It was pleasing to see Joe Worrall put such a convincing performance in on Saturday in the 4-1 win over Preston North End. It was a forceful rejoinder to the fashion for rushing to premature judgements which seems to be compulsory these days.
Worrall had a rough debut at West Ham, but he was pitched in unexpectedly against a side which put in a phenomenal performance, exceeding their xG by over three goals. And anyway, it’s not as if he was the only one to have a tough time of it.
Having him available to slot into the middle of the back three certainly adds to Phil Parkinson’s options if he can maintain last weekend’s standards. Wrexham are lacking clean sheets this season: we’ve gone six games without managing one. With Max Cleworth’s injury stretching our options at the back – surely we looked to bring in another centre back during the window to offer extra cover – it’s important our four remaining experienced centre backs are fully up to speed. Worrall affects the balance of the back three in a positive way: his presence in the middle allows Dom Hyam to shift to the right of the back three, which gives us an extra level of rigidity at the back as the defensive unit look to add to the two comfortable shut-outs we’ve enjoyed so far, in back-to-back games at Millwall and Swansea.
Ironically, the underlying data suggests we ought to have conceded fewer. Wrexham have the 6th-best xG against in the Championship and allowed the 7th-least shots; only Charlton and Lincoln have allowed a lower percentage of shots against them from inside their own penalty area.
We have made the most ball recoveries in the division too, suggesting our defensive unit is efficient at ending attacks at source and pressing effectively to keep attacks from developing. We’ve also conceded the least shots from set pieces.
We have also allowed our opponents fewer touches in our penalty area than any other side.
Despite these impressive figures, we’ve conceded three goals more than xG suggests we ought to have done, the fifth worst defensive underperformance in the division. However, it should be pointed out that the freak result at West Ham (and it’s nice to be able to find the statistics to prove that it was an aberration rather than something which reflected our standards) essentially accounts for this statistic. We conceded 3.04 goals more than West Ham’s xG of 2.96 suggested we ought to: if that game had been called off, we’d have a positive Goals v xG of 0.02, which essentially would mean we’d have conceded what we ought to have done.
That matches the feeling I’ve had watching Wrexham this season. Mia Roberts made a great point when she suggested a couple of weeks ago that it was difficult to judge Anthony Patterson because he really hadn’t been given many shots to save: the goals he’s conceded have generally been essentially unsavable and the games against Southampton was the only one in which he was really able to pull off a couple of difficult stops. It suggests we’ve been rather unfortunate to come up against sides which are hitting the corners of the goal more often than they ought to. Beyond the free kick which denied us an opening day win at Cardiff, it’s hard to think of a goal against us which could have been saved.
Hyam’s more conservative positioning in comparison to Zak Vyner may address what appears to be our major defensive issue this season. The above stats imply that we have been defending well once our mid-block is in place, keeping sides out of our penalty area and winning the ball back in midfield. However, only Cardiff and Derby have allowed more than the 19 fast breaks that have developed against us this season. Hyam’s more cautious movement allows us to have more cover against such transitions in theory, with a more robust shape to our rest defence.
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