New Year Dip

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Cjay
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New Year Dip

Post by Cjay »

Its tradition.

I think part of what makes a lot of us so frustrated with our January business is because most of the time it coincides with a drop in form.

I cant remember when we last had a really good January transfer window, we have had the odd ok one, but most of the time there is a general feeling that we didn't do enough, think thats fair.

The problem when arguing against that is our 2nd half of the season form is largely always worse then the first half, as soon as new year arrives LUFC form takes a dip, or in some cases a nosedive.

Nobody can know for sure whether that is linked to January and what transfer business we do or dont do.

But what we do know is that this season, just like the previous 2 seasons, our form since 2019 arrived has been worse then before it, quite a lot worse actually.

18/19
Pre New Year- Played 25, won 15 drew 6 lost 4 scored 42 conceded 24, 2.08ppg.
Post New year Played 13, won 7 drew 1 lost 5 scored 21 conceded 15 1.69ppg.

Conceded much more, scoring about the same, but its quite a dip in points, the pre 2019 season toal was 92/93 points, the post 2019 season total is 77, enough for the playoffs but even so a large drop.

This pattern isnt new, indeed the previous 2 seasons have followed the exact same path.

17/18
Pre new year- Played 25, won 13 drew 3 lost 9 scored 37 conceded 29 1.68ppg.
Post new year- Playued 21, won 7 drew 6 lost 8 scored 24 conceded 30 1.28ppg.

16/17
Pre New year- PLayed 25, won 14 drew 3 lost 8 scored 34 conceded 24 ppg 1.8
Post new year- Played 21, won 8 drew 6 lost 7 scored 27 conceded 24 ppg 1.42

Both times we were in the playoffs (5th actually) and both times our poor January windows cost us and saw us fall away, think most fans if they were honest would agree they wanted more in both those windows even if we cant agree on the last one.

But forgetting January transfers, just the dip in form is alarming, 3 seasons in a row, thats not a coincidence surely?

How about 7 times out of 12? Only 4 times during our 12 Championship seasons have we improved 2nd half of the season in the new year, on 1 occasion our ppg was identical all season, that was in the 2015/2016 season.

3 of those 7 occasions have seen us fall out of the playoffs 2nd half of the season.

We have seen some pretty large dips in points per game (ppg) over the years between pre and post new year.

from 1.4 to 1.04 in 2013/2014

from 1.52 to 1.09 in 2011/2012

Our 2nd half dip is usually dramatic and costly and to regular an occurrence to be unlucky, once is unlucky, twice is coincidence, 7 times in 12 seasons, 3 times in the last 3 (barring a dramatic upturn in form this season to get us back above 2ppg)?

I read somewhere after Bielsa arrived and all this talk about Bielsa burnout, someone said "Bielsa burnout, pfft he hasnt met Leeds burnout, we will show him burnout".

Tongue in cheek, but as we can see absolutely true, we have a habit of fading 2nd half of the season.

So if we accept you cant be unlucky that often or that frequently (we have only improved post new year 2 out of the last 10 Championship seasons). Then what is the problem?

There has to be one, is it an attitude at the club? a fear? poor transfer windows in January? what is it?

Derby have a reputation as bottlers, fading when it couts etc, but our own record isnt very good either and successive managers have struggled to fix it.

Why?

Imo its this trend which amplifies frustration during January transfer windows, i do like my stats so i did already know about this, so was desperate for us to strengthen well (i dont think we did particularly).

But is it just poor recruitment? Something definitely seems to go wrong as soon as January 1st arrives

Thankfully we have had such a good 1st half of the season that its very unlikely we wont make the playoffs this season unlike in previous ones, this dip may not be quite as costly.
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Sara
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Re: New Year Dip

Post by Sara »

Be interesting to see how this compares with other championship clubs. Maybe the gruelling schedule, particularly over Christmas, gets to everyone to some extent.

When you say 'something is wrong', looking at a trend over several seasons, what could that possibly be if it's unique to us, given that the personnel involved are completely different? Are we still cursed?
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Muppet the Cat
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Re: New Year Dip

Post by Muppet the Cat »

:swim: when I saw the title of this thread I thought Cjay had gone, given the nice weather the last few days, for his first swim of the year in the sea :swim: :)

:moggy:
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weasel
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Re: New Year Dip

Post by weasel »

Now the stats at first are pretty damning but if we'd won 1 and drawn 1 of the losses the points gained would be the same before and after christmas. In a small sample size 1 bad result can mean a big swing - it will be better to judge it at the end of the season where the sample size will be bigger.

