Serie A Round 29

Maybe if he understood football better?

Plenty to talk about in the Serie A round up. First and foremost though is the sacking of Claudio Ranieri from Inter Milan after just 6 months. After an initial turn around, 7 straight wins followed, before elimination from the Champions League to an average Marseille team, and then 1 win in 10 league games, culminating in a 2-0 defeat in the Derby D’Italia to Juventus. It’s fair to say it’s been a bit of a roller coaster for the former Chelsea man. In 26 league games he won 12, lost 10 and drew 4. He actually did well to last so long, Gasperini before him only managed 3 league games. Last season had Benitez and Leonoardo. It’s fair to say that they’re having trouble getting over Mourinho. Ranieri will no doubt pop up again somewhere. Former clubs Valencia and Chelsea are managerless at the moment….

One good thing to come out of the game was the return of Del Piero. He’s been a peripheral figure at the club this year with just the odd appearance here and there (mainly in the cup), but he scored the decisive 2nd goal. This is his last season at Juventus after almost 20 years, so it’s a nice way end his last Derby D’Italia. Although Inter were outside the Top 6, it’s still one of the biggest games in the Italian Football calendar. To see the Del Piero goal – click here. It’s not a brilliant goal, I just like Del Piero, and he’s not gonna be around much longer. I think you could file this one under “tidy finish”. It was his first league goal of the season, but his two cup goals have been against Milan and Roma – Big. Game. Player.

Inter’s defeat to Juve kept the gap at the top of the table to 4 points after Milan’s win against Roma in the other big game. In a tight 2-1 win, it was Ibrahimovic who made the difference once again. He grabbed himself both Milan goals against Top 6 opponents to increase his average opposition ranking to 11.23 and his top 6 goals to four. Milan now have 4 wins in a row.

Miccoli has been up to old tricks again with another Top 6 goal – this time against 5th placed Udinese. This increases his stronghold on the Big Game Player title, bringing his goals against the best in the league to an impressive 9, and his average opposition score to a league high of 6.17. Also on the scoresheet against Udinese (in round 28) was Napoli striker Edinaon Cavani. His double in a 2-2 draw were his first against top 6 opponents. He’s very much the Falcao of Serie A.

Of course all these goals against Udinese have seen Lazio slip into 3rd spot, which is crucially the last Champions League position after the Bundesliga tool the 4th spot. Speaking of  Udinese, it’s Di Natali who remains the flat track bully with an average of 12. Osvaldo is his nearest challenger with 11.44, but his average was helped out by scoring against league leaders Milan in the 2-1 defeat.

And finally, at the bottom of the table, Cesena extended their winless run to 11 games with a 2-2 draw against 17th placed Parma. This was a pretty good result for them, as they’ve only picked up 3 points of the last 33 available. Unsurprisingly, this leaves them adrift at the bottom of the table, though they do have slight hope, as the second relegation 6 pointer too place between 19th placed Novara and 18th place Lecce. This ended in a 0-0 draw, although strangely, Novara are 8th in the form table (last 8 games), and Lecce are 10th.

Cheers,

Liam

La Liga Round 29

After 29 league games, the score is now Lionel Messi 35 – 35 Cristiano Ronaldo. It’s starting to get silly now. The race for the golden boot between the best two players in the World is captivating. As with last season, the league seems to have been decided pretty early on this year round and the focus is on the shoot out between the majestic Messi and the powerhouse that is Cristiano Ronaldo. In the two rounds since the last update, Messi has scored four goals (3 vs 16th place Granada, and 1 vs 13th place Mallorca) and in doing so, has become Barcelona’s all time Top Scorer – aged 24. Not bad when you think about it. By comparison, Cristiano Ronaldo started to show signs of his advancing years (he’s 27 now), by only scoring three times in the last two games – and not a hat trick in sight. His first was in a 1-1 draw away at Villarreal (17th) where around 17 people were sent off, and he then got out of his funk with a brace at home to 14th placed Sociedad in a 5-1 win.

From a stats point of view, Ronaldo has more goals against the Top 6 with 13, and only 4 against the riff raff at the bottom. His average ranked opponent per goal is 9.51 – impressive stuff. Messi’s “only” got 8 against Top 6 teams, and has an average of 10th placed opposition per goal. In Messi’s favour though are the rest of the stats. He’s only scored 3 penalties to Ronaldo’s 11, and his goals have been more important as well – yielding 16 points for Barca, compared to the 11 points won by Ronaldo’s goals. The assists are actually a lot close than you’d expect. For those who want more on the rivalry, click here.

Messi, almost as good as Bendtner

Some believe that Messi and Ronaldo dominating the scoring charts so much, and indeed Madrid and Barca’s dominance is a sign of the weakness of the league, and a gap of 32 points between first and sixth does point to this, but it’s worth remembering that Manchester United were made to look very very ordinary by Athletic Bilbao, a club currently ranked 11th after the latest round of fixtures.

At the top, Madrid’s lead has been cut to just 6 points, but they’re still odds on to win the title. Even with defeat to Barca in the next el Clasico, you’d still fancy a Mourinho team to see it out. You have to feel a bit sorry for Real Madrid. In almost any other era, they’d be regarded as the best team in the World and one of the best of all time. Even if they do go on to win the league, many will still believe Barcelona are the best. It’s similar for Ronaldo. He does has one World Player of the Year title, but only Real Madrid fans and possibly some Man Utd fans would argue he was better than Messi. And it’s worse still for Benzema and Higuain – scorers of 27 and 23 goals (in all competitions) this season, and barely mentioned. It’s a tough life.

But enough about the big two, elsewhere Bilbao’s dreadful run continues. It’s now four games without a win in La Liga, which has seen them slip from 5th to 11th place. This time out it was a 1-1 home draw to 19th place Sporting Gijon. Before that it was a 2-1 defeat to Atletico Madrid with Falcao scoring a brace. unfortunately for our favourite Colombian bully, Bilbao were outside the Top 6 at the time of play, meaning that he still has just the one solitary goal against Top 6 opponents. Though I do have to concede that he’s stepped it up of late and is delivering against better opposition.

