Ratings v Arsenal

Anyway, on the Sandro substitution I had a quick play with the Guardian Chalk-board for the match.

Just a couple of caveats first though.

There were surely more factors in the last 27 mins than simply Sandro's introduction, for instance Sagna's injury as SS points out. Also Arsenal were chasing the game and brought on Arshavin. Perhaps they lost patience and went for more long balls? And we bought on Livermore who was an extra extra DM.

Anyway all that said this is what I discovered:

Before Sandro
Pass completion: 70.03%

Action areas:
First third: 32%
Middle third: 50%
Final third: 18%
Our half: 63%
Their half: 37%

After Sandro is introduced
Pass completion: 75%

Action areas:
First third: 22%
Middle third: 47%
Final third: 31%
Our half: 45%
Their half: 55%

Also in the 70% of the match that was played before he was introduced we had 10 shots, in the 30% afterwards we had 8 shots. Or we had 54% of the total shots in the 70% of the match before Sandro was introduced.

Arsenal on the other hand had 13 shots in total but 11 of them came before Sandro was introduced, that's a whopping 85%, whereas only 2 came after his introduction.

From which we can deduce that once we had Sandro and Parker in CM we kept the ball better and had more possession in Arsenal's half of the pitch, taking more shots and so were more attacking. Whereas Arsenal had far fewer shots and so were less attacking.

Top work Slothy.

I think this has been one of the most interesting threads on SC I can remember.

tRiKS said:

Fundamentally, the ball was with the goons becasue they kept it better and a massive part of that was having another/extra player in CM. Any "poor" passing stats from BAE or even Bale (or any spurs player) are circumstantial in comparison.

Click to expand...

Yes. Their 82% pass completion rate against our 75% does lead me to suspect that was the case. The extra man in midfield would of course have helped in this. However, to attempt to excuse BAE's and Bale's inept passing on the risible grounds that they cross more so they're bound to be worse than everybody else is pure comedy. We're not talking about four or five percentage points here, are we? BAE's average pass success this season is over 77%; on Sunday it was 57%. Bale was not quite as bad, down from 74% to 63%, but bad enough. I'd call that 'poor' in comparison to what we usually see from them. What would you call it? Perhaps they just putting in a lot more crosses on Sunday. (Lennon's PCR was 80% last season and 78% the season before, BTW.)

VdV's passing was also off-beam, I should add, in percentage terms further below par than Bale's.

And Walker doesn't count because he mostly makes short passes? Does that apply to King and Kaboul too? You said defenders; only one defender was cocking it up in the passing department, and that was BAE.

sloth said:

Anyway, on the Sandro substitution I had a quick play with the Guardian Chalk-board for the match.

Just a couple of caveats first though.

There were surely more factors in the last 27 mins than simply Sandro's introduction, for instance Sagna's injury as SS points out. Also Arsenal were chasing the game and brought on Arshavin. Perhaps they lost patience and went for more long balls? And we bought on Livermore who was an extra extra DM.

Anyway all that said this is what I discovered:

Before Sandro
Pass completion: 70.03%

Action areas:
First third: 32%
Middle third: 50%
Final third: 18%
Our half: 63%
Their half: 37%

After Sandro is introduced
Pass completion: 75%

Action areas:
First third: 22%
Middle third: 47%
Final third: 31%
Our half: 45%
Their half: 55%

Also in the 70% of the match that was played before he was introduced we had 10 shots, in the 30% afterwards we had 8 shots. Or we had 54% of the total shots in the 70% of the match before Sandro was introduced.

Arsenal on the other hand had 13 shots in total but 11 of them came before Sandro was introduced, that's a whopping 85%, whereas only 2 came after his introduction.

From which we can deduce that once we had Sandro and Parker in CM we kept the ball better and had more possession in Arsenal's half of the pitch, taking more shots and so were more attacking. Whereas Arsenal had far fewer shots and so were less attacking.

Click to expand...

This is not evidence at all. Considering how the game changed completely where arsenal were chasing a goal.

These are the average possession stats from last season.

sloth said:

Before Sandro
Pass completion: 70.03%

Action areas:
First third: 32%
Middle third: 50%
Final third: 18%
Our half: 63%
Their half: 37%

After Sandro is introduced
Pass completion: 75%

Action areas:
First third: 22%
Middle third: 47%
Final third: 31%
Our half: 45%
Their half: 55%

Also in the 70% of the match that was played before he was introduced we had 10 shots, in the 30% afterwards we had 8 shots. Or we had 54% of the total shots in the 70% of the match before Sandro was introduced.

