Some quick defensive stats

Which I have probably got wrong as done on the back of a fag packet using soccerbase:

But based on games last season:

Darling - league games started 33 - 45 goals conceded - 5 clean sheets (although Cordoba played half of one of those at WBA in his place)

McConville - league games started 24 - 23 goals conceded - 7 clean sheets

Cordoba - league games started 24 - 28 goals conceded - 6 clean sheets

Darling/Cordoba partnership - 13 games, 20 goals conceded, 1 clean sheet

McConville/Cordoba partnership - 11 games, 9 goals conceded, 4 clean sheets

McConville/Darling partnership - 12 games, 13 goals conceded, 3 clean sheets

Which to me confirms what i think most of us can see which is that (setting aside that in some early games we played 3 CBs so Cordoba played wider and Darling sometimes played with Medic) Cordoba with Darling is statistically our worst CB pairing. McConville and Cordoba is our best. Darling with McConville is better than when he plays with Cordoba.

Cordoba got a lot better in the second half of the season once he came back from injury and under PC as I suppose did everyone. Our absolute purple patch in terms of form was when Cordoba and McConville played together in the run that started around the time we played Oxford (a) and had several clean sheets in quick succession.

Statistically, McConville is our best defender. We conceded less than 1 goal per game with him playing.

Posted By: Jim, Aug 24, 10:49:01