An easy ride for Appleton?
As
we come into the New Year, the team is playing well, Appleton has had
the bottle to play Futacs and that is paying dividends. The
atmospherics coming from the club are positive regarding his tenure
thus far. After the Chelsea game, as often during cup games you come
away thinking, if we play like that in the league, everything will be
fine.
Appleton
is doing a better job than Cotterill, correct?. Well yes but i'd argue
he has had an easier ride, everyone is aware that Pompey are better
at home than they are away, and that is borne out in the statistics.
Whittingham/Grey
Points per game at Home 3.0
Appleton
PPG at Home 2.0
Cotts
PPG at Home 1.4
Appleton
PPG Away 1.0
Cotts
PPG Away 0.4
Whittingham/Grey
PPG Away 0.3
But
that has to be compared with the respective quality of the clubs they
have played against:
Cotts
Average position of opponents Home 3.3
Whittingham/Grey Away 6.3
Cotts Away 6.7
Appleton Home 13.5
Appleton Away 16.25
Whittingham/Gray Home 19.3
Cotterill
was unlucky with the opponents he had, and at home especially did
very well, on the flip side Appleton has had a relatively easy start
(save the Scum game but even that is an anomaly due to the derby
nature of the game) no doubt you can only beat who is put in front of
you, but Appleton is about to have the opportunity to prove himself
the next 6 fixtures are:
Current
league position
West
Ham (H) 2
Cardiff
(A) 3
P'boro
(H) 15
Hull
(H) 6
Birmingham
(A) 14
Blackpool
(A) 7
By
mid-February we will be in a much better place to judge Appleton's
start. Hopefully the future of the club will be in better hands by
then and certainly not owned by a man who is attempting to start up
an 'underwater casino' which once you have looked at the plans is actually a semi-submerged boat and not quite the Poseidon
adventure it
seems (we will blog re the takeover next week when there is hopefully
something more to say).
Kitson not shot shy...
Pompey
have the 7th
best
defence in the league and the 15th
best attack. So we thought it was time to stat attack on the strikers
who are failing us.
Goals Shots per game Shots on target Shots per goal
Varney 5 1.7 (3) 37.5% (7) 7.5 (4)
Norris 4 1.3 (5) 26.7% (10) 7.5 (4)
Kitson 3 1.9 (2) 35% (8) 15.5 (9)
Erik 3 0.7 (10) 63% (2) 2.7 (2)
Halford 2 1.3 (5) 21% (11) 14 (8)
Ward 2 1.0 (8) 33.3% (9) 7.5 (4)
Futacs 2 2.5 (1) 40% (5) 2.5 (1)
Benjani 1 1.5 (4) 44% (3) 9 (7)
Kanu 1 1.3 (5) 75% (1) 4 (3)
Mullins 1 0.9 (9) 40% (5) 20 (10)
Lawrence 0 0.7 (10) 43% (4) n/a
(11)
I
am not a Kitson hater, I appreciate his effort more than other Pompey
fans but he has a poor shots on target ratio, and a worse shots per
goal ratio. He works hard but only has one assist so far this season. I think we all know
how important Varney is and we look forward to his return. Kanu is
still accurate and actually manages to get a surprising number of
efforts on target, as opposed to Erik, who does not shoot often, but
will also get it on target. I imagine Halford would be frustrated with his
accuracy, because he has one hell of a pile driver on him.
To
be fair to Lawrence, although he has not yet scored this season
(although he did against Watford for it to be incorrectly ruled
offside) he tops the clubs assist table with 5, the 16th
best record in the Championship.
Pompey and Saints, same number of players used, different results
Pompey
have a tiny squad as the News have pointed out a number of times, but
we have used 24 players this season, which is the same number as
scum, (albeit 12 shy of the Doncaster Willy McCay experiment) and
Pompey fans (myself included) maintain the spine of the squad is
strong, so I think Appleton is right to be looking at the peripheral
players (Benjani and Kanu included)
Anyway
enough statistical meandering. I have faith in Appleton but he needs
the backing and soon.
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