Arsenal on the other hand had 13 shots in total but 11 of them came before Sandro was introduced, that's a whopping 85%, whereas only 2 came after his introduction.

From which we can deduce that once we had Sandro and Parker in CM we kept the ball better and had more possession in Arsenal's half of the pitch, taking more shots and so were more attacking. Whereas Arsenal had far fewer shots and so were less attacking.

Click to expand...

Was having a look at this yesterday but my PC died and i gave up the will also.

Pass completion: 76%

Action areas:
First third: 30%
Middle third: 37%
Final third: 33%
Our half: 57%
Their half: 45%??????

This is only a very short period but it was the 7 minutes before Sandro came on.

It's not going to be the most statistacally relevent due to the short time frame but it maybe does show that it wasn't all down to one players introdution but rather several other factors including tiredness(infact in that time the goons could only complete a poor 67% of their passes).

Playing Dick Advocaat(we are a football forum) maybe the Arses percieved dominace was down as much to workrate as as the wrong formation chosen by the clown in charge of us.

Infact if you watch the second half again, a bit more dispassionately now that you know the result, you can see the game changing before the substituion.

This still going? Still trying to force some kind of blame on the manager after a good win?

5 votes for Sandro man of the match? Fuck me.

Fucking comedic stuff. I'm out.

Paolo10 said:

This still going? Still trying to force some kind of blame on the manager after a good win?

5 votes for Sandro man of the match? Fuck me.

Fucking comedic stuff. I'm out.

Click to expand...

Yeah it's still going on, and from what I see it's been fucking brilliant discussion - what a football forum should all be about.

Or would you prefer 2 pages of 10 word posts saying how great Redknapp is woohoo best team everrrrrrrrrrrrr?

we were infinitely better when he came on and his smart running set up the winning goal.

I think HR considered the risk/reward of less possession/more counter against more possession/less threat, and he got it right. We got the benefit of VdV who is a genuine match winner, sacrificing 1 man in the middle of the park. We have more mobility down the flanks so we would always be dangerous.
The key for the tatic to work is we can't concede first because Arsenal could then sit deep; this turned out to be the case.

ShelfSide18 said:

Yeah it's still going on, and from what I see it's been fucking brilliant discussion - what a football forum should all be about.

Or would you prefer 2 pages of 10 word posts saying how great Redknapp is woohoo best team everrrrrrrrrrrrr?

Click to expand...

I think its been a terrible discussion, its just a corral of posters who love Sandro and want him in the team so desperately, thats all this is. Its crazy. If this was about formations, then you'd say Lennon on the right in a 4-2-3-1 but it isn't, its just people upset that the team is performing really well without Sandro.

what were the scores before and after sandro came on against arsenal?

sandro played at wigan by the way.

Phil_2.0 said:

I think its been a terrible discussion, its just a corral of posters who love Sandro and want him in the team so desperately, thats all this is. Its crazy. If this was about formations, then you'd say Lennon on the right in a 4-2-3-1 but it isn't, its just people upset that the team is performing really well without Sandro.

Click to expand...

This is utter rubbish, mainly because if we still had Palacios I'd quite possibly have him in ahead of Sandro, and my posting history will reveal I was arguing the need for a solid cm base of Jenas and Palacios - way before I knew who the hell Sandro was!

ShelfSide18 said:

Yeah it's still going on, and from what I see it's been fucking brilliant discussion - what a football forum should all be about.

Or would you prefer 2 pages of 10 word posts saying how great Redknapp is woohoo best team everrrrrrrrrrrrr?

Click to expand...

In what way was it brilliant? The arduous construction of a fallacious simulacra rising grotesquely from the troubled egos of those who bound themselves to events beyond their control and, inevitably, suffered alienation in victory.

This explains the lack of empathy, snide comments and headlong flight from reality - dull as it might be.

Until I saw this thread, I never got Vlad the impaler.

Doesn't the fact Arsenal top the possession charts for last year (albeit having lost two of their prime passers) complement the notion of letting them play but stopping them where it counts? Having a rewatch again, the Parker chance, VDV 2 yards out (should have used his right foot), Ade's 1v1 and then Bale's snapshot were all far better chances than Gervinho's where we at least had some defenders in the way to make it difficult. Because quite often defending a little deeper has worked alright for us against them and reduces a potentially pacey weapon like Walcott to cutting in for potshots.

