One key area Chesterfield can improve on to get season back on track - stats report

Andy Woodman’s men are a bit of a bogey side for the Spireites – losing just one of the last six clashes.

The Ravens will visit Derbyshire full of confidence after going five unbeaten in the league, although they did suffer a shock home defeat to Hereford in the FA Cup last time out.

Town returned to winning ways against Anstey Nomads last weekend and they will be aiming to get back on track in the league after three successive defeats.

We have delved into the Wyscout stats to have a look at one aspect of Chesterfield’s game ahead of this fourth v fifth encounter.

Let’s take a look...

PASSING

On average this season Chesterfield attempt 385 passes a game, with a success rate of 81.1%. This is more than opposition teams, who on average attempt 317 passes against the Spireites, completing 75.8%. So, on average, Town outpass the opposition. No shock there, we’ve all seen it with our own eyes.

The Blues’ passing accuracy has not strayed too far away from that 81.1% average in the last three league games despite losing all of them. In fact, against Dagenham and Rebridge they completed a huge 508 passes – a season high so far. And against Maidenhead United they completed 401 passes – the second highest total. Away at Eastleigh the number of accurate passes (285) and the percentage (76.4) were below the season average – but surprisingly still higher than against Wrexham at home and Notts County away – which were two excellent performances.

So passing accuracy is not the main issue, either – the stats show they have recorded their two highest accuracies in the defeats to Dagenham and Maidenhead. As we all know, those games were lost due to counter-attacks.

WHAT ABOUT FORWARD PASSES?

It is not really a problem. The 155 forward passes against Dagenham is the highest of the season so far and the 123 against Maidenhead is the second highest. It dropped to just 85 against Eastleigh but that was still higher than away at Yeovil Town (77) and Notts County (75), where four points were collected, and again it was more than against Wrexham (a convincing 2-0 win) (82).

HOW ABOUT FINAL THIRD PASSES?

Again, not the issue. The 75 against Dagenham was the highest of the season and the 58 against Maidenhead was, you guessed it, the second highest total. The 32 at Eastleigh was still 10 more than against Notts County (22).

SO WHAT’S CHANGED?

The stats show that Chesterfield have started to go backwards and sideways more. For example, they attempted 86 backwards passes against the Daggers (yep, highest of the season) and 73 against Maidenhead (third highest). Against Wrexham they only attempted 45 backwards passes. So in the last two home games they have played considerably more backwards passes than they did in probably their best performance of the season.

There is a similar pattern for sideways passes. Against Dagenham the Spireites attempted to go sideways a whopping 246 times. Against Notts County? Just 65. Against Wrexham? Only 83.

SUMMARY

To conclude, it is not that Town are playing fewer forward passes or passes into the final third, but they have started to play more backwards and sideways passes.

With Bromley the next visitors to the Technique this Saturday, who no doubt will have watched what Maidenhead and Dagenham did, the game could well be decided on how brave the Blues are on the ball, players making forward runs off the ball to give team-mates more options, but also being less vulnerable on the counter-attack.