And that’s not all. His double against Bilbao, means that he moves into 3rd place in the race for the Golden boot, but even more important than this (in my mind at least), is that he’s no longer the flat track bully! With a jump from 14.18 to 13.42, Falcao has improved his average opposition ranking, and now has two players with worse averages than him. And how. Sevilla’s del Moral has scored a brace in each of the last two games – firstly against 18th place Racing in a 3-0 win, and then against 15th placed Granada last night. This gives him a massive 17.78 ranked opponent per goal. As you can see from the above, 8 of his 9 goals have been against the bottom 6 teams, meaning he’s deserving of the unwanted tag.

Cesc Fabregas retains the Big Game Player tag for another goal less week, but if he carries on without scoring for much longer, he’ll fall out of the above list, giving an opportunity for someone else to take on the Big game Player moniker, with Roberto Soldado the hot favourite (8.38). Ronaldo still leads the goals against Top 6 teams.

It wouldn’t be right to finish the post without a look at Levante. In round 28, they kept up their recent revival with a 3-1 win against Soceidad (12th), but were knocked out of 4th spot after defeat in round 29 to 7th placed form team Osasuna, who have lost just once in nine games. The last champions league spot is now held by Malaga, who have been somewhat off the radar of late. Without anyone really noticing, they’ve won 5 of the last 6 games, with the latest being a 2-1 win over Espanyol. And for those Man Utd fans mentioned earlier, Ruud van Nistelrooy scored the equaliser (Coutinho scored again for Espanyol). And that’s not all! Valencia, who looked like they had 3rd place guaranteed by Christmas, have been dropping points left, right, and centre, with just one win in the last four. as a result, Malaga are now level on points, with Levante just a further 3 behind.

Cheers,

Liam

Bundesliga Round 27

Well it’s a case of anything you can do, we can do better almost as well. After Bayern’s recent goal glut of 13 goals in two league games, Dortmund showed that they too are pretty handy in front of goal. A 6-1 win away at Cologne (13th) saw Dortmund keep the gap at 5 points, despite the hosts having the temerity to go ahead. Lewandowski (11.47) was once again on the score sheet, along with Japanese midfielder Shinji Kagawa (10.36), who scored a brace. This took his tally for the season to 11 in 24 league games, and 19 in his 42 Bundesliga games since joining from the J-League. Aged only 23, he’s catching the eye of several big(ger) clubs.

Bayern had temporarily closed the gap to 2 points on Saturday, after a 2-1 home win against 7th placed Hannover. Goals from Toni Kroos and Mario Gomez’s 23rd of the season were enough to take the points. Gomez still hasn’t scored against Top 6 Opposition this season, but this goal against 7th place brought up his average opposition per goal to 11.91.

Whilst Gomez is struggling to make an impact against the Top 6 teams, his rival for the golden boot Klaas Jan Huntelaar did deliver. Schalke beat 5th placed Leverkusen 2-0 with both goals from the Dutch striker. This takes his tally against the Top 6 teams to 4, though he’s still got a very low average opposition score of 12.23. The goals inspired Schalke to their 3rd successive win, a run which has seen them leapfrog Borussia Monchengladbach into 3rd place. Marco Reus was on the scoresheet in a surprise 2-1 home defeat by Hoffenheim (12th). Although it decreased his average opposition rating to 5.80, it’s still comfortably the highest in the league, making him the big game player.

Holding onto the Flat track bully tag for another week is Stuttgart’s Martin Harnik. His 8 goals against the bottom ranked teams contribute to his 14.29 rating, and makes him second only to Huntelaar in goals against the Bottom 6 teams, but with only one goal against the Top 6.

Papa Demba Cisse’s goals have been missed by Freiburg since he moved to Newcastle in the transfer window, and although he’s still the team’s top scorer (as above), they’ve managed to turn form around and have picked up 10 points from the last four games. This has seen them rise like Lazarus from dead and buried (was he buried? I’m not sure) at the bottom of the table to the heady heights of 13th place.

Last time out we looked at the clean sheet stats by team, so this time out we’ll look at goals scored by team:

Bayern’s recent trip down the goal trail means they lead Schalke in the goals scored list, but it’s Monchengladbach’s efforts against the Top 6 opponents that really catch the eye. Inspired by the talismanic Marco Reus, they’ve scored over half of their 40 goals against the league’s top teams. That’s both impressive and telling – they’ve only scored 4 goals against the stragglers at the bottom of the league. When looking a little deeper, they’ve actually been victims of the fixture list, with their goals scored against an average ranked opponent of 7th place. That’s by far and away the highest in the league, meaning that they have been playing teams in form. To be 4th in the league after such a tough run is a decent achievement, and with an 11 point gap to 5th, they’re pretty much nailed on for a qualifying place in next season’s Champions League.

Aside from the top teams, Kaiserlautern’s 17 goals show why they’re bottom of the table. They also have the least number of goals against the Top 6 teams. Leverkusen have the lowest ranked opponent per goal, whilst Schalke’s 25 against the relegation fighters has aided their ascent into 3rd.

Cheers,

Liam

The Myth of Maradona?

It’s long been the biggest debate in Football – who has been the greatest footballer of all time. The debate has generally included Pele, Cruyff, Best, Ronaldo, Zidane, and lately, Messi – but it’s usually Argentina’s Diego Maradona that comes out on top for the oft used line “he won things with poor teams”. Well I’m gonna look into the accuracy of that statement in an attempt to prove it’s relevance to the World’s greatest debate. The teams in question are Argentina’s World Cup winners of 1986, and Napoli’s Serie A winners of 1987 and 1990. I’ll put forward the data, will add my views and will let you decide:

It’s never really been in doubt. Growing up, my Dad told me the following ‘facts’ about football – Maradona was the best player of all time, George Best was the best player from UK & Ireland, and Alan Devonshire was the best player he saw for West Ham (though there was an honourable mention for Sir Trevor Brooking). And that was that. I had no reason to doubt any of that in the last 20+ years of watching football and from what I remember of Maradona in Italia 90 (especially this assist).

