Another season, another 46 lines on the spreadsheet. Chris Rand gives us his ten most interesting statistics from an intriguing, if rather unsuccessful, season.

1. PLAY-OFF STANDARD?
Marcus Evans says that Town's form over the last three or four months has been "encouraging", adding "We have lost only once at home since October [this was prior to Sunday] and if there was a league table over the second half of the season, we would be towards the top end." Technically true, in that Town would be above halfway, but the table of matches since 1 January only has Town in 10th position; since 1 February in ninth; since 1 March in 11th; and since 1 April in 14th. At the halfway stage Town were 19th; for the second half of the season Town were 10th. This was thanks to an improved defence - Town actually scored fewer goals (just 24 in 23 matches) in the second half of the season.

2. WHOSE TURN IS IT?
18 different players scored for Town in the league this season, the second-highest ever after the 20 in 2006/2007, Jim Magilton's first season. With Garvan, Smith and Eastman all coming close on Sunday, the record was nearly beaten. The top scorer was Jon Walters with eight goals; only in three of the club's 67 professional seasons has the figure been lower (1969-70, Colin Viljoen with six; 1994-95, Claus Thomsen with five; and 2005-06, Nicky Forster with seven).

3. CAN WE GO HOME NOW?
Town only let in eight first-half goals at Portman Road, with three of those being in the Newcastle match in September. The run of 11 first-half clean sheets (home and away) at the start of 2010 has only been beaten once in the club's history (an incredible 17 matches in 1998-99 under George Burley). However, although Town kept 28 first-half clean sheets in 46 matches, the highest total since 1999-2000, in more than half of these matches the defence failed to do as well after the break, resulting in 12 ninety-minute clean sheets all season, a fairly average total.

4. THIS SHOULD BE EASY
Town played better against top-half teams than bottom-half ones, and actually lost more games against bottom-half sides. In the final table against top-half teams only, Town finished 10th (W4 D14 L6); against the other bottom-half teams, 21st (W8 D6 L8).

5. THOSE ELUSIVE GOALFESTS
Town scored two or more goals in a league game just 11 times - only Plymouth and Swansea (nine times) did this less frequently. Only four teams (Ipswich, Preston, Coventry and Swansea) failed to score four or more goals in a game all season. Town only won one match by three or more goals (home to QPR), although two teams (Bristol C and Coventry) failed to win any matches by this margin. In each of the previous three seasons, Town had won 4 matches by three or more goals.

6. NOT FLYING IN AT EITHER END
Matches at Portman Road averaged 2.04 goals per game, with only Middlesborough and Swansea home supporters seeing fewer goals in total (Town inched above 'Boro by conceding the third goal against Sheffield Utd). There was only one game with five or more goals (against Coventry) but Sheffield Wednesday home supporters didn't see a single five-goal match all season.

7. STREAKY
Town's 14 matches without a win was the longest winless streak of any club all season. However, only Newcastle and Forest could beat Town's 14-match unbeaten home run. Apart from Town, five other teams failed to win two consecutive away matches, and six others failed to lose two consecutive home ones.

8. MORE CONSISTENT ATTENDANCES
Average attendance at Portman Road was down for the sixth consecutive season, to 20,841. It should be noted however that the last decade has seen particularly high attendances; an average crowd of over 20,000 was never seen at Portman Road in the 18 seasons between Bobby Robson leaving and the return to the Premiership under George Burley; it often hovered around the 12,000 mark in the late-eighties and early-nineties. The small drop on last season is more than accounted for by the absence of a derby match, and even the mysterious failure to traditionally finish the season with one or two bumper crowds - the 27,225 for the last home game of last season against Coventry wasn't beaten once this season. The lowest attendance this season was 19,283; it was the first time for three years that Portman Road didn't see a single sub-19,000 attendance.

9. IT'S PAST MY BEDTIME
For only the second time since dropping back down from the Premier League in 1995, Town lost two midweek matches at home. Town traditionally have a much better record in evening matches at Portman Road than on Saturdays, and this season were presented with what may be a record-equalling seven such fixtures. However, the results from these were a miserable W1 D4 L2.

10. GUESS WHAT? TOWN HAVE DRAWN AGAIN
And then there are the draws. As everyone knows, this season saw the highest number of drawn matches - 20 - in the club's history. This comfortably beats 1964-1965's 17/42 (40%) and 1990-1991's 18/46 (39%). It's also the highest total this season for any club in the top ten divisions of English football, although Brentford are still in with a chance of catching up. The number of home draws - 11 - easily beat the previous record (nine in 1992-1993 and 2008-2009), and the number of away draws - nine - was only one short of the all-time record. In two of this season's 20 draws, Town had been losing at half-time, and in five of them they'd been winning.

...and finally...

I don't tend to keep many stats about individual players, so I can't offer much in the way of records there (although surely Town have never before fielded five goalkeepers in a season?). However, thanks to Pride of Anglia for working out the average points per game achieved with each individual player in the starting line-up. Top of the pile was Stern John (five starts, three wins, two draws!), but of the players who started matches more than 10 times, the table is as follows:

1. Shane O'Connor (11 starts, W5 D3 L3, average 1.64 pts/match)
2. David Wright (25 starts, W8 D14 L3, average 1.52 pts/match)
3. Daryl Murphy (18 starts, W7 D6 L5, average 1.50 pts/match)
4. Owen Garvan (14 starts, W6 D3 L5, average 1.50 pts/match)
5. David Norris (24 starts, W9 D8 L7, average 1.46 pts/match)

...and at the other end...

19. Tommy Smith (11 starts, W0 D8 L3, average 0.73 pts/match)
20. Liam Trotter (11 starts, W1 D5 L5, average 0.73 pts/match)
21. Richard Wright (12 starts, W1 D5 L6, average 0.67 pts/match)

naa added 10:27 - May 4 I find the player/points stat very interesting, as RK himself claimed to have some stats that proved that certain players were winners. Seems his stats are probably wrong then, seeing as D Wright has gone and he clearly doesn't rate Garvan. Norris' stats can be explained by the fact that he didn't play in the winless run at the start of the season.
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Lightningboy added 16:34 - May 4 Brilliant stats..well,not brilliant stats but brilliant reading...
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TedTurnip added 08:49 - May 5 Very interesting indeed, especially the stats regarding form in the last part of the season. I would have thought most of us would have placed Town much higher, ME included, but this can now be put to bed. It would appear Town are still in need of massive improvement. Excellent work though!
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bennyblue added 00:20 - May 17 so keane has nearlygot us to the boring boring boro level what a leader
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