It's actually 27.1, seems too high imo, expected it to be 20-22, for the games against Fulham, West Ham and Wolves. The output of 14 is really poor and worrying, should be a few higher surely with the chances we had. I'm two-minded with Dyche as some coaching mistakes are visible, he's responsible for the general set up and some repetitive things are honestly frustrating.
These are 3 copy paste games, lost in the last few minutes with more chances than the opponent, far more. But tbf, there have been many games with barely chances as well. Ok, we mostly didn't admit a lot to the opponent either, but that was at the cost of attacking ability.
The question is on what is our poor conversation rate. A lot of decent footballers, but bad finishers, some of the worst I've seen as a team in 40 yrs of watching the sport. What makes us finishing so bad, there must be more than tactics behind it, I also think especially in the case of DCL it's a mental thing. We all know if something doesn't work endlessly you doubt about yourself. And the mental aspect is key in football.
What doesn't change is the reality of our poor game in possession mostly, long ball from GK, CB to an isolated ST. If you play that style, you need wingers to overlap, we don't have them due to 2 reasons, they are too much occupied in the defensive game and they lack pace and good first touches, when they get the ball. But only that style is quite after a while readable for the opponent and gets righteously criticized as we don't alternate a lot. I take set piece goals happily they count the same amount, but not on the expense of open play.
I should have clarified, the XG from open play was from the end of our “great run” of 4 games. It dropped off a cliff, as with the majority of Sean Dyche’s teams who are renowned for second half season slumps.
There’s a variety of issues at play, yes conversion rates are a concern but for that you’d really need to deep dive into the missed chances which no data can show.
The build up play is slow, predictable with no real contained pressure. Away this works great, at home it’s beyond poor and the onus is on us to force the game. We rarely do this.
The West Ham game was a slight improvement, but the majority of games the attacking style or play is easily swallowed up by the opposition. Chances that we miss tend to come together rather than an over sustained period of time.
We have no width, the wingers have virtually no support, Doucoure doesn’t really know what his position is and doesn’t have the technical ability to create chances from open play. Fullbacks are not supporting the attack and as such we get out numbered on numerous occasions which forces us to go back, the back some more before Pickford launches it long.
Our strikers spend the majority of their time outside the box, which highlights a lot of issues in our gameplay. Beto was our furthest forward player on Saturday, yet the majority of his time was spent 10 yards outside West Ham’s box. Same with Dom when he came on. Doucoure, the so called number 10 spent his time on the left hand side by McNeil.
Dyche is, and always will be a very conservative manager. He plays small time, setting up solely not to concede and to sneak a win. That may work at Burnley where teams will go at them on their own ground, but he’s at Everton now and teams will happily sit back and put the onus on us. And he simply cannot find away to crack the code.
Like for like substitutes don’t know change anything when the pattern of play is the same.
To succeed he needs to look outside his very small, tight coaching network and bring in a fresh face to make us more expansive at home whilst keeping his tight shape.
He does not have the capacity to do it himself, he keeps banging on about how he adapts and changes yet we have witnessed that once or twice in the 14 months he’s been here.
This is his one and only shot at a big club. The way we’re performing, he won’t get another once he’s removed from post