More lies damn lies and statistics

Afternoon guys, slow afternoon so been having a look around a handy stats site statto.com and Orange Football Stats.

Let me say that I think our form could be better but we're starting to get there, however the defence is a big worry as said before.

It's always possible to spin statistics to make any argument, but having said that... it's quite noticeable that, after 8/9 games and nearly the quarter season mark, a lot of the teams currently occupying the top 10 places have done so having picked up most of their points from teams outside the top 10, especially the front runners.

Of course you'd kind of expect this as otherwise the team dropping points wouldn't be in the top 10 after only 9 games anyway, but it does illustrate that many of these teams have had a fairly easy ride so far playing bottom half teams (and where they have played top 10 teams they've not done that great either), whilst we've had a fairly tough start in terms of playing teams that have started well.

Whilst Leeds have played 6 of the top 10 teams and taken 8 points:

Saints have only played 1 and taken 0 points,
Boro P 1 Pts 3
Derby P 1 Pts 3
West Ham P 2 Pts 3
B&HA P5 Pts 6
Cardiff P 4 Pts 7
Hull P 3 Pts 3
P'boro P 5 Pts 3
Palace P 5 Pts 7
Blackpool P 6 Pts 9

Plus for the sake of it... Leicester P 4 Pts 8

From that it looks like the teams that have had to face better opposition, and held their own against the better teams are Brighton, Cardiff, Palace and Blackpool, and, as honorary members, Leicester. We're not doing badly either really. This suggests that these teams might be good value for a high league position going forward. I'm liking the look of Blackpool and sadly Leicester especially.

All of the top 4 however have yet to be seriously tested against the other front runners... so it remains to be seen how it will affect their form.

Another quicker(!) way to explain the above is just to look at this 'vs top half' table- only Blackpool have taken more points vs top half teams so far this season, while Leicester and Cardiff are also on 8.

http://fs.stats.football365.com/dom/ENG/D1/vtophalf.html

Whaddaya reckon, I think this is grounds for cautious optimism. No team has faced more top half teams than us so far, which is slowing us down a bit and made our start trickier. But it does mean we'll also need to make sure we pick up lots of points from lesser teams... next 3 games will tell us quite a bit about that!

MOT