But

In my quest/obsession to discover the best big game players of all time, I noticed a few interesting things. I’ve been trawling through all of the data from World Cups, European Championships, Copa Americas, Champions League, Copa Libertadores, and UEFA/Europa League/Cup Winners Cup games and discovered that a) the Top 20 Big Game Players article is going to take me absolutely ages, and b) Maradona isn’t even in the top 25 Big Game players since 1980 (Semi Finals and Finals).

Argentina 1986:

The best place to start is his greatest achievement in football, and the tournament for which he will be most remembered. The idea that he singlehandedly took his teams to glory was created on the back of the World Cup win in 1986 with an “ordinary team”.

Firstly, the defence:

Titles are won built on solid defences, and regardless of whether you have the best player of all time in your team or not, you won’t win anything without a solid defence. As seen from the table above, letting in less than a goal a game will go a long way to winning the World Cup, and the Argentina 1986 team conceded just five goals in their seven games, including three clean sheets. The previous winners Italy conceded six, and West Germany also conceded five on the way to lifting the trophy in 1990.

Secondly, the squad. We’ve already seen the defence were certainly good enough to win a World Cup, and there were also some other noticeable players alongside Maradona. Whilst he top scored with five goals, Jorge Valdano of Real Madrid (no less) also weighed in with four, including one in the Final. Elsewhere there was also quality from Oscar Ruggeri, Jorge Burruchaga and Sergio Batista. This was by no means a squad without talent.

And what of Maradona’s impact? Well it is fair to say that he did have an amazing tournament. He scored one goal against Italy in the group stages, but it was the Quarter Final meeting with England that really won him the plaudits. He scored a brace against a country that Argentina had recently been at war with, including the best goal ever scored in World Cup football. Then in the Semi Finals against Belgium, he scored another brace in a 2-0 win to get his country to the Final. He also grabbed five assists meaning that he either scored or created 10 of Argentina’s 14 goals.

Is there any other player to so dominate a major tournament? Well yes, just two years earlier in fact. Michel Platini lifted the European Championship Trophy for France. Like Maradona, he was an attacking midfielder, but his impact was arguably bigger than Maradona’s in 1986. He scored 9 goals in 5 games for the French including the winner in the Semi Final and the opener in the Final. In fact his career record of 312 goals in 580 games is almost identical when compared to Maradona’s 311 in 589. Platini’s international record was 41 in 72 games compared to Diego’s 34 in 91. Yet France’s Euro 84 winners are best remembered for the midfield four or magic square of Platini, Alain Giresse, Luis Fernández and Jean Tigana. Not one player, despite his massive input.

There’s little doubt that Maradona was the player of the tournament, but did that mean that the rest of the team were poor?

Napoli 1987:

El Diego was celebrating again a year later as he was instrumental in winning Napoli’s first league title. Once again he had a big input in the team’s win. Though was he the one man team he’s made out to be?

Napoli were the best team in Serie A in 1986-87, they won the most games, lost the fewest, and had the best goal difference. They won the league by 3 points, when a win was only worth 2 points. First up – their league record in isolation:

Once again, we’ll start with the defence. As with Argentina’s 1986 World Champions, Napoli’s 1987 Serie A winners were built on one of the strongest defences in the league. Conceding just 21 goals in 30 games (0.7 conceded per game), meant that they had a great base to build on. Of the 30 games, they kept clean sheets in 16 of them. Only Inter Milan (3rd) conceded less goals that season, with 17. So it’s fair to say that the Title Win was built from the back.

Next up, Maradona’s team mates. The team that won the title that year, ended up with 167 Italian Caps between them – hardly average players. The defence contained a young Ciro Ferrara who went on to win a second title with Napoli, and then to won six more with Juventus, along with the 1996 Champions League. Also in the squad were Italian Internationals Salvatore Bagni, Fernando De Napoli, Bruno Giordano (more of him later) and Andrea Carnevale. Not too shabby.

So it’s been established that the team had a fantastic defence and had other quality in Italian internationals. What did Maradona bring? Well, he was the Top Scorer that season and brought 10 goals in 29 appearances – a one in three strike rate. Of the 10 goals, 2 of them were penlties and two of his goals were scored in a 4-0 win over Empoli. So his goals only affected 9 of Napoli’s 30 league games.

As Serie A was made up of just 16 teams that season, I’ve split the opposition range in Top 4, Middle 8 and Bottom 4, and looking at the above, there’s a glaring omission. As someone who is supposed to have singlehandedly won the league for Napoli, he didn’t score in any of the games against their immediate rivals for the titles – Juventus in 2nd, Inter in 3rd and Verona in 4th. His average ranked opponent per goal was just 10.5 out of a 16 team league. They took just one point from Inter and Verona (0-0’s thanks to the defence), and did the double over Juventus – 3-1 away and 2-1 at home. Despite being top scorer, Maradona was not amoungst the 5 goals. Big game player? Maybe not in that season.

Having looked at the opposition he scored against, and that just 8 were from open play/free kicks, how important were his goals? Well as you can see from the above table, his goals were worth 10 points to Napoli, although this doesn’t take into account the part played by the defence in keeping clean sheets. To put the 10 points into perspective, Robin van Persie’s goals this season have been worth 22 points after 29 games. Perhaps not quite he one man team that’s made out.

And lastly, what of the standard of the league that season? Well Napoli’s 45 points with a +20 goal difference would not have been enough for the title in either the season before or the season after.

Without taking away from the achievement, they won less points, less games and scored fewer goals of the previous and following Champions. They were still undoubtedly the strongest team in the 1986-87 season, but their final performance would not have won them the league in most seasons.

