The Premier League Thread

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Ride The Walrus said:
Mean. :(
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It gives my heart great pleasure to see him do badly.

Still think Adam has a part to play though. If you look at his figures, he hasn't been terrible, he just can't function in a midfield alongside Gerrard. Gerrard can play in a two-man midfield with no real holding player because... well, because he's ******* Steven Gerrard, but Adam's too slow, ponderous and defensively poor. His confidence seems to be a bit low, too; look at his formerly lethal set-pieces.

A three man midfield might work. 4-2-3-1, Spearing and Adam playing behind Gerrard, who is in turn supporting Carroll or Kuyt. Might work... but Kenny seems set with his 4-4-2ish formation.
 
GodCubed said:
It gives my heart great pleasure to see him do badly.

Still think Adam has a part to play though. If you look at his figures, he hasn't been terrible, he just can't function in a midfield alongside Gerrard. Gerrard can play in a two-man midfield with no real holding player because... well, because he's ******* Steven Gerrard, but Adam's too slow, ponderous and defensively poor. His confidence seems to be a bit low, too; look at his formerly lethal set-pieces.

A three man midfield might work. 4-2-3-1, Spearing and Adam playing behind Gerrard, who is in turn supporting Carroll or Kuyt. Might work... but Kenny seems set with his 4-4-2ish formation.
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Yeah, thing is Gerrard as you say is Steven ******* Gerrard, he's an auto starter all the time. Injuries barring, Adam won't play ever then. They cannot work together, and Adam's half the player Gerrard is. Gerrard's too deep, needs to push on, and take set pieces over from Adam.
 
Ride The Walrus said:
Yeah, thing is Gerrard as you say is Steven ******* Gerrard, he's an auto starter all the time. Injuries barring, Adam won't play ever then. They cannot work together, and Adam's half the player Gerrard is. Gerrard's too deep, needs to push on, and take set pieces over from Adam.
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Not necessarily a bad thing. Adam could be a useful sub. Perhaps not excellent if you want to chase a game, he's too ponderous, but he'd be good if you were ahead and wanted to close out a game. He's not been great, but his pass success is still around 80%, which would rise if he didn't feel the need to try killer balls every so often. If you want an (bad, considering that he was a worse player than Adam and offered pretty much nothing apart from his ball retention) example, Wenger utilised Denilson in a similar way.
 
GodCubed said:
Not shocking to me. Liverpool remain a team that overperform against big opposition and critically underperform against lesser opposition. Wildly inconsistent.
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t

this gc. no wonder adidas wants to part ways with the reds.

really inconsistent liverpool. and with the amount of money spent. shame.
 
Oh well, game over. Man City 2 Spurs 0. Nasri and Lescott. 2 goals within 5 minutes. First half was dire

Edit-I assumed wrong. 2-1. Defoe
 
You certainly got that prediction wrong ajt. Was plenty of drama to come.

That said, I wish it ended 2-1 after what happened next. Cruel.
 
Billy said:
You certainly got that prediction wrong ajt. Was plenty of drama to come.

That said, I wish it ended 2-1 after what happened next. Cruel.
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What makes it worse for me, If Balotelli had been red carded, King would never have made that tackle, no pen-Spurs get something. Spurs deserved something out of this. I actually had to switch off the radio-got sick of the Man City fans attempting to defend Balo. You cannot defend the indefensible
 
tactical/defensive mistake cost us the game, which most player played well.

said that, it makes it 3 losses in a row. 8 defeats this season, bigger than last season. :(
now most arsenal fans are going full scale in abusing wenger forever. said that u know whats trending in twitter.

#wengerout

:@ shameless gunner fans gtfo.
 
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Premier League Passing Trends 2011/12


Premier League passing trends 2011/12 | English Premier League Stats



Pass completion statistics are fast becoming a popular measure of player evaluation, no doubt aided by the fact that Barcelona have set a benchmark at the top of club football.

Like all statistics though, and perhaps even more so for passing data, more context is required, particularly when you note thatLeon Britton has trumped Xavi in the pass completion stakes so far this season. However, looking at the other numbers it’s clear to see why Xavi is a Champions League and World Cup winner, and why Leon Britton is not.
I’m particularly interested in passing efficiency in the final third; an area of the pitch that you’d think requires tremendous ability to be successful. But first, I’ve attempted to find some correlations in Premier League passing data this season.
It’s important to bear in mind none of these can be attributed as causal effects, but nevertheless:

  • Both higher pass completion and a greater number of successful passes are significantly correlated with winning.
  • Both higher pass completion in the final third and a greater number of successful passes in this area are also correlated with winning.
  • A greater number of final third entries is uncorrelated with winning.
  • Making a greater proportion of your passes in the final third is uncorrelated with winning.
The problem with the significant correlations is that passing success and winning can be a self-perpetuating cycle; teams that pass better may be more inclined to score, but scoring can also give teams confidence to pass it better. Thus we cannot definitively say that better pass completion increases your chances of winning.
To identify whether passing success really leads to success in results, we’d need to break down the data to see if successful passing is correlated with scoring the next (and particularly first) goal in a match.


