An unexpected hattrick and a penalty save helped Notts to a valuable and much needed third away win in their last 6 games on the road.
Ruben Rodrigues was the man of the moment, scoring his first ever professional career hattrick, but it could have been a very different game if it wasn't for Vitezslav Jaros, who was able to keep out a poor Sam Dalby penalty with the game still finely in the balance.
Southend had the lions share of goal attempts but it was Rodrigues who was the more clinical in front of goal converting 3 of his 4 chances to ensure the game looked a little more comfortable than the stats might suggest.
Key match stats.
The match stats suggest it was a pretty even game with nothing much to separate the teams but the score. In fact, as we've discussed in previous reports, the penalty has skewed the xG a little but more on that later.
Onto points needed and Notts still projected to be in or around the top 7 with 8 games to go. In fact if aspirations are to finish in the top 3 Notts will likely need to add an extra 0.50 PPG to their current rate of 1.770. This would mean averaging circa 2.200 PPG from the remaining fixtures.
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Progress updated.
National League results tracker updated.
Goal segment chart:
Six game segments updated. 11 points from this segment for the third time this season.
Player stats updated:
As usual this is the new table that is also available to view on the player stats page of the website here. There will also be separate tables for the two cup competitions.
Goals and assists chart. Rodrigues now alongside Wootton on 15 league goals for the season. Add cup goals and assists to this and you're looking at 26 goal contributions for the Portuguese forward.
Goal scatter charts updated.
You can hover on the dots (tap if on a touch screen) to view details for each goal.
xG now and again we have a penalty to help mess up the stats a bit. Southend recording an xG of 1.53 compared to 0.95 for Notts, which suggests Rodrigues was very clinical in his finishing.
Match xG stats and as we can see below the xG including the penalty suggests had Southend scored then the game turns and a home win probably more likely.
However, just to see how things might have panned out without the penalty I ran the xPTS calculation again which provides a much better indication of how the game was played.
Win % would have been 39.31% to 27.03% in Notts' favour with an xPTS of 1.52 for Notts and 1.15 for Southend.
Either way the penalty still represents an attempt at goal so we should really keep it included.
Player xG Stats: Pretty much a one man show!
National League goal scorers includes cup games, penalties and own goals.
Ian Burchnall's record updated after 63 games.
Since the defeat at Stockport it's 10 points from a possible 12 in the last 4 games, two of those wins away from home. I think we would have been happy with that after the showing at Edgeley Park.
A trip to the English Riviera up next for Ian Burchnall's men and another challenging game against a team that is unbeaten in their last 6 home games, so they're essentially there for the taking!
As always thanks for reading.
COYP!
Richard