So in reflection of the 1986-87 season, it’s fair to say that whilst his contribution was certainly impressive, and he was certainly their best player, he didn’t by any means carry the team to the title. First and foremost, the defence were the foundations of the win, with 16 clean sheets. His team mates were by no means ordinary, and Maradona’s actual performance in the most important games were not the difference. Add to that the lower points tally that won the league and I think it’s fair to say that it was definitely not a one man show.

Napoli 1990:

After the glory of their first title in 1987, Napoli would only have to wait a further three seasons to win their second (and at the time of writing, last) Championship title. Once again, Maradona played a massive part in the 1990 triumph, in what was now a 34 game season (18 team league).

Once again, the title was built on a strong defence. In the 34 league games, they conceded just 31 goals, at a rate of 0.9 goals per game and 14 clean sheets. This was once again the second best defence in Serie A, second only to Milan. It’s once again fair to say that without this defensive display, Napoli wouldn’t have been Champions.

Moving on to his team mates, Napoli had strengthened since the 1987 title. Maradona could now list Brazilian International Careca amongst his team. The striker would score 73 goals for Napoli in just 164 games, as well as 29 in 60 appearances for Brazil. Playing alongside Maradona and Giordano, Careca made the final piece of the famous “Ma-Gi-Ca” attacking trio. Another new name from the 1987 triumph was a young Gianfranco Zola. The future Chelsea legend won the title in his first season with the Naples club. Elsewhere, the club had also strengthened in midfield, with another Brazilian international – Alemao, adding some steel in the middle of the park. In all, the 1990 Napoli squad contained players that would finish with over 280 caps for Brazil and Italy. Maradona was the brightest star, but by no means the only one.

And so after seeing another strong performance from the defence, and an improved squad, what was Maradona’s performance like? After starting the season at 29 – near the peak of most players careers, he enjoyed his best league season for the club, with 16 goals in 28 appearances:

 

That’s a bit more like it. He managed 5 goals against Top 5 teams including a goal against 2nd placed Milan, and a brace against Juventus. His average opposition was a decent 9.18 when the average excluding first placed Napoli is 10. When the big games came about, he stepped up. You can however point to 7 penalties in the 16 goals. His 16 goals, were worth 9 points to Napoli’s points total of 51.

And once again we can also point to the standard of the contenders that season:

For each of the surrounding seasons, Napoli’s haul of 51 points with a goal difference of 26 would agave meant 2nd place. So when looking at Maradona’s contribution, other factors such as the performance of rivals must be taken into account. 

So as with his triumphs in 1986 and 1987, Maradona was undoubtedly instrumental. But they were far from ordinary teams that relied solely on their talisman to inspire. Once again, the defence let in less than a goal a game, the squad had lots of quality in, and the level of opposition was lower than in surrounding seasons. At least in this season, you can point to Maradona’s performance in the big games to show his importance.

Other:

World Cup 1990 – He took Argentina to final but scored no goals

Copa Italia 1987 – 10 games, 7 goals as Napoli lifted the trophy

UEFA Cup 1989 – 3 goals in 12 appearances as they won the trophy

In Conclusion:

There’s no doubt that Maradona is one of if not the greatest footballer there has ever been, no one can argue against that with any real conviction. However, the notion that he’s the greatest because he won trophies with weak teams is not something that can be used in his favour. As seen above, although a key part in each of the trophies he won, he couldn’t have done it without strong defences behind him. He didn’t singlehandedly win the tournaments on his own, when his list of team mates include Valdano, Ferrara, Zola, Careca et al. He didn’t score in either of the World Cup finals he appeared in, and only one of the Semi Finals. When Napoli won the Copa Italia in 1987 over a two legged final, Maradona was not on the scoresheet despite a 4-0 aggregate win. He did score in the UEFA Cup Final win against Stuttgart, but that was from the penalty spot. Comparing him with the other greatest attacking midfielders and in the big games, he comes out a distant second to Zidane. Zizou had 3 World Cup Final goals, a World Cup Semi Final goal, a Champions League Final goal, and 4 in the Champions League Semi finals for good measure. You can also add in a semi final goal in Euro 2000. Maradona on his part has 4 goals in 12 Copa America appearances, which is a long way off Platini’s record in the European equivalent.

So when people point to Messi and say that he can never be considered the greatest because he didn’t win any tournaments with average sides, then who did? If Messi’s Argentina team had the defence that Maradona had behind him, then there’s a good chance they would have gone a lot further in the last two World Cups. The fact that Messi has played his whole career at Barcelona is not a reason to discount his claim to being the greatest.

So there you have it, I’m not disputing his place with the greats, but I would think twice before using the old one man team argument.

Any Maradona fans looking for more, then this is a great site for rare footage of Diego in his prime: http://wn.com/Maradona_87

Cheers,

Liam

Premier League Round 29

Man Utd continued to turn the screw on City rivals City with an easy 5-0 away win at Wolves (19th). Whilst it isn’t going to win any Big Game Player awards, it was interesting that Javier Hernandez’ brace means that he’s into double figures for the league season once again. There’s always the fear of second season syndrome after a player comes in from abroad and has a great first season, but he’s showed consistency with 10 goals in 23 games (average opposition 11.6 per goal). Looking at the Man Utd strikers, it’s easy to remember back to the 1999 team when they had Yorke, Cole, Sherringham and Solksjaer. This season it’s been Rooney, Welbeck, Hernandez and Berbatov, and although not as prolific as their predecessors, they still have a decent 44 league goals between them. Man City’s forward line of Dzeko, Aguero, Balotelli and Tevez have 41 – though Tevez hasn’t played many games this season for some reason? So the pressure was back on City with the game against Top 6 Chelsea (the first team to beat them this season) at home last night.

