Record during The Experiment - Pre & Post Sharp

[BillyStubbsTears]

I hate to throw in a note of factually-based sanity into the ongoing hysterical debate and discussion of conspiracy theories, but I will anyway.

In assessing whether The Experiment has been an unmitigated disaster or not, it seems to me that one blindingly obvious point is being ignored. Half-way through, we lost the one player that was capable of turning a poor team into a not quite disastrous team.

Consider:
The first 20 games of The Experiment, with Sharp generally available, our record was:
P - Pts- GF - GA
20 22  21  33

After the sale of Sharp our record has been:
P - Pts- GF - GA
17 10  16  32

Seems to say it all to me. Before Sharp was sold, we were making solid, if unspectacular progress and looking like a team that could just about squeak out of the situation we'd found ourselves in. Had we continued picking up points at that rate, we'd have ended up with 44-45 points, which might just about have been enough. That would have been Mission Accomplished given where we were in early Sept.

After the sale of Sharp, our results have collapsed, albeit to a level considerably better than they were in the 7 games before The Experiment began and we end up relegated by a country mile.

Call me a simpleton, but I'd say that's about as open and shut a case of cause and effect as you're likely to see.

Interestingly, our goals scored and goals conceded rates have not been so different pre- and post-Sharp. I think what has happened is that we lost that little bit of indefinable extra that someone like Sharp brings, of being able to score the crucial goal at the crucial time to make the difference between winning/drawing or drawing/losing.

(And before the usual suspects get on my case, I have admitted times many that I underestimated the quality of Sharp before we signed him, and that he is by some way the best striker I have ever seen pull on our shirt. I shouldn't need to keep re-iterating this, but the discussions seem to have got so personal of late that I don't doubt someone would be trawling back through past posts to find summat that I may have said in the past about Sharp that was less than exaltory so as to have a moan.)

[RoversAlias]

It's only 5 less goals though. I think Sharp's departure obviously contributed, no doubt about it but I don't think it was the main factor nor do I think if he'd stayed we'd have been even close to staying up.

[BillyStubbsTears]

It's only 5 less goals though. I think Sharp's departure obviously contributed, no doubt about it but I don't think it was the main factor nor do I think if he'd stayed we'd have been even close to staying up.

I'm trying to deal with establishable facts here, not opinions. Before Sharp's exit, we were just about on course (in terms of points won per game since the start of  Saunders' reign) to stop up. Had Sharp stayed, what evidence do you have that our performances would have collapsed to the extent that we wouldn't have even been close to staying up?

[RoversAlias]

When Billy Sharp left we were 5 points adrift of safety and not playing well enough on a consistent basis to look likely to survive.

It isn't as simple as boiling it down to these 'facts' anyway.

[mjdgreg]

Consider:
The first 20 games of The Experiment, with Sharp generally available, our record was:
P - Pts- GF - GA
20 22  21  33

After the sale of Sharp our record has been:
P - Pts- GF - GA
17 10  16  32

Your argument is fundamentally flawed. The first 3 games of Saunders reign were not part of the 'experiment'. During these 3 games we picked up 7 points with the 'old guard'. So to make your stats meaningful we need to ignore those 3 games. The true stats read as follows:

P- Pts- GF-GA
17 15  17 31

So not good enough to stay up with or without Billy. The reason we've gone down is because of the incompetence of Saunders and ludicrous 'experiment'. So please open your eyes and stop looking for ways to defend the indefensible.

[mjdgreg]

Call me a simpleton,

OK, you're a simpleton.

[wilts rover]

GF - 39 GA 77 GD -38

thats why we have gone down, because we can't defend over a season, nothing whatsoever to do with any experiment, blame it on Sam Hird, or Simon Gillett, or Shelton Martis, Beye, Souza, Saunders, O'Driscoll, Wellens, Green, Mills, Shackell, Lewis Dunk, the tea lady - we haven't had a decent goalkeeper, pair of central defenders or holding midfielder for two seasons.

[DonnyNoel]

Now is probably not the time but I'd love to see our overall with/without stats re Sharp. The word talismanic almost seemed to be invented for him. He came on against Palace unfit on one leg to one of the biggest cheers I've heard inside the KM. He barely touched the ball yet the rise in tempo and adrenaline was enough to secure a victory.

[Jonathan]

Indeed I'm sure we weren't doing so badly WITH Sharp WITHOUT the experiment!

