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Quick thread on #MillwallFC
Millwall have struggled to produce consistent goal threat and creativity for a while now. Be it player quality or approach something isn't clicking and they look lacklustre as an attacking unit at times.
Millwall have struggled to produce consistent goal threat and creativity for a while now. Be it player quality or approach something isn't clicking and they look lacklustre as an attacking unit at times.
Here is all of Millwall's penalty box entries for season so far. Clear depiction of their style of play, direct from deep, then when in final 3rd, playing with width. Obviously the more further away the box entry attempt the less accurate it is (playing the %s)
Here's all of Millwall's accurate penalty box entries. Note higher up the pitch, often wide in final 3rd with starting to see some pattern in half space usage especially on the diagonal.
Jed Wallace is Millwall's key creator down the right flank. Here his box entries show how he's potentially more effective on the left/centre than throwing crosses in wide right. Either way he's much more efficient closer to the box than he is further away.
Narrow up the pitch to remove the wide play and we see an issue. Millwall directness are there but a lack of "deep completions" or accurate deep progressions mean they struggle for final 3rd ball centrally
Narrow it up AND look at only final 3rd central passes and you get a picture of a team much more efficient in half spaces than they are showing in general.
Specifically Wallace has a real interesting tendency of popping up in a zone 14 area and moving through balls into left side of the box. From right it's deliveries from right half space into central areas in box.
What's the point? To win more games Millwall need to create more chances. To create more chances they need more sustained possesion in final 3rd and ideally need to vary their play to allow for more passes into the box from central areas close to the box.
Important to note we don't look at accuracy negatively, this thread highlighting simple efficiency but we run an xT model on this data and cluster the passes to see where the lack of threat comes from. Central areas is definitely an issue.
