Football Italia: Season 6 – Hard done by?

Season Six: Hard done by?

Amidst Sampdoria’s administrators, Lecce’s continued struggles and Parma’s domination, we sit – neither challenging at the top or worried at the bottom – but certainly regressed from the results of previous seasons. Results is the key word here, because, those statistically driven, may have an argument that we are actually being pretty hard done by. However, we are now at the turn of the season and have a lot of work ahead of us if we want this, our third season in Serie B, to be our last.

For the first time since I started marking this text/image graphic of the table, I’ve had to include down to tenth place, as we’ve been sat in the top eight for pretty much the entirety of the last two and a bit seasons. Our form, in patches, has been great – dismantling Taranto and back to back 3-0 wins, with one coming against Cosenza, too, have been really bright sparks. But we’ve also lost to Parma – probably as expected, lost to Cagliari – against probably as expected and lost to Pescara – again, probably as expected.

What those score lines do not tell you is that we won the xG battle against Parma, dominating the game for long periods of time and restricting them to 0.6xG, compared to our 1.07xG. They completed just forty-two passes in our final third, around 40% of the total we completed in theirs. Against Pescara, the visitors scored twice from their 0.71xG and we only managed a single goal from our 1.67xG and fifteen attempts. Similarly sickening was the Catania tie – two goals from 0.57xG for them and just one from 1.89xG for us. We nearly fell short against Palermo, too, they recorded no shots on target and Moraga saved us in the last minute, despite creating nearly three expected goals across the course of the game.

So, we sit ninth but there is a wild argument to say that we might actually be the best team in the league!

I’m not in the business of excuses and my love for data and data analysis often leads me down rabbit holes – trying to answer the ‘why’ that very often bugs me. Despite me running things pretty much as normal, we’re just not quite as clinical as we have been and have too many players who aren’t performing as well as they maybe should be. When you look at the combined xG and xA numbers compared to their actual goal and assist numbers, presented as an over or under performance, you’ll see that we have too many players on the wrong side of that line.

Given that I’ve ran this with players who have accrued more than 1,000 minutes, you’ll see that neither second striker – Langoni or Vinci – make it here and, maybe, that is a case of an issue I previously had when I rotated Owusu in and out just too much. Our striker, however, has been woefully underperforming and, as goes with most realy top teams, I’m beginning to feel that a complete striker – one of my better players – probably should be here. Honestly, Ali has plateaued pretty hard of late and I just don’t know whether he’s good enough to continue. Likewise, when we reach this position – I have to ask myself whether he is regressing to the mean after over performing or whether he is actually having a bad season; the probable answer is the former, which is, ultimately, on me to fix.

But I do think that our issues run slightly deeper, as shown by this shot xG graph:

Our shooting, to put it bluntly, is poor quality. I, initially, presumed that it was the shooting from midfielders as we get a little too impatient moving through the lines but it really isn’t, despite our overall shooting judging us to be wasteful. Our attacking set pieces are providing not enough goals in my eyes but, again, I’m drawn back to things like our shot map that is just full of low quality pot shots. I think that we’re missing a truly talented attacking midfielder, too. Clemenza, whilst in Serie C, was able to feed Owusu with through balls and even the aging legs of Valerio Verre could pick a pass but I think that I’ve got a little lost in the hybrid 8/10 role, favouring more of a runner and, therefore, losing a true creator.

I’ve not started recruitment for this role, yet, but, just from a quick search, I’d be looking at someone like Theo Zidane. He’s, obviously, got that family trait but is pretty strong in a lot of areas that I’d be looking for in a fantasista or truly creative #10.

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Honestly, we’re not far away from clicking and the board, despite further takeover rumours (that, again, would be welcomed), aren’t too fussed about us being in mid table rather than the top half. We’ll keep going, try and recruit one or two really good players and go again!

Forza Biancoscudati!