Showing posts with label King. Show all posts
Showing posts with label King. Show all posts

Sunday, August 31, 2014

Wanted: Yaya Sanogo, for impersonating a footballer (Match day 3 morsels)

 - Aaron Ramsey created 6 chances for Arsenal against Leicester, though none resulted in goal.  He had all of zero going into the match.  He also had a redonkulous 134 touches, was 101 of 116 passing (87.1%), 11 of 14 on long balls, a shot-on target, one tackle, 3 interceptions, and 2 clearances.

- Arsenal had 19 chances created total at Leicester, 4 less than Man United has produced all year, as many as Burnley has managed thus far, and two more than the Villans this season.

- Yaya Sanogo took seven shots, two on-goal, one busted a windshield in the parking lot, one woke up an old Arsenal fan who resumed knitting her grandson a cap, another landed in the cotton candy machine, and there are missing persons reports being filed for the other two as I write this.

- Villa were so dreadful that Fabian Delph was named second best player of the match.  Also, they went down in defence rankings to dead last despite playing at home to Hull.  Poor Alan Hutton.

- Nemanja Matic put in a player of the week performance with a goal, an assist, 2 chances created, 3 successful take-ons, 5 tackles, 2 interceptions, a clearance, and a blocked shot.

- Andy King completed 31 of 35 (88.6%) passes, created 4 chances, 4 tackles, 2 interceptions, 1 take-on and one blocked shot.  The rest of his side created 5 chances total.

- Southampton's Dusan Tadic created 5 chances, completed 92.2% of his passes (47 of 51), had 4 tackles, an interception, and a shot-on target.

- Patrick van Aanholt and Phillip 'Beaker' Jones became the first members of the 10-10-10 club (10 tackles, 10 interceptions, 10 clearances) for the season.  Javier Manquillo is only three clearances away and Hull's Andy Robertson is currently a member of the quite rare 9-9-9 club.

- Kaspar Schmeichel was 12 on 31 long balls giving him a league-leading 35 of 96.  The next nearest on completions is Burnley's Tom Heaton who is 29 of 60 and the next in attempts is Hull's Alan McGregor with 79.

- Antonio Valencia was 0 for 12 on crosses against Burnley pushing Man United to dead last in the league with a 11.7% completion rate (9 of 77).

- Mike Williamson & Graziano Pelle are tied with 20 aerial duels won, only it took the Newcastle defender 21 less attampts to do so (24 to 45).

Skrtel top defensively, Flamini takes over attack & overall

Martin Skrtel didn't even touch the pitch on Sunday, but he still went to the top of the defensive efficieny table.  That's what happen when everyone else falters.  If he doesn't play at least 60 minutes in two weeks time when we host Villa, he'll no longer qualify.

playerdpe
M. Skrtel0.905
M. Flamini0.899
C. Chambers0.889
J. O'Shea0.888
P. McShane0.878
R. Ferdinand0.877
F. Coloccini0.877
D. Lovren0.873
V. Kompany0.873
P. Jagielka0.870

 Flamini has produced an absolutely ridiculous 95.2% pass completion rate in his two matches for Arsenal, which helped him take top in both attack and overall efficiency.  The most excellent Morgan Schniederlin makes his debut in attack rankings and I expect him to be there for the long run.

playerppe
M. Flamini0.856
S. Nasri0.855
Y. Toure0.838
D. Fletcher0.813
S. Cazorla0.805
N. Bentaleb0.803
Cesc Fàbregas0.789
E. Capoue0.788
Schneiderlin0.785
G. Barry0.784

John O'Shea may be a bit surprising, but he rarely makes mistakes, and Capoue is a ball-moving machine, second in the league only to Aaron Ramsey with 339 touches but leads with 301 pass attempts.  Gerrard dropped to 33rd overall, by the way.

playerper
M. Flamini0.878
Y. Toure0.837
J. O'Shea0.834
S. Nasri0.829
C. Chambers0.829
F. Coloccini0.829
E. Capoue0.824
D. Fletcher0.824
Fernando0.821
V. Kompany0.818

Without Dean Hammond and Andy King, Leicester would probably be pointless, as would there season, but those two have carried the foxes thus far.

playereot
D. Hammond0.207
J. O'Shea0.206
Andy King0.202
David Jones0.192
J. Olsson0.182
Ron Vlaar0.179
Dean Marney0.179
G. Whelan0.179
F. Coloccini0.169
P. Senderos0.168

Skrtel is Liverpool's most valuable player with 0.148 eot, followed by Lovren at 0.108 and Gerrard at 0.100.

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Steven Caulker doesn't fancy a tackle

It's not that the 22-year-old is poor at tackling, in fact his 63.8 career percentage is admirable, it's just not his style.  The one-time England international has clearly learned the game from former clubmates Ashley Williams and Ledley King.  Neither of those two were much of tacklers either, but both are/were considered capable defenders.  Caulker still has a way to go before he reaches the level of those two, but at least he's on the right path.
npg90gc90cc90ap90ccvTTI90
0.090.110.270.039.18.1
pass%bp%sacc%shot%intp90clrp90
8322.831.310.51.398.47
drbp90bs90tp90tack%adw90adw%
0.221.151.2263.82.856.2
gsp90gap90gop90tgopgopd
1.121.56-0.44-0.25-0.19
Stats definitions can be found here.

Those are his career stats from the last three Premier League seasons.  He spent 2011-12 on loan to Swansea, where he paired with Williams, 2012-13 at Spurs, and in the summer of 2013, Tottenham sold him to Cardiff.  Three years, three different clubs, and next season he'll be at either QPR or Liverpool, but is he worth buying?

The thing about Caulker is that he was a much better player in his season with the Spurs than at either Welsh club.  He set career highs in goals and assists per 90 minutes played, successful passing, tackling, and shot accuracy percentage, true turnover index per 90 minutes played, interceptions and clearances per 90 minutes played in that campaign.  A couple were particularly impressive, his 89.7% successful pass percentage with only a 27.8% back pass percentage is outstanding and his 4.3 true turnover rate is one of the best I've ever seen.  I can only imagine how impressive his numbers would be if he came to Liverpool.

Probably his most commendable career stat is his 0.22 dribbled past per 90 minutes. If his 0.26 drbp90 from last season at relegated Cardiff, which would have been second to only Skrtel among Liverpool centre backs, doesn't impress, his 0.06 drbp90 in his season at Tottenham is mind-blowing.  Again, that is a number  so low, I'm pretty confident I have never seen anything like it.  For perspective, Lovren posted a 0.48 drbp90 last season at Southampton, that would have been worst among Liverpool centre backs last season, even behind the 0.44 put up by 'Ole Man' Toure.

If we can get Caulker for the £8m that QPR apparently bid (and was accepted), by all means we should sign him.  Even £10m is an acceptable amount.  He is right-footed and will give Skrtel a run for his money, not to mention the Slovak and Agger are both 29-years-old and not getting any younger.  If Sakho shows improvement and adapts better to the English game next season, he and Caulker would be a force hard to reckon with for years to come.

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