This time last year.....A side by side comparison of Leeds form after 19 games!

I have been successfully trying not to talk up Leeds too much after last year's heartbreak and attempting not to tempt fate by even mentioning them but now, its all got too much for me so I have decided to do a side by side comparison to this stage last season after 19 games. We are of course currently sat on top of the league, but we have been there before......

OK, I will be honest. I am doing this because I found a new toy to play with and its a site called 11x11 league table generator where you can give it a date and it will show you the league table of choice on that particular date!

Their database must be huge with dates going right back into the late 1800s!

Anyway, go and play later cos this is how we currently stand!!

And this is how we stood after 19 games last season.

Now the most obvious things are that we have 4 more points and that we are top as compared to 2nd. We have also won 2 more games, lost the same but drawn 4 as opposed to 6 which of course have been turned into the 2 extra wins. Fine margins!

What's more interesting are the averages, or means per game so first let's look at the goals scored.

2018/19 - GF: 32, giving us an average of 1.6842 per game
2019/20 - GF: 28, giving us an average of 1.4736 per game

Obviously worse and also slightly skewed by Saturday's 4-0 thumping of Middlesboro. This is a slightly worrying statistic as our possession figures are by far the best in the league but the conversion of possession to goals is poor. This can be blamed firmly on the shoulders of Donkey Bamford, who to be fair, has worked and played well all season but until the last couple of weekends couldn't hit a barn door from a yard away! Thus my constant criticism throughout the early part of the season is entirely justified!
Last season's top scorer, Kemar Roofe was sold to Anderlecht so we need Bamford to step up. He scored 10 last season, but so did Klich and Pablo bagged 12. We are lucky that we can score from any position which has negated the loss of Roofe without a replacement and if Bamford keeps up this vein of form, the difference will not be so great.

Another thing offsetting our shortage of goals is the defence. We sold Pontus to Brentford which didn't go down too well with the fans but we replaced him with Ben White, a loanee with an option to buy from Watford. We also ditched Flapper Farrell who is now unable to cut the mustard at Burnley and brought in veteran Real Madrid keeper, Kiko Casilla and look at the stats for this year.........

2018/19 - GA: 17 giving an average of only 0.8947 per game, which is great but this year....
2019/20 - GA: 10 giving an average of just 0.5263 per game which is the best by far in the league....

Points per game average is 2.105263157894737 points per game so after 46 games, that would give us 96 points, which apart from when Wolves won in 2017-18 with 99 points, would be enough to win the league every season for the past 10 seasons.

What this all means is we are in a better position and stronger than we were last year. Nothing else. The high intensity, possession-based game we play is tough and requires incredible fitness. Towards the end of last season we were tiring. This carried into this season as we dropped goals to last-minute goals on a couple of occasions after not putting games to bed and being able to hold a lead. This appears to have been improved upon in the last 5 games which have yielded us a maximum 15 points. We also have a nice looking gap developing back to 3rd place. It's always nice to have a cushion!

We are not even halfway through the season yet, and so much could change but seriously. Looks to me like this is definitely going to be our season but not being promoted through the play-offs or from second place. Bielsa already said he wants to go up as champions and let's keep our fingers crossed that's how it's going to be, come May 2nd!

Marching On Together

@nathen007