If you take our last 4 matches, for example, then we are averaging 2.25 pts per match over that period despite the loss to Sheff Utd. That in itself suggests the blip was January and February and we are now doing better than we were and peaking at the right time - even though we lost.

And the pts per game for 18/19 Pre New Year is 2.04 not 2.08
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1964white
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Re: New Year Dip

Post by 1964white »

I did warn you Cjay not to get too carried away when you started the January Transfer Window Thread

We only signed a class keeper because it was quite apparent we required one after we tried to do things on the cheap in the summer sticking with a inexperienced lad who was still on a learning curve in his career
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weasel
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Re: New Year Dip

Post by weasel »

1964white wrote: Mon Mar 25, 2019 4:45 pm I did warn you Cjay not to get too carried away when you started the January Transfer Window Thread

We only signed a class keeper because it was quite apparent we required one after we tried to do things on the cheap in the summer sticking with a inexperienced lad who was still on a learning curve in his career
Although on the flipside all the doom and gloom merchants had us selling Clarke, Phillips and PJ.
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1964white
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Re: New Year Dip

Post by 1964white »

weasel wrote: Mon Mar 25, 2019 5:10 pm Although on the flipside all the doom and gloom merchants had us selling Clarke, Phillips and PJ.
Indeed, we may have a job holding onto them this summer if we fail to achieve promotion. Those three are very talented & will want to test their ability at the highest level if the opportunities arise, all worth a few bob & money talks !
Cjay
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Re: New Year Dip

Post by Cjay »

SaraM wrote: Mon Mar 25, 2019 3:14 pm Be interesting to see how this compares with other championship clubs. Maybe the gruelling schedule, particularly over Christmas, gets to everyone to some extent.

When you say 'something is wrong', looking at a trend over several seasons, what could that possibly be if it's unique to us, given that the personnel involved are completely different? Are we still cursed?
I dont know what it could be i mean pressure perhaps? Or maybe we dont strengthen enough?

I cant be bothered checking every club but Norwich, Brentford, Sheff Weds and Sheff United have all improved 2nd half of the season just by looking at the form table.

Preston, Villa, Bristol City, Hull to.

Rotherham to.

So its not universal, some teams experience a dip some don't. But we always seem to more often then not.
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Re: New Year Dip

Post by Cjay »

Muppet the Cat wrote: Mon Mar 25, 2019 3:51 pm :swim: when I saw the title of this thread I thought Cjay had gone, given the nice weather the last few days, for his first swim of the year in the sea :swim: :)

:moggy:
Need to be a lot warmer for that :)
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King Cjay

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Re: New Year Dip

Post by Cjay »

weasel wrote: Mon Mar 25, 2019 4:19 pm Now the stats at first are pretty damning but if we'd won 1 and drawn 1 of the losses the points gained would be the same before and after christmas. In a small sample size 1 bad result can mean a big swing - it will be better to judge it at the end of the season where the sample size will be bigger.

If you take our last 4 matches, for example, then we are averaging 2.25 pts per match over that period despite the loss to Sheff Utd. That in itself suggests the blip was January and February and we are now doing better than we were and peaking at the right time - even though we lost.

And the pts per game for 18/19 Pre New Year is 2.04 not 2.08
Understand what your saying mate but its going to take 2.5ppg from now to get back to where we were before the new year.

Effectively we would need to go through the last 8 unbeaten and win at least 6.

There will almost certainly be a dip come the end of the season, how dramatic or costly we wont know yet but again another dip.

Why? Thats what i want to know, it cant be coincidence.

It has happened under to many managers to often for it to be that.

Yes my mistake :)

Must have given us an extra point on my calculator :lol:
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Re: New Year Dip

Post by Cjay »

1964white wrote: Mon Mar 25, 2019 4:45 pm I did warn you Cjay not to get too carried away when you started the January Transfer Window Thread

We only signed a class keeper because it was quite apparent we required one after we tried to do things on the cheap in the summer sticking with a inexperienced lad who was still on a learning curve in his career
True.

But we had to have one :)

I really did think that Bielsa would signal a change of approach in the transfer market, a bit less hand to mouth and a bit more ambition.

However, the season dip that we seem to experience is more of a concern atm.

Whether the fact we didnt do enough in the last 3 January windows imo and the dips are linked i dont know as i cant remember the other 4 January windows pre dip.
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