And VdV on the right, while obviously defensively deficient, is a wily enough operator to drag Gibbs right out of position allowing Ade space to assist his goal. I dont disagree we should end up in a 4-2-3-1 but its not for every match necessarily, you assume Harry wanted Luka in the middle to pull the strings round the arse midfield rather than shunted out right of an advanced 3 as some would have him every match - where he looks so much less effective. Sandro and Parker are both decent on the ball but none have the zip Luka does at CM so maybe that was his thinking? And it didn't pan out so well through a combo of Luka not playing great and Coquelin not being as rubbish as Frimpong doubtless would have been (though we still made a goal and 2 sitters in the first half) and the formation was changed.

Stavrogin said:

In what way was it brilliant? The arduous construction of a fallacious simulacra rising grotesquely from the troubled egos of those who bound themselves to events beyond their control and, inevitably, suffered alienation in victory.

This explains the lack of empathy, snide comments and headlong flight from reality - dull as it might be.

Until I saw this thread, I never got Vlad the impaler.

Click to expand...

:rofl:

ultimateloner said:

I think HR considered the risk/reward of less possession/more counter against more possession/less threat, and he got it right. We got the benefit of VdV who is a genuine match winner, sacrificing 1 man in the middle of the park. We have more mobility down the flanks so we would always be dangerous.
The key for the tatic to work is we can't concede first because Arsenal could then sit deep; this turned out to be the case.

Click to expand...

jurgen said:

Doesn't the fact Arsenal top the possession charts for last year (albeit having lost two of their prime passers) complement the notion of letting them play but stopping them where it counts? Having a rewatch again, the Parker chance, VDV 2 yards out (should have used his right foot), Ade's 1v1 and then Bale's snapshot were all far better chances than Gervinho's where we at least had some defenders in the way to make it difficult. Because quite often defending a little deeper has worked alright for us against them and reduces a potentially pacey weapon like Walcott to cutting in for potshots.

And VdV on the right, while obviously defensively deficient, is a wily enough operator to drag Gibbs right out of position allowing Ade space to assist his goal. I dont disagree we should end up in a 4-2-3-1 but its not for every match necessarily, you assume Harry wanted Luka in the middle to pull the strings round the arse midfield rather than shunted out right of an advanced 3 as some would have him every match - where he looks so much less effective. Sandro and Parker are both decent on the ball but none have the zip Luka does at CM so maybe that was his thinking? And it didn't pan out so well through a combo of Luka not playing great and Coquelin not being as rubbish as Frimpong doubtless would have been (though we still made a goal and 2 sitters in the first half) and the formation was changed.

Click to expand...

No one is saying that this isn't a tactic that could work and in fact did work. We won after all.

The discussion revolves around whether this was the best tactic, given our opposition, the players we have available and the players they did.

Against Barcelona, for instance, Mourino's Inter played it just right in a way Ferguson's Utd didn't (twice). If you can't dominate the ball, if the opposition is superior then you need to play for the counter attack, accept they'll have possession and then try and hit them on the break. Of course depending on their strength you may still go for a lone striker, because the first job in this scenario is to absorb the pressure without conceding.

Of course 4-4-2 doesn't always cede possession to the opposition, for instance if they're weaker than you you may still have the lion's share. Also, if they too line-up 4-4-2 then you're matched in the middle and the equation of superior players will often win out (see the match V Liverpool).

Against us Arsenal had no choice but to line-up with 3 centre mids because they didn't have the players for 4-4-2, even had they wanted to play that way. We knew that. So their only hope was to get a platform in the middle of the park from which to launch their attacks and hope to nick a goal. However without a platform then they'd have had sweet FA. If they couldn't own the ball then they had no threat.

So lets look at who they had in the core of their midfield: Coquelin and Ramsey with presumably Arteta pulling the strings just ahead of them.

Now match them against Parker and Sandro, with in front of them our own puppet master, Modric.

Who in your opinion is going to win that battle?

And without that possession base what have Arsenal got? And with the ball belonging to us and Arsenal nullified what have we got? Is Walcott going to come back and defend for them, how effective would he be? Gervinho?

