There was a bit of concern amongst Notts fans when the team sheet came out and it was missing an injured Calum Roberts.
As it happened they shouldn't have worried as replacement Aaron Nemane took his chance with a decent performance, grabbing the assists for both of Notts' goals.
On the whole it wasn't one of the Magpies best performances but restricted the hosts to just one shot on target whilst making the most of chances at the other end.
Ultimately it was a much needed three points on the road and a small step back into the play-off spots.
Eli Sam continued his recent good form netting his 6th goal of the season and now has 4 goals in his last five outings.
Key match stats.
Notts continue to record high construction stats but equally the PPDA numbers look good as well. That said it's important to add some context to that figure as 5.17 would suggest that Notts pressed well, but it might be an indication of Woking trying to be more direct which will result in less passes when playing out from the back.
Points needed. Remember, these targets were set at the start of the season and based on average points needed over the last half a dozen season. It's beginning to look though that this season could be a bit of on outlier in this respect so when we get to 30 games I'll look to revise the targets for the season run in.
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Progress updated. Up to 7th.
National League results tracker updated.
Goal segment chart:
Six game segments updated and a healthy 2.500 PPG for this segment so far.
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. Two assists for Nemane sees him make his first entry onto the goals and assists table. Rubens goal means he has the highest goals + assists total so far.
Goal scatter charts.
You can hover on the dots (tap if on a touch screen) to view details for each goal.
Expected goals (xG) and what on the face of it looked a comfortable win for Notts. Woking had just 3 attempts on goal with a total xG of just 0.04. One of these attempts happened on 4 minutes, the other two during the dying minutes of the game. Essentially Woking went 92 minutes including stoppage time without a single attempt on the Notts goal.
In fact Notts' attacking and defending stats have taken on a very familiar trend in the last 4 league games. Notts have had 67 attempts on goal scoring 11, whilst in defence the opposition have managed just 15 attempts on the Notts goal scoring just twice.
Just to round this one of the xG for those games is Notts 9.00 and the opposition 0.91. This would suggest that Notts have been ten times more likely to score than they are to concede. This could be a sign that Notts are now finding the kind of form we've all been expecting and hopefully at just the right time!
Match xG stats:
Again, suggests it was a comfortable 3 points for Notts.
Player xG Stats:
Starting to see Wootton, Rodrigues, Sam and Roberts (previous few games) feature with more regularity now suggesting they are starting to see more of the ball in higher value positions.
National League goal scorers includes cup games, penalties and own goals.
Ian Burchnall's record updated after 54 games:
Big game to come on Tuesday night away to Chesterfield and unfortunately I've not had the time to do a full opposition analysis. However the loss of Tshimanga and the 'release' of James Rowe may have put a slight dent in their promotion challenge. That said the return of Paul Cook as Rowe's successor will help to bring back some stability for the Spireites although it's difficult to see how they will replace Tshimanga's goals.
As always thanks for reading.
COYP!
Richard