Degausser
Well-Known Member
Through 14 matches so far this season, we've scored 30 goals and conceded only 16. At face value, you would thinks that's a pretty good ratio. We've scored 15 goals in each half which, again, looks pretty good. The problem is that of our 16 conceded goals, 12 of them have come in the 2nd half - 9 of which within the first half hour (with another goal right on the cusp).
The interesting thing is that most of those goals, 5, have come in the middle portion of the half (60 minutes - 74 minutes). We tend to remember the goals that happen towards the start and end of halves as they're more memorable due to their timing but it looks like we have a real problem stopping the opposition scoring, or actually scoring ourselves, during this time frame. Although we've conceded 4 goals in the 15 minutes after the interval, we've also scored 4 ourselves - and our goals dry up in the following 15 minutes.
Could our struggles be not because we're conceding more at the start of the half but because we're not scoring through the middle portion? We've conceded 5 goals in this 15 minute section but we've scored only 1 (Dundee) which is allowing games to run away from us. In fact, 10 of our 15 second half goals are in the last section (75-90) where it's either going to be too late to make a difference (Hibs) or, effectively, just padding goal difference given we were already in front (Dundee, again).
Our focus has to be doing a better job in the second half. When we've conceded in the first half, we recovered. Hamilton went 1-0 up and we won 4-1. Motherwell equalised before half time and we won 2-1. Hibs scored twice but that game was a bit of an anomaly given the referee - plus we scored late so their game winning goal was actually their third goal scored in that middle section of the second half.
But now look at what's happened to us when we've conceded after the break. Just about all of those goals have impacted our results. With the exception of Dundee (which was very late anyway) and Ross County, this is where we've lost games. Thistle scored twice in the first 15 minutes and we needed a goal to get a point, Celtic scored twice in the first 20 for a win, Motherwell twice in the first half hour for a win and Progres did this as well.
There's obviously some positives to take away here. Our first half play from this looks to be great, we probably need to make more of our defensive dominance here by scoring more goals. Scoring late goals is a good habit to have as well and we don't really seem to be conceding lots of late goals either. We're playing well in most of these sections of the game but we're really struggling in a couple of them and it's really hurting our results.
The tough part is identifying why that is and how to fix it. Are our half time team talks poor? Are our players getting too tired? Do our opponents make tactical adjustments to counter our play? Are our substitutions detrimental to our play disrupting the flow? Curious to see what you all think about it.
