Forget the performance, the opposition and players meetings, go three at the back, chuck in a goal scoring missile throwing central defender, steer clear of the Raider, take the 3 points and run!
Wealdstone - 0
Notts County - 1
Ellis (63')
Notts Line Up (3-5-2)
Sam Slocombe
Dion Kelly-Evans
Mark Ellis
Alex Lacey
Connell Rawlinson
Calvin Miller
Jim O'Brien
Michael Doyle (C)
Enzio Boldewijn
Kyle Wootton
Inih Effiong (Elisha Sam 85')
Substitutes not used:
Ben Turner
Jordan Barnett
Jimmy Knowles
Ruben Rodrigues
Whether it was player power or the manager a change in tactics and formation did just enough to see Notts back into winning ways.
Key match stats and Notts very much on top.
Progress updated and the win sees Notts cling on to 6th place for a third consecutive game.
Results tracker updated:
Points needed and still projected for a top 3 finish compared to targets.
League segment chart updated. Grey bar shows total points available for that segment. Green bar shows total points gained and yellow bar the PPG for that segment.
The win at Wealdstone salvaged what was starting to look like a quite disastrous 6 game segment. That said it was still the worst set of results so far this season with just 8 points from the 6 games and a PPG return of just 1.333, hopefully that's the bad run out of the way!
Points by time segment. How many points would have been accumulated if games had finished at 15, 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90 minutes.
Onto player stats now and remember you can use the search function to see individual players or click on a column heading to sort highest to lowest etc.
Goal contribution table updated and Mark Ellis becomes the 11th goal scorer for Notts this season.
Goal participation by minute detailing player goal contribution efficiency.
Goals scatter chart updated.
Goals by time segment updated.
Expected goals stats for the Wealdstone game and all in all an improvement from Notts who recorded an xG of 1.43 which despite being pretty average is the best expected goals recorded since the win at home to Dagenham.
There is also further xG analysis later in the Boreham Wood preview section.
Breakdown below of the key xG stats and player match ratings.
Kyle Wootton had 4 attempts on goal giving him an xG for the match of 0.39. Calvin Miller had arguably the easiest chance in the 89th minute and Mark Ellis' headed goal was rated at 0.20.
Neal Ardley's record updated and the win sees his win% for all games increase slightly to 43.69%.
Preview | Boreham Wood (a) | Vanarama National League | Tuesday 16th March 2021
Notts travel to Hertfordshire looking to reverse the defeat suffered at Meadow Lane earlier in the season.
The Wood are without a win in 6 games but have probably been a little unfortunate in some of those outings and looked very dangerous against Torquay at the weekend.
Recent form radar and Notts appear to have the edge.
Goals for/against by time segment for Boreham Wood and there appears to be a trend of goals being scored at both ends during the middle segments of a game.
A quick look at expected goals and expected points for both clubs.
Boreham Wood's xG and xPTS are both higher than their actual goals and points. This would suggest they are creating enough chances to win some of those games they have drawn but finishing has probably let them down a little.
The Wood are averaging 1.11 goals per game from 11.67 chances created per game meaning they average a goal every 10.51 attempts on goal which would concur with the feeling they have been a little wasteful in front of goal.
Notts actual goals is a little higher than expected goals which continues to confirm the concern we had previously about the lack of chances being created.
In fact Notts have actually been securing more points than expected which despite being a concern regarding how sustainable that is it is compounded by the fact that Notts have also recorded their worse PPG average for a 6 match segment which further compounds the very poor expected goals/points averages.
I suppose the one positive you can take from this is that maybe Notts have overcome their bad spell for the season without actually incurring too much damage. With the new signings helping to provide some much needed squad depth, including Lewis Knight who we are still to see in action and the likes of Roberts, Brindley and Turner hopefully not too far away from match fitness Notts could find themselves in a good place for the run in.
Notts are averaging 1.25 goals per game from 12.39 chances created per game. This equates to a goal scored every 9.91 attempts on goal.
Lead status for the two clubs which look eerily similar.
Not much to choose between the two clubs at the bookies with Notts currently circa 7/5 for the away win, Boreham Wood 3/2 for the home win and circa 5/2 for the draw.
Based on those odds Notts have a 42% chance of winning and Boreham Wood 40%.
It will be interesting to see how Neal Ardley sets up for this game but would be surprised to see a change in the 3-5-2 formation we saw at Wealdstone as it does allow for squad rotation options without messing with the system and will also match Boreham Wood up in midfield who also like to play the same way.
As always thanks for reading . . .
COYP!
Richard