I think overall what it shows is that we generally performed below expectations this season. And that matches up with what I see at the games, we have thrown so many games away this season through poor defending, stupid goals conceded, poor decision making, bad finishing, the list is endless.
The question is, is that just what our squad is - one that isn't quite good enough and is actually quite poor. Or is that we aren't reaching the standards that you would expect from the players we have. I think it is the latter - I don't think there is a single player in our squad who you can look at and say yes, they've had a consistently excellent season. They've all had good spells but they've also all had very average spells. And the manager isn't blameless, he has made poor decisions on starting line-ups at times and in-game management.
So going back to the earlier point, I don't think the squad is the issue, it's the application. And we just haven't been good enough this season on too many occasions.
It only has us up to 6th though, even if we did put our chances away as expected and conceded as expected, so even the expected outcome is not that great, but it's even worse if you don't finish what you're supposed to.
Had we scored at the same rate as last year, and outperformed xG we would be ~15 goals better off by now, and probably be 3rd/ 4th, which seems about right. Our strikers, team and squad are a mile away from doing this though, but 2-3 (better than everything we have) would make a massive difference, like it did last year.
The squad to me seems low play offs at best (less injuries and disruptions), to low mid table at worst, but it's hard to tell as we've had a lot of disruption and injuries. Whether we've had more than average I don't know, but I would guess so.
We're crying out for some +xG strikers though, and every team which goes up usually has those.
The better players who have been consistent have largely been injured or missing, Lenihan, Dieng, Jones, McGree, Latte Lath and maybe even Fry also.
The most minutes of any player is Fry, but even then he's only on ~2500, and there's been ~3300 played based on assumed 95 minute games. We only have 4 players who have played more than 2000 minutes, and if you look at any of the top 6 teams they're all well above us in minutes played per player, especially their better players. Loads have 2-3 on 3000 minutes +, and way more 2000's than us.
This is why I'm not blaming Carrick at all, he doesn't have great tools, and even the ones he's had have been injured or away. The squad is in transition to be geared to play football, so it's very difficult to play a different style which does not suit the players, especially if you're missing a large portion of your best 11 for a lot of the season. i.e we can't go playing lump ball with no strikers, or using Forss as a lone striker etc, plus it's the opposite to how the players have been coached, as even Warnock and Wilder were not exactly lump ball merchants.
For me it's lack of star quality, lack of availability and lack of depth.