Well they dealt with the pressure well. It was in fact a rare appearance from Carlitos that helped break down a resolute Chelsea defence, providing an assist for Samir Nasri to score his 4th league goal of the season late on (average opposition of 9.5). Although he hasn’t matched his goalscoring performance for Arsenal last season, his 4 goals have proved important, as they’ve gained 4 points for City. Chelsea’s decent recent run came to an end, but they’ve shown good form recently, and losing away to a team that have won 20 consecutive home games is no disgrace. It’ll be interesting to see what team Terry picks this weekend.

And so onto the usual Average Opposition Stats:

Very little change in the goalscoring charts – Kun Aguero’s penalty against Chelsea moved him one clear of Demba Ba on 17 games, and also increases his goals against the Top 6 to 3. As a result, his Average Opponent per goal is now 11.65. Javier Hernandez’s double against a poor Wolves team has moved him into the goal scoring charts. The two goals against 19th placed Wolves, lowers his average to 11.60, though he has a good scoring split of 3 against Bottom 6, 4 against Mid 8 teams and 3 against the Top 6.

As a result of the lack of activity from the leading goalscorers, it’s Adebayor who retains the best average opposition ranking of 7.82, whilst Frank Lampard’s 10 goals from midfield have been on average against 15th place opponents – keeping the Flat Track Bully tag.

Elsewhere, Arsenal’s meteoric rise up the table continues. Despite Robin van Persie’s goal drought of one game, the Gunners have now won 6 games in a row thanks to Vermaelen’s 5th goal of the season:

It’s been an impressive return from injury for the Belgian Centre Back, and he’s continued to show the goalscoring form that he first displayed upon signing. Gary Cahill also scored at the weekend, bringing his tally up to 3 for the season, though this was his first league goal for Chelsea.

Of course Arsenal’s rise up the table has been doubly sweet. Not only have they been in great form, but they’ve also done it at the expense of North London rivals Tottenham. After tricky games (and defeats) against Arsenal, Man Utd, Everton and Man City as well as draws against Liverpool and this time Stoke, have left Spurs with just 8 points from the last 24, whilst Arsenal have taken 19. They now sit proudly in 3rd.

Another team sitting proudly at the moment are 8th placed Swansea. A 3-0 away win against 10th placed Fulham was inspired by recent loan signing Gylfi Sigurdsson. His double took his season’s tally to 5 goals in 9 games, with 2 assists thrown in. Hoffenheim have apparently received enquiries for the talented Icelandic on the back of this form, though Swansea will certainly be hoping to keep him.

And lastly, a quick look at the bottom. Despite being written off by many due to their run in (including me), QPR surprised a lot of people by coming back from two goals down to beat 7th place Liverpool. Also doing well at the bottom were Blackburn, who continued their good form of late with a 2-0 win over Sunderland (8th at the start of the round), courtesy of Junior Hoillet and Yakubu’s goals.  The Yak remains the most important player to his team in terms of percentage of points won (46.43%), whilst Robin van Persie has won the most points – a whopping 22 points, which has already beaten last season’s highest of 17 (Odemwingie):

Rafael van der Vaart’s late equaliser for Spurs against Stoke mean that he has the best ratio of goals to points, with 10 points won from 8 goals. At the other end of the scale, Wayne Rooney’s 20 goals have only been worth 8 points to Man Utd this season.

That’s it for the Premier League this week, I’m currently working on a feature on Diego Maradona at the moment, and hope to have it up by the end of the weekend.

Thanks,

Liam

La Liga Round 27

First and foremost, nothing to do with stats but a bit of class displayed by Real Madrid at the weekend after the terrible news about Fabrice Muamba:

It was a nice touch from a club that has it’s fair share of detractors (not least Fergie), and especially the note to Barcelona’s Abidal who’s awaiting a Liver Transplant after overcoming Cancer last year.

Unfortunately for Madrid, there wasn’t the same amount of goodwill shown to them from Malaga (6th). All looked to be going according to plan with Benzema’s 4th goal against Top 6 opponents, with an assist from Cristiano Ronaldo. This would have been 12 straight league wins – a record held under Pellegrini, now coach of……Malaga! Luckily for him, Santi Cazorla stepped up in the very last minute and scored a fantastic free kick – as seen here. With Madrid finally dropping points, Barcelona managed to clse the gap to a slightly less uncatchable 8 points with a 2-0 win away at Seville (10th). As usual, Messi scored, but what is interesting is that Xavi scored his 8th league goal of the season, and 13th overall. Aged 32, Xavi is enjoying the best goalscoring season of his career. In fact, at the time of writing, he’s just scored against Granada to make it 14 goals for the season.

Messi’s goal meant that he closed the gap on Ronaldo to 1 goal in the race for the golden boot (though he has also juist scored twice against Granada to become Barcelona’s all time leading scorer – more of that in round 28). Ronaldo still leads the way in goals against the Top 6 with a whopping 13. He doesn’t hold the Big Game Player tag though, that still remains with Cesc Fabregas. The former Arsenal schemer is going through a barren run in front of goal at the moment (2 goals since Christmas), but at least that keeps his average opponent ranking per goal at 4.78, and if we’re honest, he’s probably got his priorities right.

One Spaniard who has managed to break his scoring duck is Valencia’s Roberto Soldado. His hat trick against 5th placed Bilbao ended a 2 month dry spell in La Liga. And it’s also increased his AOI to 8.20, whilst taking his goals against Top 6 opponents to 8. Just ahead of him in the goal scoring charts is friend of the site, Falcao. After the blip of scoring against Barcelona recently, he’s returned to form and scored in successive games against 16th place Granada, and 14th place Mallorca. Though it must be said that the goal at the weekend was a beauty (click here). Plus 17 goals in a debut season is not to be sniffed at.

A new face to La Liga currently making waves is Philippe Coutinho. The Brazilian youngster is on loan at Espanyol from Inter Milan, and after a slow start, he’s scored 3 goals in his last two games. A brace in the 5-1 win against Rayo Vallencano (11th), followed up with a goal and an assist against Racing Stantander, have helped the Barcelona club into 6th.