There was a time when a return of one point per game with something like the strongest team available was used by a certain statistician as a basis to peddle an 'out' campaign against the manager. Oh how times have changed.

[The Red Baron]

I hate to throw in a note of factually-based sanity into the ongoing hysterical debate and discussion of conspiracy theories, but I will anyway.

In assessing whether The Experiment has been an unmitigated disaster or not, it seems to me that one blindingly obvious point is being ignored. Half-way through, we lost the one player that was capable of turning a poor team into a not quite disastrous team.

Consider:
The first 20 games of The Experiment, with Sharp generally available, our record was:
P - Pts- GF - GA
20 22  21  33

After the sale of Sharp our record has been:
P - Pts- GF - GA
17 10  16  32

Seems to say it all to me. Before Sharp was sold, we were making solid, if unspectacular progress and looking like a team that could just about squeak out of the situation we'd found ourselves in. Had we continued picking up points at that rate, we'd have ended up with 44-45 points, which might just about have been enough. That would have been Mission Accomplished given where we were in early Sept.

After the sale of Sharp, our results have collapsed, albeit to a level considerably better than they were in the 7 games before The Experiment began and we end up relegated by a country mile.

Call me a simpleton, but I'd say that's about as open and shut a case of cause and effect as you're likely to see.

Interestingly, our goals scored and goals conceded rates have not been so different pre- and post-Sharp. I think what has happened is that we lost that little bit of indefinable extra that someone like Sharp brings, of being able to score the crucial goal at the crucial time to make the difference between winning/drawing or drawing/losing.

(And before the usual suspects get on my case, I have admitted times many that I underestimated the quality of Sharp before we signed him, and that he is by some way the best striker I have ever seen pull on our shirt. I shouldn't need to keep re-iterating this, but the discussions seem to have got so personal of late that I don't doubt someone would be trawling back through past posts to find summat that I may have said in the past about Sharp that was less than exaltory so as to have a moan.)

All that your admirable research does for me is to make me question (even more) the timing of the decision to sack O'Driscoll and bring in Saunders. Sharp was poised for a comeback, admittedly short of full fitness, at the time that the board pulled the plug on O'Driscoll. Also Brian Stock, almost as much a key component of the team as Sharp, was ready to play again and Ryan Mason was fit again.

[steve@dcfd]

BST from game 23 last year we did not have a fit Billy and we had the same results. Sean did not have the experience players from the experiment to call on. So if JR felt he should have taken action last summer then the same reasonings should happen this summer.
Let's  not forget from game 23 to game 46 last and from just over half way in game one to game 7 this season, Billy was playing with an injury or was not there. So we cannot use Billy as an excuse for our relegation. Sean, if he said that, could not.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Indeed I'm sure we weren't doing so badly WITH Sharp WITHOUT the experiment!

There was a time when a return of one point per game with something like the strongest team available was used by a certain statistician as a basis to peddle an 'out' campaign against the manager. Oh how times have changed.

Jonathan, don't be silly. You make very good arguments, but you do have this propensity to quote out of context what you think I've said. Then you sound like a kid trying to be clever.

You're right. I DID criticise O'Driscoll when we managed one point per game over an extended run. That was in the division below, with a squad that was, Sharp apart, significantly stronger than the one we have had this season. Context. It's important.

In this division, at any time since we were promoted, form that would just about squeak us up is/was acceptable. That was the limit of my ambition each and every season. The point I was making is that, with Sharp in the team this season, we were been in just-about-scrape-up form. That was acceptable to me. Whether The Experiment f**ked things up is a moot point. I have no axe to grind for McKay and certainly its true that Saunders' initial run of form came before the influx of new players. But again, look at the numbers. By Dec/Jan, when the expanded squad was somewhat more settled in, we were in really quite decent form. We picked up 10 points in 8 games between the start of December and Sharp's exit. That's mid-table form. And  there's a strong case for arguing that appalling refereeing decisions cost us another 3-5 points against Bristol City and Cardiff. That would have been play-off form.

And then Sharp leaves and we're in bottom of the table form, just like we were without Sharp in August and Sept.

I continue to maintain that it is impossible to judge Saunders against that backdrop. I genuinely don't know whether he is a crock of shite. What I DO know is that, up until Sharp's departure, he was putting together form that might just have saved us. That would have been no mean feat given what he inherited. Recall that O'Driscoll's record at the end of last season in matches when Sharp was available was 7 points from 11 games. It puts Saunders' record when Sharp was available into context.  It also might suggest why Ryan was so keen to try The Experiment.

