Dundee FC currently sit at the bottom of the 2021/22 Scottish Premiership season with just three points from their opening eight games. They are yet to register a win in the league and have drawn three and lost five games. James McPake’s team have been poor defensive and going forward, scoring just five goals and conceding 16. In this post, we will take a look at the stats produced by Dundee FC in the first eight games of the 2021/22 Scottish Premiership season.
Dundee FC are on a bad run at the moment losing their last three games, and four in all competitions as they were knocked out of the League Cup by St. Johnstone. They started the season with a draw and were then beaten 6-0 by Celtic. Since then, they have not been able to register a win and have stayed at the bottom of the Premiership standings.
Dundee FC have scored only five goals in the league so far, which is the second-lowest, with only Livingston scoring fewer goals with just three. But Dundee’s xG creation has not been the worst as they have created the seventh-highest xG, which is close to 1.00 per 90 minutes. this means that they created the expected goals stat equal to 1 in every game on average, but have underachieved this xG scoring only five goals in eight games.
The Dark Blues have also taken the sixth-most shots in the Premiership with 84 shots, and have hit the target 32 times. But the quality of their shots has not been good enough, and they have managed to score only five goals while their other 27 shots have been saved by the goalkeepers.
McPake’s side have also had a decent number of successful passes in the penalty box with 60 passes, meaning that they have had the chances to create goals or goal-scoring opportunities a lot of times. Their problem has been that they have not been clinical enough in front of goal, and have not been able to gid out results in their favour.
The above viz shows the PPDA or Passes per Defensive Action value of the teams in the Premiership. For example, the value of 10.53 for Dundee shows the number of passes the opponents have been able to accumulate on average before Dundee have had a defensive action. Other than goalscoring, another problem they have been facing is conceding goals. They have conceded 16 goals in eight games, averaging two goals per game. Despite not having the worst PPDA value, they have the joint-worst defensive record in the Premiership.
The Dark Blues have made the third most recoveries in the Premiership as one can see from the above viz. they also have good numbers in terms of defensive and aerial duels. the question that arises is why do they have good numbers for these defensive stats, but still the worst defensive record. The reason for this is in the next viz, which shows the recoveries made in the defensive third by the teams in the Premiership.
Dundee FC have made more than half of theirs and the most recoveries in the defensive third. This has been the problem, that they have good numbers in these stats because they have had a lot of defending to do. They have been forced to face more duels and make recoveries in their own half, and in the process have conceded a lot of goals.
James McPake and his team really need to make a big change soon enough if they want to keep any chances alive for even coming off the bottom spot this season. They need to sort out their defence, and find rhythm in attack and also a prolific goal scorer on whom they can rely to find the net.