And a La Liga round up wouldn’t be complete without checking on Levante. And I’m pleased to report that they are back in 4th place after losing it briefly in the last round. Three wins in four games is a good turn around after three in fifteen. This is a team that finished 14th last season. The latest victory was against the Yellow Submarines, Villarreal. And what of the team that finished 4th last season? Well I think it’s fair to say that they’ve had a shocker this season. The defeat to Levant was their 4th in 5 games, and it leaves them just one place above the bottom 3.

Premier League Update to come once the midweek fixtures have been completed.

Cheers,

Liam

Bundesliga Round 26

After going a bit goal shy in rounds 22-24, I think it’s fair to say that Bayern Munich have no more goalscoring problems. Three games that saw them score in just won, have been followed by a 7-1 win against Hoffenheim (9th), a 7-0 win against Basle (in the Champions League), and now a 6-0 win away at Hertha Berlin (15th). So an aggregate score of 20-1 over three games. Not too shabby. This weekend it was Arjen Robben’s turn to grab a hat trick. Mario Gomez had scored 3 against Hoffenheim and 4 against Basle, but could only manage the one against Berlin. What a loser. Robben has been in a rich vein of goalscoring form, with 9 goals in his last 5 games for club and country. Bayern’s other scorers at the weekend were Kroos and Muller.

The oldest looking 28 year old in history – Benjamin Robben

But it doesn’t really make that much different to their title bid, because Dortmund have put their dodgy form behind them (they drew last time out), and have won their 9th game in 10. That’s now 20 without defeat. This time out it was Japanese schemer Kagawa with the match winning goal, the victims on this occasion were 6th Placed Werder Bremen. That still leaves a comfortable 5 point gap at the top of the table. AverageOpposition’s friend Marco Reus was on the mark for the first time in 5 games with the opener in a 2-1 win over 5th placed Leverkusen. This means Monchengladbach stay in 3rd, and that yet again, Reus has done it against a Top 6 opponent:

Amazingly, after 14 goals this season, he still hasn’t scored against the relegation battlers, and in fact only 3 of them have come against the teams ranked in 7th to 14th. He’s simply a big game player. He continues to lead the way in goals against the Top 6 (11 strikes) and also has the best ranked opponent per goal – 5.36. The boy is a bit special.

Elsewhere, Huntelaar’s attempts to keep pasce with Mario Gomez continued as he notched in Schalke’s 4-1 away win over bottom placed Kaiserslautern. No real surprise there – he specialises in goals against the Bottom ranked teams, with a whopping 12. That’s the highest by a good distance. And that has lowered his Average to 12.95 – second only to Martin Harnik (14.29) in the Flat Track Bully stakes. Also in that game, Golden (or should that be Goalden?) oldie Raul was back on the goal trail ( I wonder where it leads to?).  That takes him to a decent 12 league goals for the season (25 games).

Sick of Goalscorers? Want some love for the defence? Well look below at the clean sheets stats per team:

Although leading the way on the number of clean sheets, you may be surprised to learn that both Dortmund in 1st, and Monchengladbach in 3rd have the best defences – 16 goals conceded each, compared to Bayern’s 17. Bayern have used them well though, all but two of the clean sheets have been wins. It’s rivals Dortmund though, that lead the way against decent opposition, with 5 clean sheets against fellow Top 6 teams.

Despite being in a lowly 12th place, the Hoffenheim defence has the highest ranked opponent per clean sheet. Their 7 shut outs this season has been against an average placed 6.43 opponent. Pretty good for a team just 5 points above the drop zone. This is reflected in 3 clean sheets against the Top 6 – Dortmund, Bayern, and Monchengladbach.

FC Koln (Cologne) have the worst ranked average opponent for each of their 6 clean sheets – with 12.33, whilst Mainz, Hamburg, Hertha Berlin and Kaiserslautern have the lowest number of clean sheets with just 4.

Rest of the leagues to follow this week.

Cheers,

Liam

Premier League Round 28

After 21 weeks in 1st place, Man City are now experiencing what many a title challenger have – Man Utd’s second half of the season form. No one should be surprised, it’s pretty much a guarantee. Death, Taxes and Man Utd finishing the season strongly, are the only three guarantees in life. And maybe Lee Cattermole kicking someone or crying. There’s just four guarantees in life. And Gerrard being Liverpool’s best player. There’s just five things……

You get the idea.

There’s just six guarantees in life….Dutch Footballers arguing with eachother

The plan is for a very quick post as I’ve got things to do but so much has gone on, it’s hard to cover everything. So here’s a few bullet points to speed things up:

• Rooney’s goalscoring in the league this season:
  • 9 in 5
  • 0 in 9
  • 4 in 3
  • 0 in 6
  • 7 in 5
• Steven Gerrard is a big game player – he’s scored in 3 games this season, once against Man Utd (their most hated rivals), once against Newcastle (Top 6 rivals) and a hat trick against Everton (their local rivals). His average opposition per goal is ranked 7.2, which is pretty impressive, and would be enough to put him at number one, if he had more goals. Hopefully for England’s sake, he’ll continue this form into the summer.
• Crisis? What Crisis? Arsenal have now won 5 league games in a row. They’ve come from behind in the last 4 of those, against 4 teams in the Top 8. All of a sudden, they look formidable again. Their average opponent for the last 4 wins is 6th.
• Crisis? What Crisis? Blackburn are now ranked 12th in the form table over the last 8 games.Three wins, two draws and three defeats isn’t particularly eye opening, but for a team that’s been in the relegation places for pretty much the whole season, and only had three wins in their first 20 games. They’re now in the dizzy position of 16th on the back of a real six pointer against Wolves (18th). Junior Hoillet proving his importance with both the goals. His 6 goals this season have been worth 6 points. You can see why he’s been linked with a big move away. It was also their first clean sheet of the season – shame on you Wolves.

