Late wins for Coventry and Bolton, plus Holloway's Swindon do it the hard way
28 October 2024 | Weekend Notes brings you the biggest stories, stats and insights from the EFL weekend.
● BIG STORIES ● CHEAT SHEET ● 5IVELIGHTS ● THE VIEW FROM ● FANTASY FOOTBALL ● WATCHING BRIEF ●
With mucky boots and muddy kisses, it was a Saturday of near misses.
The EFL is 24%-25% through the 24/25 season — a quirk apter than Blackpool’s Rob. As it stands, we’re eight managers down, and on Saturday we saw late-late-late strikes and very early baths.
Again, that’s apt. It is bath season after all. The nights are drawing in. The clocks have gone back. And as fans turn to the warm embrace of the big coat, now is the time to pack away the summer wardrobe of opinions, replaced by hats, scarves and hard-boiled stats.
🚨 Big Stories
A selection of decisive moments from across the EFL.
💊 Cov medicine — Coventry 3-2 Luton — It’s been a chin-stroking, head-scratching spell for Coventry – one that must’ve turned to incredulity as they ended the first half against Luton 2-0 down. They could count themselves unlucky not only that players had spurned good chances, but also that they were facing a rejuvenated Luton side. But if the Hatters were back, Cov were back-er in a second period where dimmer-than-expected leading lights returned to their bright and brilliant best. Mark Robins’ side applied the pressure, with 15 shots and 7 on target, and the comeback was supplied by the front three: Ellis Simms with the first goal; substitute Victor Torp with the second; and Haji Wright, who has been frustrating this season, releasing the pressure valve with a stoppage-time winner. Luton slip into the bottom three…
📱 Extra minutes Bolt-on — Bolton 1-0 Peterborough — Ian Evatt’s side got close to “too late” territory in a win that should’ve been much more comfortable. Dominating the ball, taking more shots and having the better chances hadn’t brought them a goal by the 17th second of the 98th minute. Neither had a penalty. It took a rough, tumbling, bundling home from Klaidi Lolos following a spot-kick saved to seal the latest of late wins in League One this season. Must be seen to be believed.
⏱ Holloway does it the hard way — Swindon 1-1 Gillingham — Ian Holloway’s return to management saw the 61-year-old orchestrating from the front row of the stands. If that was an awkward situation, consider a 9th-minute red card for Swindon’s Grant Hall. Gillingham took advantage with an opener shortly after. But, though he may not have been in the dugout, Holloway’s Swindon dug in. The Robins have been hard to pin down this season and not in a good way; however, an equaliser in the 93rd minute, born of gumption and toil, could be a platform from which to build.
⚽ Don Quishoote — Bradford 1-2 Doncaster — Valley Parade had been an oddly unhappy home hunting ground for Bradford before this season, when they suddenly turned the form book on its head by putting together 9 games without defeat (W7 D2). Donny rocked up with other ideas. They were the better, sharper team at 0-0 and deserved their two-goal lead midway through the first half, courtesy of two Kyle Hurst assists. Graham Alexander’s Bantams came on strong but Andy Cook’s late strike — his fourth in four league starts for Bradford against Donny — was only a consolation. Rovers, this season, have taken more shots in the league than any other club in the top four tiers (204).
🕺 Dancing the Cad-Can — Lincoln 2-1 Stockport — In keeping with their strong away form, Stockport nicked an early lead in this one. But after the Imps’ Ben House brought it down with a powerful back-post header, on-loan Bailey Cadamarteri nodded in a winner. That was his second goal in as many games to help Lincoln to a win after back-to-back defeats; as for Stockport, a spell of draws morphed into a first loss in five.
🎹 Reading on song — Reading 1-0 Bristol Rovers — The Royals had Sam Smith, not always a goalsmith, to thank for their winner against the Gas. Reading didn’t run away with this one but it’s testament to Ruben Selles that this young side, despite huge off-field issues, have won more home league games in 2024 than any other club in the top four tiers (13). Ruben’s Royals are up to 6th – they couldn’t, could they…?
🔊 Duff Man CAN breathe — Huddersfield 2-0 Exeter — Huddersfield’s wobble looks well and truly behind them. They’ve won three on the spin at home for the first time since 2020, with Ben Wiles producing a goal and an assist here to put the Grecians to bed. Pressure off, expectations up, Duff Man can breathe… oh yeah!
📊 Monday Morning Cheat Sheet
From the WhatsApp group to the watercooler: stats to keep you ahead of the game.
