2020-2021 HALF SEASON REVIEW

[mrcoke]

2020 - 2021 HALF SEASON REVIEW

9 wins, 8 draws and 6 defeats in the first half of the season is not setting the world on fire, but if many of us were asked last summer before the season started "Will you take 8th place, 2 points off the play-offs at the half season point?" I think many would have said "Yes".

What has been disappointing is the the very negative style of play, but given the number of senior players out due to injury, coupled with the fact that some of them were not match fit at the start of the season, it is understandable to a degree. With some many young players drafted into the team, it is hardly surprising Michael O'Neil has adopted a cautious approach.

This leads me to the most satisfying aspect of the 2020-2021 season so far, which is the joy of seeing so many young players breaking into the side. Even Tyrese Campbell was not an established starting player in the team last season, starting just 21 matches and used as a substitute a lot of the time.

This season we have seen Campbell, Souttar, Collins, and latterly Brown become established regulars, with Thompson, Tymon, Cousins, and now Bursik become regular match day squad members. Most of these young men are still learning their trade and provided the club can hold onto them they could form the basis of a successful side as the older players leave.

To return to statistics, Stoke are the 12th highest goal scorers in the Championship with 26 goals scored, and the 8th best team for goals conceded with 22 goals against. Steady progress in points accumulation took place till 8th December when a home defeat by Cardiff City occurred. This match represented a critical turning point as Tyrese Campbell was seriously injured, and so following the absence of Stephen Fletcher and Lee Gregory due to injury in November, Sam Vokes was left as the only fit striker. Subsequently Jacob Brown has had to be drafted into a striker role as Vokes has proven pretty ineffective.

The lack of scoring strength, coupled with the absence due to injury of John Mikel Obi and Sam Clucas has lead Michael O'Neil to adopt a cautious approach to subsequent games, resulting in low scoring and four draws in the last six matches.

Fortunes became even worse when Morgan Fox, the only recognised left back, was injured after half an hour in the League Cup quarter final against Spurs.

As a consequence Stoke have slipped out of a play-off position. and are 8 points away from an automatic promotion place.

Every cloud has a silver lining though and the injuries to so many of the senior members of the squad has given an opportunity to more young players to get useful game time and Championship experience. Jordan Cousins in particular has shown significant progress and may now be in his prime.

The team has achieved an average of 50% possession for the season to date. The xGF is 21.9 which is the second worst in the Championship. The xGA is 21.6, which is the second best in the Championship. The xGD is 0.3 the 12th best in the Championship. At the risk of stating the obvious, if Stoke keep defending well and start to score regularly they could move up the table significantly. Clearly the opposite is also true. Continue as they are doing and Stoke will miss out on the play-offs.

To date Stoke have played most of the top half teams at home and most of the bottom half teams away. Whether this is significant in a season with no or few spectators is debatable. It does appear that away teams are getting better results, which may be due to referees being less influenced by a home crowd. The emphasis is usually on the home team to take the initiative, so a number of upsets have occurred where away teams have sat back and hit the opposition on the break. Stoke's away form has certainly been better than usual with this approach with just two defeats away from home. Whether this can be sustained with tougher away games ahead in the second half of the season will remain to be seen.

If Stoke are to prosper this season they must certainly improve their home form and take maximum points from as many as the seven remaining home games against bottom half teams.

All successful teams have sound defences and on that score at least Stoke qualify, but without a major improvement in scoring whether by a new striker or a significant increase in contribution from Powell, Allen, and Clucas it is more probable Stoke will just miss out on the play-offs as predicted by some computer forecasts.

[lancashirelad]

Good summary mrcoke. My positives has been how well a few younger players have gained experience and prospered as a rule. The performances in the last month have been a hard watch and goals look like gold dust at present. Pre season i predicted 8th -14th place finish which looks more likely.

I had not realised we had played more top teams at home but we played better against attacking teams the bottom teams may do an MON of recent and defend first which we do find hard to breakdown. Further we had purple patch on set pieces at the end of last season, we need to find that bit of magic again.

[somersetstokie]

There have been many aspects of Stoke's season that are good. Resilience, competitiveness, team spirit, organisation and ninety+ minutes involvement can all be highly marked. Most fans recognize and applaud the chances given to the younger players, who have responded admirably. And it has to be acknowledged that our reasonable success has perhaps been limited by an unbelievable injury crisis and we have achieved a good statistical record despite these problems.

But at the moment we have reached a performance plateau, and we would hope that with a wider spread of matches with more days inbetween, Michael can get the players back on the training pitch and do further work on things like shape, balance and creativity. There are many ways to win a football match, and at the moment we seem to be limited in many areas of play to the extent that, if we can't do the basics right, we are playing with our hands tied behind our back. The obvious criticism is the apparent inability of many players to pass the ball consistently and effectively to a team mate, and far too many of the passes and moves that are completed are in a backward direction and towards the goalkeeper. This is a very negative form of play and we must try, by some means, to introduce an element of imagination and ingenuity, so that we are far less predictable in our tactics and have creativity as well as strength.