Robin van Persie’s goal against his compatriot not only helped Arsenal to another Top 6 scalp, but also increased his lead at the top of the scoring charts to 26, and also increased his lead at the top of the goals against the Top 6 to 7. And that’s without the brace against 7th placed Liverpool in round 27. Impressive stuff. Rooney’s great run of form (he also has three in the two games against Bilbao) has seen him fly up the scoring charts, and means he’s got 20 league goals for just the second time in his career. However, his average of 12.05 and a tally of 8 goals vs Bottom 6 teams leaves room for improvement.

Holding the titles for this week are Big Game Player Adebayor with 7.82, and (useful) veteran and Flat Track Bully Frank Lampard with 14.90. As mentioned before, the caveat is that he’s a midfielder, though Dempsey (11.17), and Bale (13.11) both have done it against better ranked opponents.

As it’s just a quick entry this week, i’ll add a few Team Stats up for your information and interpretation:

Clean Sheets:

Arsenal’s recovery hasn’t been built on defence, Blackburn will be hoping their first clean sheet of the season will lead to others agianst Bottom 6 opponents, and QPR maybe have some hope with the terrible run in they have – they face Man Utd, Man City, Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Sunderland and the “easy” games – in form Swansea, West Brom and Stoke. Their 4 clean sheets have included shut outs against Newcastle and Chelsea. It’s still looking bad for them though. Man Utd and Fulham make short work of the stragglers at the bottom, whils Everton have kept the most clean sheets against Top 6 teams – with 3.

Wins:

Liverpool have the highest ranked opponent per win with 11.36. They only have one win against Top 6 opponents as Arsenal were ranked 10th at the time of Liverpool’s 2-0 win, and Newcastle were ranked 7th when losing at Anfield. Man Utd prove that taking care of the simple things like beating bottom 6 teams, can get you to the top. The 9 wins clocked up against the bottom 6 have provided 27 of their 67 points. City lead the way against Top 6 teams, followed by a bouyant Arsenal, Everton and Man Utd. If Wolves do stay up, it’ll be becuase they’ve beaten 5 of the teams around them.

That’s all for this quick edition of the Premier League Update for now.

Cheers,

Liam

Serie A Round 27

More of the same at the top of Serie A as Juventus could only draw for the 78th time this season. They’ve caught up on their game in hand on Milan since our last update, and unsurprisingly, they have 2 more points. Firstly, they drew 1-1 with a revitalised Bologna (Mirko Vucinic), and then followed it up with a 0-0 draw away at 12th placed Genoa. Now two away draws isn’t really the end of the world, but they’ve now drawn more games then they’ve won – W13 D14 L0. It’s a great achievement going unbeaten, but it’ll mean diddly squat if they don’t win anything. The pressure is getting to them as well. On the back of what they thought was a bad offside decision preventing Pepe a late winner, Juve have thrown all of their toys out of their pram and have declared a media blackout. Manager Antonio Conte saw it from his lofty position in the stands, due to being sent off/away during the draw with Bologna. It sounds like a Keegan/Newcastle like meltdown. That’s 4 draws in a row, whilst AC Milan have won 10 points from 12.

What the F*** are you looking at?

And Gerard Pique’s favourite Swede was at it again. After scoring a brilliant goal (if you were just a normal player) against 18th placed Lecce, Big Z asked a female reporter “what the f*** are you looking at” after she’d earlier asked him a question that he didn’t particularly like. A new expression I’ve learnt since moving to Ireland is quite fitting here – he’s mad as a bag of cats. Nocerino scored his 9th league goal from midfield to make it a comfortable 2-0 for the Champions.They’re now 4 points clear of the Old Lady.

That goal has meant that Ibrahimovic has snuck above Di Natale in the race for the Golden Boot. In terms of big game performances, he’s worsened his average opponent per goal ranking to 11.53. It’s also increased his goals against Bottom 6 to 5, an number that’s only been beaten by the Udinese striker. And it’s the 8 goals against the relegation strugglers that mean Di Natale is still the Flat Track Bully in terms of average opposition per goal – 12.44 disguises his 3 goals against Top 6 teams, but those are the stats. Edinson Cavani may be banging in plenty of goals, but he’s still to do it against a Top 6 team this season (domestically anyway.

At the other end of the scale, previous Big Game Player Giovinco finally scored again in Parma’s 2-2 draw against 11th placed Fiorentina. Scoring goals against mid table teams isn’t going to win him the crown. That honour looks like it’s going to Fabrizio Miccoli of Palermo, who’s also getting the most assists versus the big game teams. Eight goals against Top 6 opposition, and none against Bottom 6 teams means that he has a very decent 6.27.

Elsewhere this weekend, Inter Milan finally ended their run of seven games without a win by beating 10th placed Chievo away. It was 0-0 with 4 minutes to go, before Diego Milito and fellow Argentine Walter Samuel made it 2-0, and took a bit of pressure off Ranieri. That leaves Inter in 7th, 8 points off 3rd placed Lazio (who lost 3-1 at home to an in form Bologna). Udinese managed to lose to Novara (19th) who had only won once in the previous 14. The scoring hero was Jeda, who probably looks nothing like Luke Skywalker, but I can’t get the image out of my head. Another big game performer was Cagliari’s Joaquin Larrivey. The Argentinian striker (there seems a be a lot of good ones) banged in a hat trick against 5th placed Napoli. His 7 goals this season have been against an average ranked opponent of 10.14. This will offer Chelsea great hope ahead of the Champions League 2nd leg. What will not be quite so encouraging is that Napoli scored 6 goals in reply – with 6 different scorers.

You may have also noticed Borini has another goal next to his name for Roma. This time is was in a 1-0 win away at 9th placed Roma. That’s now 7 in 7 from the former Chelsea youngster. And there’s also a nod to Siena, who have won 3 games in a row – largely inspired by on loan Albanian Erjon Bogdani. The forward (on loan from relegation rivals Cesena) has scored 3 goals in 3 games as they’ve jumped from 17th to the relative comfort of 14th. No wonder he got the famous number 81 shirt.