🛒 Sainz Buries — The Borja bonanza shows no sign of stopping. The Norwich forward’s 9th and 10th goals of the season puts him clear at the top of the charts, scoring those 10 from 15 shots on target. That’s M&S quality for Nectar Point prices.
↕ Set asunder — Sunderland are unbeaten in their last six league matches at home, winning five. They haven’t had a run such as this since 1997 – they were promoted then and they lead the Championship by 5 points now.
🗯 Double Bubble — Two wins in a week for Sunderland, Millwall, Wycombe, Reading, Cambridge, Port Vale, Crewe, MK Dons and Salford…
❌ Double trouble — …and two defeats in a week for Luton, Portsmouth, Burton, Shrewsbury, Stevenage, Exeter, Morecambe, Carlisle, Tranmere and Harrogate.
📆 Calendar quirk — Newport County drew a league match for the first time since – wait for it, as they did – New Year’s Day. That’s ages ago.
🚸 The League One Kids are alright — As it stands, four of the five top goalscorers in League One are aged 23 or under: Louie Barry (21), Kwame Poku (23), Richard Koné (21) and Kyle Joseph (23). Props to Lee Gregory, joint-top of the charts at 36.
💖 Four play — Plymouth Argyle have scored a stoppage-time goal in four consecutive home matches: a 93rd-minute winner against Sunderland, a 93rd-minute victory-capper against Luton, a 97th-minute winner against Blackburn and now a 92nd-minute equaliser against Preston to take a point from 3-0 down.
🏠 Northern Home Comforts — Sheffield United have won their last five home league games in a row without conceding, that’s their first such run since March 2019.
🚘 Carlisle crash — Since Carlisle appointed Mike Williamson on 19th September, no club has collected fewer points (5) and only Morecambe have conceded more goals, courtesy of a 5-2 defeat this weekend.
🥅 The 80:2 Rule — Only two Championship goalkeepers have a save percentage higher than 80%: Sheffield United’s Michael Cooper (84.6%) and Swansea’s Lawrence Vigouroux (82.5%).
🎦 5ivelights
In no particular order, a collection of our favourite goals or clips from across the 72.
Q. How’s it going, alright? Smithy: Crackin’.
When Isidor not a door? When Wilson volleys you over the threshold.
Simons’ fizzer to full length sprint and knee slide
No late breakfast but a delicious scramble in Port Vale vs Wimbledon
Sainz: 57 Varieties — this one’s best on bangers.
The View From…
Trouble in South Wales (the other bit this time)
The first step to beating a relegation battle is to admit you’re in a relegation battle. After five consecutive matches without scoring, taking them to nine hours of football since their last goal, Swansea City are in a relegation battle. Fans fear that the Swans could be sleepswimming to disaster.
A disappointing 0-0 draw at home to Millwall turned into a devastating 1-0 defeat in the 90th minute, when Femi Azeez and Casper de Norre exploited a Lawrence Vigouroux error to smash the complacency and grab three points. You will not be surprised to read that the possession split was 72% to 28% in the hosts’ favour. Yet the breakthrough didn’t come, and Millwall’s did, leaving Swansea with the inevitability of a fan-made October Goal of the Month competition going viral for featuring zero goals. This time last year, Luke Williams’ possession game was the best thing since sliced bread; now it seems to have gone stale.
First, the caveats. Josh Key could’ve scored following a mazy run, and Millwall’s Lukas Jensen saved twice within a few seconds from substitutes Florian Bianchini and Joe Allen. This continued a recent theme of Williams’ men underperforming their xG: they’re second only to Middlesbrough in that regard this season, while the club’s nine-hour spell without a goal – their worst drought since John Major was in office – has brought 71 shots, 15 shots on target, 10 big chances and a total xG of 7.3, all adding up to 0.0 rG (real goals). Ych a fi.
But this isn’t just variance. Yes, you would’ve expected at least one goal from those chances. The numbers are boosted by set pieces, however, to the extent that centre-back Harry Darling has had the joint-most shots (9) of any Swans player across their last four matches. A quarter of the way into the Championship season, no team has had fewer shots on target, and don’t go thinking that’s just because Williams’ players wait for the perfect opportunity, because in fact they have the league’s lowest percentage of shots put on target. Hence, just eight goals scored this season.
