Topic: Rotten Month of January

[kopindian]

If you look deep into statistics,you will find patterns that could justify many false theories.But I think we really do have a problem in january and coincidentally this is the time of the year when the other eureopean leagues take a winter break.

Season---JanPoints/Matches---SeasonPts/Mathes--SeasonPts/Match-Jan

04-05-----0.75(3 fm 4)------------1.53(58 fm 38)------1.62(55 fm 34)

05-06-----1.33(4 fm 3)------------2.16(82 fm 38)------2.23(78 fm 35)

06-07-----3.00(12 fm 4)-----------1.79(68 fm 38)-----1.65(56 fm 34)

07-08-----0.75(3 fm 4)-------------2.00(76 fm 38)-----2.15(73 fm 34)

08-09-----1.00(3 fm 3)-------------2.13(51 fm 24)-----2.23(48 fm 21)

So except in season 06-07,our form in january has been really poor compared to the rest of the season.The points/matches figures are in most cases less than half of the points/matches figures for the rest of the season.The only exception season has been 06-07,which was the season with maximum number of first team players being introduced into the squad at the begining of the season(Aurelio,Pennant,Kuyt,Bellamy).This led to a terrible start for the season and our form gradually improved,which could explain our better run of form in january.

After Rafa's first 3 seasons he was criticized for the poor starts to the season which put us in a position of playing catch-up for the rest of the season.This problem has been rectified in the last 2 seasons(table topping).But he seems not to have been able to rectify the january month problem.You could argue that our form in January this season has been a continuation of our drawing against poor teams syndrome.But if you take a look at the results,it looks like more of a problem of tiredness and therefore concentration.It has been scored draws conceding late then 0-0 draws(Wigan,everton this season.Astonvilla,Wigan last season).

So,what is the solution?Heavier rotation in defense?Last season Carra-Sami had to play with tiredness because of Agger's injury and this season a tired Carra has been playing with Returning from injury Skrtel,Arbeloa and Aurelio.

PS:Stats thanks to lfchistory.net

[jaffod]

Always used to be November when we hit our blip.Don't think too much can be read into this. The points we have dropped have been entirely avoidable, just undone by set-piece merchants like Everton.

[LFC_4_life]

Our blip always seems to be November to January, before we kickstart again in Feb. if the same thing happens this season, I can see No. 19 coming home.

[watyeonaboot]

Our blip always seems to be November to January, before we kickstart again in Feb. if the same thing happens this season, I can see No. 19 coming home.

Don't get carried away.

You can count on RAWK to be the biggest knee-jerkers on the planet.

[todda]

We always used to drop points in November, but granted January seems to be a sticky month for us.  What hasn't helped (and I don't care what anyone says) is Stevie's off the field problems, he can probably put it to the back of his mind during the 100mph games against the Bitters Chelsea and the likes but, against teams like Wigan and Stoke when there's periods of slow play he must be thinking of it, he's only human (only just I know).

We can't rely on Stevie all the time anyway and the rest of the players need to shoulder some blame too for our poor January, but I can't help but, think if this hadn't happend we could be in a different position now.

People are going to come back and say "yeah we'd be out of the F.A. Cup" but, like I said it has to have some sort of effect on the lad he's only human and he's being stitched-up and could possibly go to jail.

[Redshadow]

Goodbye January.

If we can really reduce our bad month only to January, we'll be there.  I'd say that the Porstmouth game will be the real test of whether we are over the slump or not. Cliche as it seems, when we have Manchester City, I'm sure we'l be a different team. Something being in the knock out round of CL will wake us as a team. Just one more of this miserable game, and we may just get through and can hope for Manc to slip here and there. The race is on!!!

[StuH]

Thank fuck its February!!

12 months ago.... our dreary run I think carried on into the CL knock out stages and we were really toiling without much reward against Inter Milan.  We get two late goals and hardly ever looked back last season.  I'm just hoping yesterday was that corresponding moment this season and we can kick on from here.

[Gaz123456]

Thank God its over then!

[the_red_pill]

'Bout time someone pointed this out. to be honest, during this month I kept telling myself that January will be over soon and we can maybe go on a run- the thought of our usual January-slump at the back of my mind. I think a lot of us know that, but not many has mentioned it before- so thanks KI.

Anyway, during December when I had a good look at the schedule- I wondered if we're going to have a dip again during this time, because the thing that stood out for me, was the hectic schedule toward the end of December, which although normally demanding enough, has been even more so this year.

I have always noted that traditionally there are less games being played during Jan and its not just our form thats affected. We should also take note that January is transfer-time and managers might not be as focussed/involved with football as they normally would- not for a lack of trying, but because of all the analysis some might do, the meetings with players' agents, the board/club hierarchy etc...

In closing, I think its just a combination of a late traditionally hectic late December-schedule, December itself, the fact that Jan is the 1st real break for the players since the start of the season and the transfer window. Those things must deffo have some impact- even if a little on form.

[Victor]

I'm glad someone took the time to look back through the stats and point this out because, like the above poster, I was aware of this but couldn't be arsed backing it up with some hard work to get the facts to support it

don't think it's tiredness because we always rally come february when the business end of the season starts ... I've been keeping myself going recently with the thought that if we're still in touch in february when our run starts we'll be there or there abouts come May

[kopindian]

^ Thanks for the comments boys.

I also took a look at the number of goals we concede late on in the month of January(after 70 minutes).If you exclude 06-07 season we have conceded 10 goals in 9 matches out of the 14 matches played in january under Rafa's time here.Its a very high percentage.
   
 Also the 0-0 draw with stoke this season is the only goalless draw we had in the month of January under Rafa's time.So we manage to avoid 0-0 draws in this time of the year(can be explained by tiredness of other teams),but we drop points by conceding late on in 65% of matches played in this period.So its more a problem of concentration levels of players because of tiredness and we need to rectify it to improve our chances of winning the league.

PS:Dropped points in the month of January sticks to our mind more because of the late goals conceded.