons that even with a tail off, it's been two over performing seasons.

Maybe the tail off comes with his consistency in selecting players and then being drilled heavily to work for everything. A trade off to perform well at the the end of seasons would come with a drop in intensity throughout.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top