Without this separation, I’ve just looked at general trends in passing so far this season. First, as you’d expect, teams with better pass completions across the entire pitch tend to have better pass completions in the final third too.



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Teams below the line of best fit pass worse in the final third than you’d expect, and teams above the line pass better in the final third. Two notable teams, therefore, are Blackburn and Swansea, who somewhat underachieve when trying to pass the ball in the final third. The chart suggests that much of Swansea’s passing success is biased by passes completed in easier areas of the pitch. Blackburn, meanwhile, are only better than Stoke when it comes to completing passes in the final third.


Swansea’s style of play is a recurring theme in passing analysis this season, the Welsh team have grown into the division after a cautious passing display on the opening day at Man City. That match was typified by an inability to get the ball into dangerous areas, and whilst they have improved, the vast majority of their time on the ball is spent in parts of the pitch that will not trouble the opposition.




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That’s not to say it’s a bad thing, clearly good pass completion in the defensive two-thirds of the pitch will tire opposition players, opening up opportunities later in the game. It’s interesting that two sides that have had frustrating seasons – Merseyside clubs Liverpool and Everton – have completed a number of their passes in attacking areas. Clearly there’s been plenty of probing football, and opposition teams have been happy to accommodate this.

This is supported by the number of successful final third passes it takes the two clubs to score a goal; more than twice as many as the most efficient team, Blackburn.




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Blackburn complete so few passes in the final third, that when they can put a few together they have proved effective, perhaps indicative of teams pushing forward against Steve Kean’s side.
The league’s top two teams have been equally efficient. This is impressive; we’d expect teams would make it hard for the Manchester clubs to score, and even if they have, City and United been ruthless in the final third, needing fewer than 50 successful passes on average before scoring.



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They have also been two of the most efficient teams defensively, and as ever, defensive success is better correlated with good results than attacking ability. Arsenal’s problems off the ball do not appear to have improved on last season, whilst Swansea can be pleased that even though they often out-pass the opposition, they aren’t vulnerable without the ball in dangerous areas. Other than Sunderland, the top six teams on the chart above haven’t had to ‘absorb’ pressure as much during games, which may help them appear more efficient defensively.
There are a long of strong relationships between passing across the entire pitch and passing in the final third, but focusing on the attacking and defensive thirds of the field help gives context and perspective to some teams’ numbers.
 
Things have turned ugly prior to the QPR match. Anton Ferdinand found a bullet in his post. First a bunch of scummy morons send them to Lennon, now we have even more mindless morons doing it to Ferdinand.
 
Get in Robbie Keane. 1-1. Still expect a loss, mind, but he's a tank.
 
Well, what a win for Newcastle. Second half turned out to be fairly comfortable, apart form the few spells Villa had in the Newcastle half. Cisse's goal was absolutely wonderful, what a way to introduce yourself! Still, McLeish mad a tactical error IMO bringing Heskey on for N'Zogbia, Charlie looked Villa's most likely threat along with Robbie Keane, who was eventually stopped well in the 2nd half.

Hoping that Best and Ryan Taylor are not too seriously injured, both IMO have been unsung heroes this season. Best has filled in well for Ba, and Ryan has played very well in every position he has played.

Level on points with Chelsea, albeit maybe for only a couple of hours, but we are looking good in the top 5.
 
StuW said:
Well, what a win for Newcastle. Second half turned out to be fairly comfortable, apart form the few spells Villa had in the Newcastle half. Cisse's goal was absolutely wonderful, what a way to introduce yourself! Still, McLeish mad a tactical error IMO bringing Heskey on for N'Zogbia, Charlie looked Villa's most likely threat along with Robbie Keane, who was eventually stopped well in the 2nd half.

Hoping that Best and Ryan Taylor are not too seriously injured, both IMO have been unsung heroes this season. Best has filled in well for Ba, and Ryan has played very well in every position he has played.

Level on points with Chelsea, albeit maybe for only a couple of hours, but we are looking good in the top 5.
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Taylor was off to the hospital for scans, and would appear Best has ligament damage-don't know how bad though
 
I'm just staggered that Stephen Ireland actually told his gaffer to f**k off. Who the **** does he think he is?!
 
Not often I'm supporting Man United. Feels weird, man.

Despise Ashley Young. *****.

should have been a penalty for United.
 
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wow what a game in the bridge. was expecting man U to win this, but hey, their record against Chelsea in the bridge is just lols

now what, 4th place battle is gonna be hard as ever . :@ (H)
 
Again poor refereeing...its really awful this season,not only because of Webbs slight bias towards United but he actually missed 2 clear penalty kicks+ red card for them and then gave that second one(first was clear though). Too many games were decided by reffs this year with their poor decisions,FA needs to sort it out.
 
As a friend said....yet another MoTM performance from Webb....
 
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