Away form

[pobeda]

With another away game coming up and a potentily a very dificult one, looking at our away form, has made me realize that we have actually gone behind in EVERY single game we played, including the League cup match. I think that is something we need to sort out because giving the home tem a goal or two advantage could cost us dearly in future. The pleasing thing is that we have only lost on one ocasion, plus the Cup match of course, which shows the character our players have. It will be interesting to see how we do when hopefully we go ahead away from home, but it all has been good the times we took the lead in our homes games, with probably exception of Barnsley, when we nearly conceded against 10 men. Anyway, I hope we can keep our first clean sheet away tomorrow, and if we can nick a goal, it will be superb! Up the Whites!!!

 

[White in Exile]

Re: Away form

With another away game coming up and a potentily a very dificult one, looking at our away form,

if we are going to continue mount a serious challenge there are a few things that need to get stronger:

Clean sheets away from home

Controlling away games more, rather than as you suggest, chasing the game after conceding. Those sorts of games too often take their toll and legs get heavy.

We need to convert more draws into wins - we are unbeaten in 9, including beating Cardiff, that run has gained 19 points. Cardiff have 23 points from their last 9 despite losing to us.

Last season drawing more than 40% of games despite only reading losing less, cost us automatic. So far we are again drawing 45% of games. Hopefully the home form can be converted into away form as the current 1.2ppg away form is only as good as upper mid table last season

I'm confident - but I'd rather bank more points from a run that includes losses than have the confidence boost of an unbeaten run that gets fewer points!

 

[ernest]

Re: Away form

A look at the table shows that we have the joint best defence but are deficient compared with the teams around us in goals scored. Nothing would do more to remedy that fact than a return to goalscoring by Nugent, though I have a feeling that Ormerod will benefit from our new shoot-on-sight policy. I expect him to be on the scoresheet again fairly quickly, maybe even tomorrow.

 

[pnefanfinland]

Re: Away form

We are currently THE BEST home team in our league
http://stats.football365.com/dom/ENG/D1/home.html

and we also have THE BEST statistic against top-half opposition
http://stats.football365.com/dom/ENG/D1/vtophalf.html


These two are statistics that give me a massive amount of confidence that we will also pick wins away from home regularly. But on the other hand, if we continue to be this good at home, then we don't have so much pressure to get wins away from home (as e.g. last season), since

win home and draw away is automatic promotion form.


Last season, we played too many draws at home, and it was very much due to our tactics. This season, it's different - and it is looking very good indeed. 🙂


PS. About our Lancashire friends Burnley and their current position as runners-up, it's vital to note that they have no wins against top-half opposition so far + they have already lost 3 home games this season.

Burnley's league wins so far:
QPR (h), Leicester (a), Barnsley (h), Stoke (a), Norwich (a) and Hull (h).

PNE has won
Wolves (a), Cardiff (h), WBA (h), Barnsley (h) and Sunderland (h).

 

[pobeda]

Re: Away form

if we are going to continue mount a serious challenge there are a few things that need to get stronger:

Clean sheets away from home

Controlling away games more, rather than as you suggest, chasing the game after conceding. Those sorts of games too often take their toll and legs get heavy.

We need to convert more draws into wins - we are unbeaten in 9, including beating Cardiff, that run has gained 19 points. Cardiff have 23 points from their last 9 despite losing to us.

Last season drawing more than 40% of games despite only reading losing less, cost us automatic. So far we are again drawing 45% of games. Hopefully the home form can be converted into away form as the current 1.2ppg away form is only as good as upper mid table last season

I'm confident - but I'd rather bank more points from a run that includes losses than have the confidence boost of an unbeaten run that gets fewer points!

If we can get 2 points a game, we simply can`t fail to win promotion. That means we can draw one and win one, or win two and lose 1, out of 3 games. At the moment we are getting 1.82 points a game (20 of 11 games) so 2 wins this week will put us on target. I know it is a very hard task and usually the second team gets promoted with an average of 1.87-1.93 points per game. So, we are going at a good rate in the moment, and as you say, all we need is to step up a little bit when we are away and try and control the games there. But after all, we played some of the better teams(Wolves, Southampton, Derby, Norwich and revived Stoke) so far, although there is hardly any easy games in this league.

Haven`t learn our lesson, have we?? Now Ipswich got a goal advantage, by the law of averages, we not gonna turn rhis round 🙁

 

[pobeda]

Re: Away form

Well, we mangd to turn yet another game, but for how long we need to do that? Can`t we just go out and tell ourselfs we are 1 or 2 goals dwn an play from there😀

 

[pnefanfinland]

Re: Away form

Well, we mangd to turn yet another game, but for how long we need to do that? Can`t we just go out and tell ourselfs we are 1 or 2 goals dwn an play from there😀

Ipswich were surely really up to it; after their 1-5 home humiliation to WBA. They were a wounded animal, so it was not a big surprise that they went ahead by storm.

I think it's good to note here that the away games we have played so far have been pretty big and difficult ones:
- Norwich
- Wolves
- Southampton
- Derby
- Stoke
- Ipswich

These are all places where it's far from easy trying to dictate the game from the first whisle. And since we are not anymore a (Billy Davies) side which tries to frustrate the opposition by a very defensive approach, this inevitably leads to more goals conceded. However, it's still very early days for Paul SImpson at PNE, and slowly but surely I expect us to learn from all these defensive errors in away games.