The biggest area of play that I would highlight, and mark in the report as "must do better", is in set plays. Our approach and effectiveness in dead ball situations has been dismal. Corners that don't beat the first man, and free kicks that float harmlessly wide of the target. We must work as a team extremely hard now to build up a few routines that can make something out of any free kicks and corners that we win. Also, any Stokie will know what an effective tool a throw in can be if used properly, and we can immeasurably improve our approach in these aspects of the game. And one very critical thing that needs to be addressed is the Penalty option, when a kick is occasionally awarded to us. There should be two designated Penalty takers available, and they need to be intensively coached in technique and approach, with psychological training in belief and attitude, if necessary.

Overall there has been a lot to admire and applaud this season, but we can and must improve in the areas that we are weak. We have achieved much so far, but at the moment we are just treading water and in fact are probably being carried backwards by the tide. We need to regain some traction and impetus.

So a lot to do, and perhaps possibly a lot to achieve.

[thehartshillbadger]

Jan 5, 2021 9:50:12 GMT somersetstokie said:

There have been many aspects of Stoke's season that are good. Resilience, competitiveness, team spirit, organisation and ninety+ minutes involvement can all be highly marked. Most fans recognize and applaud the chances given to the younger players, who have responded admirably. And it has to be acknowledged that our reasonable success has perhaps been limited by an unbelievable injury crisis and we have achieved a good statistical record despite these problems.

But at the moment we have reached a performance plateau, and we would hope that with a wider spread of matches with more days inbetween, Michael can get the players back on the training pitch and do further work on things like shape, balance and creativity. There are many ways to win a football match, and at the moment we seem to be limited in many areas of play to the extent that, if we can't do the basics right, we are playing with our hands tied behind our back. The obvious criticism is the apparent inability of many players to pass the ball consistently and effectively to a team mate, and far too many of the passes and moves that are completed are in a backward direction and towards the goalkeeper. This is a very negative form of play and we must try, by some means, to introduce an element of imagination and ingenuity, so that we are far less predictable in our tactics and have creativity as well as strength.

The biggest area of play that I would highlight, and mark in the report as "must do better", is in set plays. Our approach and effectiveness in dead ball situations has been dismal. Corners that don't beat the first man, and free kicks that float harmlessly wide of the target. We must work as a team extremely hard now to build up a few routines that can make something out of any free kicks and corners that we win. Also, any Stokie will know what an effective tool a throw in can be if used properly, and we can immeasurably improve our approach in these aspects of the game. And one very critical thing that needs to be addressed is the Penalty option, when a kick is occasionally awarded to us. There should be two designated Penalty takers available, and they need to be intensively coached in technique and approach, with psychological training in belief and attitude, if necessary.

Overall there has been a lot to admire and applaud this season, but we can and must improve in the areas that we are weak. We have achieved much so far, but at the moment we are just treading water and in fact are probably being carried backwards by the tide. We need to regain some traction and impetus.

So a lot to do, and perhaps possibly a lot to achieve.

An excellent summary, I wouldn’t disagree with any of that. Set pieces of all variations are particularly infuriating. The main issue arises, for me, as in general play is that our off the ball movement is abysmal and has been for a number of seasons now. This is the absolute crux of creating goal scoring chances both from open play and set pieces. Until this improves I’m afraid we will find ourselves in mid table mediocrity.

[mrcoke]

Today's performance was encouraging but as usual we failed to take our chances and as the front men and recently injured MF tired we lost the plot.

Unless we find a striker by the end of the window, this season will go down as a "youth development project".

[Gods]

Season a gonna now. It's just never caught light.

Roll on August for so many reasons.

[tuum]

I think we have left a net 10 points out there in the first half of the season. Some due to bad refereeing (Watford/Norwich etc) others due to too many draws against lower placed teams and a failure to drive the nail in when on top.

[Rednwhitenblue]

I'm not going to complain about how our season has gone so far.

I'm delighted that in the last twelve months we appear to have reversed the rather obvious direction of travel that the club as a whole was moving in over the previous few seasons. A direction that, for a long time, was looking like taking us back into the third division.

So a top half finish would be perfectly acceptable in my opinion this season, provided we recognise who needs letting go, where the deficiencies are and inject some funds to address them in the summer.

I can't see us making the play-offs as our attack is so blunt, but we probably have enough points in the bank to forget about relegation and a top half finish is still entirely reasonable.

7.5/10 from me