[Bristol Red Rover]

Now is probably not the time but I'd love to see our overall with/without stats re Sharp. The word talismanic almost seemed to be invented for him.

Here you go for this season only though:
Matches with Billy
P19  W6  D3  L10  GF21  GA31  PTS21
PPG(points per game) 1.11

Matches without Billy
P24  W1  D9  L14  GF18  GA43  PTS12
PPG 0.50

Games Billy played when a sub or subbed
When on the pitch
P6  W5  D1  L0  GF8  GA2  PTS16
PPG 2.67

When off the pitch
P6  W1  D2  L3  GF1  GA4  PTS5
PPG 0.83

There's but one conclusion in that.

[BillyStubbsTears]

All that your admirable research does for me is to make me question (even more) the timing of the decision to sack O'Driscoll and bring in Saunders. Sharp was poised for a comeback, admittedly short of full fitness, at the time that the board pulled the plug on O'Driscoll. Also Brian Stock, almost as much a key component of the team as Sharp, was ready to play again and Ryan Mason was fit again.

TRB. Who knows? Ryan's not perfect but since he pays the piper...

For the record (which I seem to be saying a lot these days) I said several times during the first 7 games that I thought O'Driscoll would turn things round when the squad was fully fit. But, that said, there was a woeful lack of much in games 2-6. And that built on the apparent inability of O'Driscoll to stop the rot when things piled up against us last season.

Why didn't Ryan sack O'Driscoll in the summer? Well of course we had appalling injuries last season. And Ryan is loyal to a fault. Maybe he wanted to give O'Driscoll another crack? I don't know.

But when we followed up the second half of last season (14 points from 23 games - half of those games had Sharp in the side) with 1 point from the first 7 this season, maybe Ryan's patience finally snapped? Maybe the KM2's patience finally snapped? I don't know. As I've said before, I wish I had the certainty of some other on here when coming to conclusions.

[steve@dcfd]

BST he was playing in those games with a groin injury which he was trying to nurse to the end of the season. We are not looking at a fully fit Billy. So from the Sheffield united game onwards on the 3rd of January Billy was in and out of the side and finally in the Coventry game in March his injury was the final straw.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Steve.

After the Sheffield Utd game, Sharp played 90 minutes in every one of the next 6 league and 2 cup games. He then missed 4 games through injury. He then came back and played 90 minutes in the next 4 games.

Whatever was happening, it doesn't sound as though anyone was trying to nurse him through anything.

[Chris Black come back]

BST talking sense here. Sad that many others refuse to look at the evidence and instead continue to ride round the track on their hobbyhorses. Most of all, we just don't know what kind of a manager Saunders really is. Let's give him until Christmas and we should have more of an idea. People need to face up to the fact that he has a contract with the best part of 3 years left on it. Let's see what he can do with his own players and without the disaster of last season hanging round his neck.

[steve@dcfd]

 Billy
This says he had been playing with a problem but not sure how long http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/d/doncaster/9413256.stm

[BigH]

Agree with BST's opening post. That's where my analysis came out.

Billy Sharp is one of the division's top strikers. While with us he also had a certain talismanic quality that lifted those around him. I can't think of one other player departure that would have had such a negative impact on the club. Now, there's no point going into the whys and wherefores of his departure - that's been done to death on this forum - but I think that BS's move highlights the bleeding obvious i.e. that without a goalscorer - a player with a 'real' track record of scoring - we have struggled. Before BS we had Heffernan. Say no more. Without a goalscorer we will continue to struggle. Loanees coming in, taking 2-3 games to settle and then scoring a couple of goals in the next 4-5 games really won't do anymore. We need to find some goal-getting talent however raw and inexperienced from somewhere in the League pyramid. Not easy given the club's experiences in the past; remember Jackson, remember Alford!

Saunders has taken a real bagging on this forum - and I'll agree that at times some of it has been justifiable - but given his playing background then maybe, just maybe, we might have someone who can identify and bring to the club the sort of player I'm talking about.

Now I'm off to get me pills... 

[Donnywolf]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7NHCy13ZLk

[SiBo]

My Southampton supporting mate sent me a copy of a big interview SOD did with the local paper down there after Billy went and that article said Billy had been playing through the pain barrier for a long time before he had his operation because he was desparate to try to help the team out.