And this is despite having loads of the ball. That’s perhaps the most important factor here. The Championship’s ball-in-play time is around 57 minutes, so as the only team to top 60% for average possession in this campaign, Swansea are in control of the ball for about 34, 35 minutes per game – some 12 minutes more than their opponents in a match. The result? Just 35 shots on target, and 40 shots on target faced, even after all of that extra time with which to create opportunities.
They get into the right areas: they’re third for progressive passes, and third for passes in the final third (the word ‘third’ has gone weird on me now). For key passes, though, i.e. actual chances to score, they’re way down the list. Is this The Swansea Way? Most fans would say it isn’t – that TSW isn’t about possession for possession’s sake – but critics might argue that it’s the (il)logical conclusion to the club’s on-pitch ethos.
Williams isn’t helping himself with the fanbase by making some conservative decisions, such as taking off Liam Cullen for Joe Allen after 65 minutes when drawing at home to Millwall, something that probably would’ve resulted in Michael Duff being shot out of a cannon if he’d tried that last year. This was the time for Williams to make a statement: that he would not take the 0-0, that he would not accept a fifth game without scoring. Then he substituted Zan Vipotnik as well, leaving his team without a recognised striker for 15 minutes of a match that Swansea should’ve targeted for three points. Williams targeted one. He got none.
Defence is key to survival, but you self-evidently cannot win games without scoring goals. As Swansea drift further down the table despite conceding the fourth-fewest (though that in itself is due in no small part to Vigouroux posting superb shot-stopping numbers, above), you wonder if the bigger risk is to not change something.
Williams has used the fewest players in the division, ignoring calls to dip into the academy pool more often. That may be the answer. Maybe it’s to show more ambition mid-game – before Millwall’s sucker-punch, Swansea hadn’t scored or conceded in the second half of any league match in 2024/25. Or maybe that sweet, sweet variance will simply kick in next week. Is it possible, though, to trust the process too much?
🏆 Fantasy Football
Go head-to-head against team NTT20 in our EFL Fantasy Football league
Ali went with a side geared towards the clutch of midweek games in League Two, so there’s room for improvement after a weekend where we clocked up 33 points. Our goalkeeper saved a penalty to register at least one player in the double figures.
Well done to Harchester United for taking top spot overall, and cap doff to EFaLumps for registering the most points this week. Team NTT20 go again with a couple of midweek fixtures.
📺 Watching Brief
Upcoming live EFL games
Monday 28 October 2024
20:00 Blackpool vs Wigan
Friday 1 November 2024
20:00 Luton vs West Brom
Saturday 2 November 2024
12:30 Stoke vs Derby
Plus all other 12:30 games on Sky Sports+
Sunday 3 November 2024
15:00 Millwall vs Burnley
A slightly longer response, from
Ali:
It’s true, I think, that it sometimes looks and feels ‘impotent’ partly because it allows opposition teams to get into their shape and put a lot of bodies between the ball and the goal which leads to lots of shots being blocked and/or taken under a lot of pressure rather than ‘clear shots’ at goal. I think fan get as annoyed about squandered chances than they do a lack of chance creation/shots, which to me is a much greater crime!
It’s also worth pointing out that the high possession approach is as much about defending as it is about attacking, but that gets ignore because people don’t consider the defensive impact that controlling the ball/territory has, they mainly see playing style as an attacking function.
You’ve seen yourself how much Birmingham are suffocating teams. It’s true that the goals conceded numbers isn’t incredible right now, but surely you see that outside of SPs and Peacock Farrell howlers, teams are finding it almost impossible to create chances against Birmingham. In my opinion that’s a consequence of the approach, not because Birmingham’s individual defenders are playing out their skin. If Birmingham played with greater speed and ‘chaos’, they would increase the chances of being caught out defensively.
I do think it’s also worth pointing out that 5 of the top 7 Champ teams for possession are in the top 6 for xG. In L1, 5 of the top 7 teams for possession are in the top 6 for xG. In L2, 4 of the top 7 for possession are in the top 7 for xG. I don’t think it is really true to suggest this sort of football produces ‘so little in the final third’.
I don’t think high possession play is a necessity but I do think the discourse around it sometimes misses key aspects. At the same time, if fans really hate a certain style and find it boring, I do think it can be problematic for managers to ignore those feelings - having buy in (or not) from fans is important!
I'd like to read something on TSW and its disciples. Huge amounts of possession but low non penalty XG sounds familiar to this Birmingham supporter. Why is this sort of football producing so little in the final third (there's that word again!)?