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).

The most dangerous player for Southampton at Anfield

Nathaniel Clyne gets no respect.  The 23-year-old right back put up some solid attacking numbers last season and was more of a catalyst in the opponent's third than Luke Shaw or any other Saints defender.  If he is allowed to be a factor tomorrow, it will increase Southampton's chances of scoring and even winning exponentially.  They will probably push forward in limited numbers as not to suffer an 'easy' goal on the counter and an extra player to stretch the Liverpool defence would be very beneficial in that regard.

Here is the offensive output for Clyne last season:

ap90	cc90	cc90	ccv	pass%	bp%	lb90	lb%	tti90	gopd
0.19	0.19	0.58	0.143	0.816	0.41	1.26	0.542	10.73	0.42

The most impressive stat is his goals on pitch difference.  Lovren, Shaw, and especially Chambers paled in comparison.  Our new centre back posted an acceptable -0.05, Shaw was a little bit better with a 0.03, but Chambers was horrendous with a -0.59, a full goal difference than Clyne.  Did Arsenal buy the wrong right back?  I think so.

Despite the endless jokes the south coast club has endured this summer, Southampton is not without quality.  Even with Jay Rodriguez out due to injury, they will be a formidable attacking force.  The key will be how well their midfield interacts.  Most likely, Morgan Schniederlin (or Jack Cork) and Victor Wanyama will start as defensive midfielders with Gaston Ramirez, Dušan Tadić, Steven Davis, and James-Ward Prowse in front of them.  Not to be too cliché, but the Saints will look to hold on to the ball as long as possible, forcing Liverpool to come at them and hoping the Merseysiders will make a mistake.

Unfortunately for them, it will leave new boy Graziano Pellè alone at the top.  I don't expect much from the Italian striker, bar a lot of frustration, but getting him the ball in open space will put the skills of Tadić & company to test.  If they can gain any momentum, expect Nathaniel Clyne and/or Ryan Bertrand to 'bomb' forward and help out on the attacking end.  It would be 'suicidal' to do so often though as Liverpool's counter is quick and deadly.

If I had to make a prediction, I'd say Liverpool 2-1 with goals from Coutinho, Skrtel, and Shane Long.

The five signings Liverpool missed out on this year

There were quite a few gems for taking at the beginning of the transfer window, unfortunately most of the young, talented future stars have been taken.

1. Alfred Finnbogason, 25, Real Sociedad
Real upgraded from Griezmann when they picked up the Icelandic striker from SC Heerenveen.  He lead all scorers in the Eredivisie last season with 29 goals and also added 10 assists from 57 chances created.  The season before he scored 24 times.  He doesn't have all the physical attributes to out-muscle or speed past his opponents and relies on positional instinct and clinical finishing to score.

2. Dušan Tadić, 25, Southampton
Another Eredivisie product, Tadić lead the Dutch league in assists with 14 and chances created with 133.  He also scored 16 goals.  Southampton got him for £11m, considerably less for what we paid for the player he replaced.  I wrote about him here.

3. Yann M'Vila, 24, Inter Milan
One of the best defensive midfielder prospects under the age of 25 in Europe, M'Vila has found himself on loan in Italy for the next year.  He'll probably use that time to impress a future suitor and there will be aplenty.  His physical prowess, passing ability, and defensive instincts allow him to dominate matches in Serie A, especially considering he is not the fastest of players.  He also has an eye for attack, in his last season with Rennes, the 2012-13 season, he created 43 chances and posted an impressive 7.7 successful long balls per 90 at a 67.7% rate.

4. Kelechi Iheanacho, 17, Man City
If you watched Liverpool's preseason 'victory' over Man City at Yankee Stadium July 30, you may have noticed Iheanacho, He the only City player to convert a penalty.  Iheanacho introduced himself to the world at U17 World Cup, where he put in a performance for the ages.  He scored 6 goals and assisted on 5 more, a 1.77 goal created per 90 average might I add, to lead Nigeria to the title and winning the Golden Ball in the process.  He added the 2013 CAF Most Promising Player of the Year award to his cabinet as well.

5. Álvaro Morata, 21, Juventus
Morata's abilities and potential have been well-documented elsewhere and though I think he'll be a goal-scoring machine at the Turin club, don't expect much else.  Does it matter though?  The former Real Madrid starlet has Golden Boot potential, last season he averaged a goal every 90 minutes played and his above-Serie A-average pace should lead him to a very fruitful Juventus career.  His physical attributes alone would leave one to believe he may one day be successful in the Prem as well.

We should have signed Dusan Tadic, not Lallana

With the announcement of our signing Adam Lallana forthcoming, I have not held back on my disappoint of his transfer.  He is just not good enough and brings nothing to our side that we don't already have a better version.  We need to bring players that offer a special dynamic, not one who actually created less chances and had less assists last season than his 29-year-old unheralded teammate, Steven Davis.  Here are last season stats for Dusan Tadic and Quincy Promes, who play for FC Twente in the Eredivisie, Lucas Piaźon, a Chelsea player who played for Vitesse, and Lallana, Sterling, and Coutinho:

	Tadic	Promes	Piaźon	Lallana	Sterling	Coutinho
age	25	22	20	26	19	22
app (sub)	33	31	24(5)	37(1)	24(9)	28(5)
mins	2970	2724	2106	3082	2220	2323
goals	16	11	11	9	9	5
assists	14	8	8	6	5	7
chances	133	84	78	68	51	64
npg90	0.27	0.36	0.34	0.26	0.36	0.19
gcp90	0.9	0.63	0.81	0.41	0.57	0.47
ccp90	4	2.8	3.3	1.9	2.1	2.5
pass %	79.3	82.3	81.7	84.6	81.7	80.6
bp %	45.4	52.2	52.3	50.3	46.8	36.7
sacc %	37.4	34	39.1	41.4	48.9	28.7
shot %	17.6	11	15.9	18	20	7
TTI90	16.1	12.7	14	13.9	12.1	11

Tadic's 133 chances created is beyond impressive, it is phenomenal.  He had 40 more than Antonio Cassano in Serie A, who finished second in all of Europe with 93, and 49 more than teammate Quincy Promes, who finished second in the Eredivisie with 84.

An interesting stat that I've been toying with is chance created efficiency, the percentage of chances created that actually results in goals.  A player can create chances all day, but if it doesn't result in goals, it usually produces a loss of possession.  Tadic has a 22.6% cce while Lallana has a 20.6%, which doesn't seem much of a difference, but when you consider the amount of key passes it's why Tadic has created twice as many goals while playing in a full less match.  Sterling, by the way, has the best of the above group at a very impressive 27.1% cce.

The bottom line is we could have bought a playmaker with Fabregas ability for £12-15m, but instead we paid £23-26m for a player with Kevin Mirallas skills.  Mirallas isn't bad, but he's far from great, and when his days at Anfield are over, I hope Lallana gets at least that much respect.