Carlisle v Notts County

Something unusual is happening with Notts at the moment and I'm trying my best to get my head around it.

For the main part of the last two or three seasons we, as Notts fans, have become accustomed to free flowing, possession hogging, all out forget about defending, single minded attacking football. But this season has brought about one of the biggest tactical changes we have seen at the club in recent years.

Leaking goals was an acceptable by product of a team whose mentality would generally be "you score three and we'll score four". The stats would depict a team that often had in excess of 70% possession and 20 plus shots on goal per game was basically the norm. But not any more.

This season Notts have recorded and faced and identical number of shots (106) and shots on goal (43) whilst still managing to shade the possession and passing stats. However, the big change I've alluded to is in the goals scored and conceded columns. Whilst conceding 8 goals in 9 league games sees Notts 4th in the best defence tables they're doing it the hard way with opponents needing an average of just over 13 shots on goal to convert. By contrast, 17 league goals see's them top of the scoring charts alongside Walsall but needing only a fraction over 6 shots for every goal scored.

Those attacking stats are nothing new for Notts, however, it's the quality of the defending that has seen a big swing. The average xG value per shot faced is a mere 0.07 suggesting that whilst Notts still invite plenty of shots on their own goal, on the whole the opposition are limited to low value chances. compare this to the attacking data that sees Notts creating an average xG per shot of 0.16, over double the value of those chances faced.

But it's not just the xG data that's interesting this season, it's the raw doggedness of the rear guard that is having the biggest impact on the clubs fortunes this season. With players side lined through injury or just getting back up to match fitness Stuart Maynard has had to sacrifice some of that all guns blazing methodology for a more conservative system that plays to the strengths of those he has available to him, and it seems to be working.

If the first half at Carlisle felt like a breeze, the second half was more of a hurricane!

The desire for players to put their bodies on the line for a clean sheet along with some fantastic keeping from Alex Bass is something we could only have dreamed of in seasons gone by. 20 Shots faced with an average xG of 0.13 per shot is almost double the value of the seasons average so far, yet the Notts goal could not be breached.

Carlisle will consider themselves unfortunate based on their second half performance, a half that contributed massively to an expected win% of just over 72% for the Cumbrians. However, and not withstanding the quality of the Magpies goals, it was their defensive robustness that finally won through.