You've got Modric on the ball in their half of the pitch, you have Walker over-lapping on the right, Bale making runs to his left, ahead you've Ade and VdV showing for the ball, making clever runs and drawing the lumbering Mertesacker all over the place and you've got both Parker and Sandro always showing as the extra man capable of creating, and scoring each.

What would Sir Alex have done with our line-up do you reckon? Or Mourinho? Would they have thought that Arsenal were so strong in the centre of the park that we'll just give it up to them and try and smash them on the break? Or would they have set out to dominate?

On the general point about possession football. It is clear not only from Shelf-Side's stats above, but also from any year you wish to look at that the best teams have most of the ball. There will always be exceptions to that rule (for instance Swansea are right up there this year, Newcastle in the bottom half), but in general the top teams will have the most possession. This year the top six teams look like this:

1. Man City 62%
2. Arsenal 59%
3. Utd 58%
4. Chelsea 57%
5. Liverpool 56%
6. Tottenham 55%

Of course possession if you have no cutting edge is not use to anyone. For the evidence see Arsenal this year or us last year. But we have a cutting edge, we have the players to make superior possession really count.

The good news is, I think Harry knows this. I doubt very much if we'll see the 4-4-2 very often in games like that. My honest opinion is that his fondness for Defoe got the better of his good judgement.

Stavrogin said:

In what way was it brilliant? The arduous construction of a fallacious simulacra rising grotesquely from the troubled egos of those who bound themselves to events beyond their control and, inevitably, suffered alienation in victory.

This explains the lack of empathy, snide comments and headlong flight from reality - dull as it might be.

Until I saw this thread, I never got Vlad the impaler.

Click to expand...

Nice

But surely that describes us all doesn't it (other than the alienation in victory bit (though I have to say I don't feel alienated; probably I am but I just don't know it!!))?

It is surely the condition of a football fan, none more tragically than us who hold forth on message boards.

sloth said:

Anyway, on the Sandro substitution I had a quick play with the Guardian Chalk-board for the match.

Just a couple of caveats first though.

There were surely more factors in the last 27 mins than simply Sandro's introduction, for instance Sagna's injury as SS points out. Also Arsenal were chasing the game and brought on Arshavin. Perhaps they lost patience and went for more long balls? And we bought on Livermore who was an extra extra DM.

Anyway all that said this is what I discovered:

Before Sandro
Pass completion: 70.03%

Action areas:
First third: 32%
Middle third: 50%
Final third: 18%
Our half: 63%
Their half: 37%

After Sandro is introduced
Pass completion: 75%

Action areas:
First third: 22%
Middle third: 47%
Final third: 31%
Our half: 45%
Their half: 55%

Also in the 70% of the match that was played before he was introduced we had 10 shots, in the 30% afterwards we had 8 shots. Or we had 54% of the total shots in the 70% of the match before Sandro was introduced.

Arsenal on the other hand had 13 shots in total but 11 of them came before Sandro was introduced, that's a whopping 85%, whereas only 2 came after his introduction.

From which we can deduce that once we had Sandro and Parker in CM we kept the ball better and had more possession in Arsenal's half of the pitch, taking more shots and so were more attacking. Whereas Arsenal had far fewer shots and so were less attacking.

Click to expand...

At a time when they should have been peppering us, desperately trying to salvage a game to boot. Personally I think those stats correlate with what I saw and described (briefly) in my OP.

Phil_2.0 said:

This is not evidence at all. Considering how the game changed completely where arsenal were chasing a goal.

Click to expand...

See above. Surely if they were chasing a goal you would expect most of those stats, to be reversed. Maybe shots on goal is debatable because you can catch a team on the break who are piling forward, but you would expect them to be pushing into your half and dominating the possession surely ?

Stavrogin said:

In what way was it brilliant? The arduous construction of a fallacious simulacra rising grotesquely from the troubled egos of those who bound themselves to events beyond their control and, inevitably, suffered alienation in victory.

This explains the lack of empathy, snide comments and headlong flight from reality - dull as it might be.

Until I saw this thread, I never got Vlad the impaler.

Click to expand...

Bollocks.

Bus-Conductor said:

Bollocks.

Click to expand...

BC, I have to say the arduous construction of that fallacious simulacra rising grotesquely from your troubled ego is just yet more evidence that you've bound yourself to events beyond your control and, inevitably, suffered alienation as a result.

This explains your lack of empathy, your snide comments and your headlong flight from reality - bollocks as it might be!

:up:

ahhhhh this is nice. I'm glad all of you are having fun.