Match 7 - FC Halifax Town (a)

FC Halifax Town - 1

Allen 90' (+4')

Notts County - 1

Sam 6'

It may seem like 2 points lost at The Shay last night following Jamie Allen's sickening late equaliser for the hosts but a look at the stats might suggest otherwise.

Notts Line Up (4-4-2)

Sam Slocombe

Richard Brindley

Alex Lacey (Turner 45')

Connell Rawlinson

Dion Kelly-Evans

Jake Reeves

Michael Doyle (C)

Jim O'Brien

Enzio Boldewijn

Elisha Sam (Roberts 66')

Kyle Wootton

Substitutes not used:

Ruben Rodrigues

Jimmy Knowles

Matty Wolfe

Notts made another bright start which is becoming a bit of a theme this season with Elisha Sam latching on to a Jake Reeves through ball for a well taken goal on 6 minutes.

This was a glimpse of what Sam could offer Notts in the future if given the opportunity although having watched the goal back several times I can't help but think Notts were a little lucky as it did appear to be a fraction offside. Thankfully no VAR at this level!

Unfortunately Sam's goal was the only attempt Notts had in the first half, in fact Notts didn't have another goal attempt until the 64th minute so a whopping 58 minutes without having a pop at goal.

Notts spent pretty much all of that time on the back foot with the Shaymen having the best of it until the introduction of Callum Roberts on 66 minutes who replaced goal scorer Sam.

Opportunities for both sides were few and far between in the second half and when they did arise a lack of composure in front of goal ensured the score line remained the same until the 4th minute of added time.

Notts essentially had the game won and a free kick deep in the Halifax half. Unfortunately in an attempt to keep possession and run down the clock possession was given up far too easily from the free kick and a long clearance should have been cleared into row 'z' by substitute centre half Ben Turner. Instead he appeared to lose flight of the ball allowing it to bounce over his head where an alert Jamie Allen was able to capitalise on Turner's lumbering movement, latching on to the loose ball and sliding past the onrushing Notts keeper for the last gasp equaliser.

In truth it was no more than Halifax deserved in a game that neither team warranted a win.

I've left this report a bit late so will be including the Chesterfield preview at the end of the article.

On to the stats . . .

A new table for goal contribution below. An searchable version of this table is on the player stats page of the website.

We were expecting a low xG for this game and didn't we get it! You can clearly see from the chart the 58 mins of absolutely no goal attempts by Notts whilst they sat deep and invited halifax on to them who in turn did very little themselves to take advantage of it.

Notts gained some momentum again with the addition of Roberts on 66 mins who really should have scored but as previously mentioned it just wasn't good enough from the Magpies with Halifax capatilising on some shoddy possession at the death.

Points needed and with 7 games played Notts have a PPG of 1.428 which would see a return of just under 63 points over 44 games. Again, I have created an interactive chart where you can filter the chart elements by selecting items in the filter legend at the top of the chart to get a better view of progress versus target(s).

Results tracker updated:

League progress now and the draw leaves Notts in exactly the same position they were in after 7 games last season. The worrying thing is that last season there was clearly an upward trajectory by this point whereas this season it is starting to take a dip. The red line shows average position for the season so far which is currently 9th place.

Goal time segments updated and there appears to be a Jekyll and Hyde issue for Notts either side of half time with 8 of Notts goals scored in the first half and just 2 conceded compared to the second half where Notts are struggling to score and prevent goals conceding 7 compared to 3 scored.

A slight change to attack and defence stats now as I have decided to look at all teams to see how they compare.

Like the old charts this one shows attacking efficiency. The further to the right means you are more threatening, having more goal attempts per game and the futher up you go means less effective because you need more shots to score.

In the table below you can see that at the moment Torquay are the most threatening team in the league but are also quite effective needing just under 6 attempts per game to score.

Halifax on the other hand are only averaging around 9 shots per game and are needing at least 12 shots per goal (unless Notts are in town).

The next chart shows defensive resilience.

The further to the right you go the more pressure you are inviting on yourself. The further up you go the less resilient you are defensively.

In this chart you can see that Dover and Kings Lynn are conceding the most times in a match but are also inviting the most pressure.