31 miserable stats which sum up a largely miserable Ipswich Town season

A lack of goals is the first port of call when it comes to working out why a season which started with so much promise has fallen away, to the extent it feels as good as over with four games remaining.

Here, we take a look at the stats (all applying to League One games only) which sum up just why things have gone so wrong for the Blues, while also looking at a few positives.

The negatives

• Ipswich Town’s tally of 41 goals is better than only Bristol Rovers (40) and Northampton (38). Those sides are bottom and 21st respectively.

• The Blues average less than a goal a game

• They have now played more than nine hours of football without a goal

• Ipswich have failed to score in 16 of their 42 League One games to date. Again, Northampton and Bristol Rovers are the only clubs with worse records in this metric

• Town have managed to score more than one goal in only 13 of their matches

• Town have scored three or more goals in a game just once this season, at Blackpool in September when they managed four. They have by far the worst record in the league in this regard

• Their goal difference is currently –3. No club in the top half of any of the EFL divisions has a worse goal difference.

• Town’s top scorer, James Norwood, is 56th in the League One scoring charts with six goals to his name. No other club’s leading scoring has fewer goals.

James Norwood is Town's top scorer on six (Image: Pagepix Ltd.07976 935738)

• 19 of the 24 League One clubs have at least two players who have scored more than Norwood. Gillingham, Lincoln and Rochdale have four players on more than Norwood’s six goals.

• Town’s other central strikers, Kayden Jackson, Oli Hawkins, Troy Parrott, Freddie Sears and Aaron Drinan, have scored just one league goal each in a combined 4,671 minutes of action. Many of those appearances are from the bench, but combine for nearly 52 full games of football.

• Four of Ipswich’s goals have been ‘own goals’. No team has benefited from more of them this season than Ipswich.

• That puts ‘own goal’ joint third in the Ipswich scoring charts, alongside Jon Nolan and Alan Judge and behind Gwion Edwards (5) and James Norwood (6).

• Town have only scored 27 league goals from open play this season.

• Not one of those has been chalked up as being a ‘counter-attack’ goal.

• Ipswich have scored 10 goals from set-pieces this season, with only five teams managing fewer

• Town are the only team in League One not to have scored a penalty this season. Lincoln have had 10.

• Gwion Edwards is 50th in the League One assist charts, with four. No team’s leading assister has fewer to his name than Edwards. 14 teams have multiple players above Edwards on the list. The next Ipswich name on this list are Alan Judge, Norwood, Luke Chambers, Stephen Ward and Teddy Bishop, who all have two.

Gwion Edwards is Town's leading assister (Image: Pagepix Ltd 07976 935738)

• Ipswich Town average 9.8 shots per game. That’s the fewest in the entire league.

• The Blues average 3.2 shots on target per game. Only Wigan and Northampton average fewer.

• Town’s 16.1 ‘unsuccessful touches’ per game is the highest in the league

• Ipswich have worn their silver away kit five times and have scored two goals (Norwood at Hull and Chambers at Gillingham).

• Town have yet to score since the American-backed takeover of the club was completed.

• Ipswich have conceded three or more goals in games six times this season, with three of those occasions coming against teams in the bottom six (Swindon, Northampton, Wimbledon)

• The Blues are as close to the relegation zone as they are to the automatic promotion places. The gap to both is 18 points.

• In the 35 games since Town’s first loss of the season, away at Doncaster on October 20, ended a superb start, the Blues sit 16th in the League One form table

• The form table since Paul Cook took charge of the Blues has Town 20th in League One

• Only two players (Dion Charles of Accrington and Tyler Smith of Swindon) are caught offside more often per game than James Norwood

• Only Hull are caught offside more often than Ipswich as a team

• Only five players commit more fouls per game than Andre Dozzell

• Town’s combined disciplinary record is fifth-worst in the division, with 72 yellow cards and six reds. Charlton and Accrington have been shown more red cards than Town

• Ipswich have used 34 players in League One this season, fewer than only Swindon, Wigan and Burton Albion.

The positives

There aren’t too many, but we thought it was only fair to record the stats where the Blues are performing well this season. They are in the middle of the pack for lots of League One statistics but feature highly in the following.

• Ipswich Town fans broke the iFollow away support record twice in a week, with 5,005 watching the game at Accrington on the day Cook was appointed as manager and 5,991 watching his first game at Gillingham

• Town have kept 10 home clean sheets. Only Hull have managed more

• The Blues concede 0.81 goals per 90 minutes at Portman Road, bettered by only Hull and Fleetwood

• Flynn Downes has the fifth-highest pass completion percentage in the league, at 87.1%.

• Mark McGuinness and Luke Woolfenden are third and fourth respectively in interceptions per game across League One.

• McGuinness is also fourth for clearances made per game

• Toto Nsiala averages one block per game. That’s good enough for fifth in the league

• Town make 16.1 tackles per game on average. The third best in the division.

• They average 12.4 interceptions as a team per game. They’re second in the league on that behind Wimbledon

• Perhaps surprisingly, Ipswich put in the sixth-most crosses per game across the league, with 19.

• They average the most successful through balls per game, with two.