And to finish off, a quick look at the players scoring the important goals:

Typical German effiency from Miroslav Klose mean that his 12 goals have been worth 13 points to Lazio. Equalling that is German (there’s a theme here) Denis who is yet another one of those decent Argentinian Strikers around. He’s managed 13 points from his 15 goals, but it’s been 39% of Atalanta’s points, meaning he’s the most important player to his team (in terms of goalscoring). Aside from the top two, the most efficient goal scorer has been Chievo’s Pellisier who has won 7 points from 4 goals. At the other end of the scale, three players have scored 5 goals that have been worth zilch – step forward Lazio’s Rocchi, Bologna’s Ramirez and Siena’s Destro.

That’s all from Italy for now.

Cheers,

Liam

Bundesliga Round 25

The Bundesliga is the first to get some love this week as the Premier League round 28 isn’t complete until after tomorrow’s Merseyside Derby, and there’s another game left in Spain. After last week’s statement that the league was pretty much tied up by Dortmund, I’m now starting to doubt myself a little. Firstly, league leaders Dortmund finally had their winning run ended at the 9th attempt. A 0-0 draw away at 15th placed FC Augsberg, coupled with a win for 2nd placed Bayern Munich, means that there’s now 5 points in it, with a head to head on 11th April. And what a win it was for Bayern.

The Munich Three combined to score 6 goals at the weekend

Ninth placed Hoffenheim were the victims of a 7-1 lesson. Mario Gomez scored a hat trick (from 3 shots), Robben scored a brace and helped himself to a couple of assists, and Ribery scored once (the loser), but set up three. Toni Kroos scored the other. Even Hoffenheim’s goal was scored by Bayern. So whilst I still think the league will end up in Dortmund’s hands, a lot will be decided in the top of the table clash.

In terms of goals, Gomez’s treble puts him clear at the top again. Even though his hat trick was against 9th placed opposition, it actually improved the average ranking of the opponent’s he’s scored against, with 12.00. It still suggests that he’s a borderline flat track bully, and just the 1 goal against Top 6 opponents will back that up. Second place in the goalscoring charts is Dutchman Huntelaar. After recovering from his knock out goal against England, he was back on the scoresheet at the weekend against 12th place Hamburg. These opponents fit in nicely with his 12.68 average, and a whopping 11 goals against bottom 6 opponents suggest he’s an even bigger flat track bully than Gomez. But he’s not the worst.

Once again, that title stays with Martin Harnik at Stuttgart, with a rating of 14.29. Bremen’s Claudio Pizarro is next in line with a ranking of 12.69 per goal. Interestingly, it’s 4 of the top 5 scorers that have the worst ranked opposition per goal – with only Arsenal target/player breaking up the list, with a decent 9.19. Top of the list once more is Marco Reus, but he once again failed to score this weekend as Monchengladbach could only muster up a 0-0 draw against bottom placed Freiburg. It was quite obvious that Reus didn’t score as he only does it in the big games.

Elsewhere, our favourite Egyptian, Zidan continued his phenomenal scoring rate for Mainz. He scored the winner against Nurenberg in a 2-1 win. That’s now 6 games played since returning to his former club, and he’s scored in all of them, whilst being responsible for 5 points. His average opposition ranking is a decent 7.50 as well. One trend that isn’t so wanted is Kaiserslautern’s. They’ve now gone 15 games without a win, and whilst they have drawn 9 of them, 9 points from 45 isn’t too clever.

We haven’t looked at the importance of the goals for a few weeks, so now’s as good a time as any:

Although he failed to score against Werder Bremen (the git – see below), Mohammed Abdellaoue is still the most importart player to his team (in terms of goals/points). His 11 goals this season have been worth 16 points to Hannover, which equates to 46% of their points. That leaves him top of both the points and percentage standings. The most efficient goals this season have been scored Augsburg’s Callsen-Bracker and Nurenberg’s Esswein, who both have gained 6 points from just 4 goals – a return of 150% in the goals to points ratio. The most pointless (not literally)? Well unsurprisingly it belongs to the top 2 scorers – Gomez and Huntelaar, who have a combined tally of 40 goals, which have been worth a rather disappointing 14 points. So not only are they flat track bullies, their goals aren’t particularly important either. Pizarro at least has provided 11 points for his 16 goals, which isn’t too bad, and is te second highest points scoring in the league.

Prediction Corner Revisited:

And so onto the main event (because it went well this week) – a review of prediction corner! At the end of the Round 24 post, I tried my luck or rather statistical based predictions on the Bundesliga.

1. Mohammed Abdellaoue to score against Top 6 Werder Bremen. The Norwegian marksman has an average opposition of 7.00, and has 5 goals against Top 6 opponent’s so far. Although, they’ve all been at home.
2. Ribery’s average of 9.80 should put him in good position to score against 10th placed Hoffenheim.
3. Werder Bremen specialise in beating mid table opposition (7 of 10 wins), so they should be favourites to beat Hannover at home. Hannover have 2 wins against Top 6 opponents, but they were both at home (Munich and Bremen). Pizarro is the most likely scorer.
4. Mario Gomez to continue his goals scoring against very average teams. He has 11 versus the mid table opposition, so 10th placed Hoffenheim fit the bill. Huntelaar would have been a shoe in for Schalke against Hamburg, but he’s still feeling the effects of the grass last week.
5. Dortmund to win – they beat everyone anyway.

Well I can count that as a half decent prediction weekend. In the first prediction, Abdellaoue let me down. He didn’t even have a shot! Anyway, it’s not the end of the world as Ribery scored, Werder Bremen beat Hannover (have that Abdellaoue), and Pizarro scored. But that’s not all, Gomez also scored as did Huntelaar (who I thought was gonna miss the game through injury). That’s 5 correct predictions (ignore the numbering), let down by Dortmund’s draw. I should put together a site fund to see how far it can get me, but cobwebs, moth balls and shoe laces aren’t accepted by most of the big betting companies….

Rest of the league’s to follow this week.

Cheers,

Liam