Spanish La Liga – Team Profiles and Styles
Second part of the series, this time looking at La Liga teams.
Data courtesy of:
(Tip: Click on each image to view full size)
(Dark Blue: Very Strong, Light Blue: Strong, Orange: Weak, Red: Very Weak)
Team Characteristics (sorted by current league positions)
English Premier League – Team Profiles and Styles
This week I thought I’d take a look at the ‘profiles’ and characteristics of each team in the English Premier League.
Data courtesy of:
(Tip: Click on each image to view full size)
First up, I have taken the characteristics of each team in the league, and shown it in a table:
(Dark Blue: Very Strong, Light Blue: Strong, Orange: Weak, Red: Very Weak)
Team strengths and weaknesses
Man Utd 1 – 6 Man City: As One Sided As 1-6?
When you hear 6 – 1, you immediately think the game was one sided, with two completely mismatched teams. However, there are some games where the score can be very misleading, such as this (also the QPR 1 – 0 Chelsea game from the same day, in which Chelsea had the better play, despite being 2 players down for most of the game – more on that later).
Game Time Line:
English Premier League – Week 5: A Statistical Analysis
Lets take a little statistical look at the English Premier League so far, to see if we can fathom out what teams can do to increase their chances of a win.
So we are 5 weeks in, 49 games have been played. 132 goals have been scored, an average of 2.69 goals per game.
Home vs Away
The home side have won 19 times, the away side 16 times, and 14 draws.
The home side have scored 74 goals, or 1.51 per game, whilst the away side have scored 58, or 1.18 per game.
Interestingly, the average possession is 50% each.
Berbatov – Hernandez – Welbeck: Which Striker Should Man Utd Start?
That’s one question Sir Alex Ferguson quite possibly considered many times over the summer; just which striker should start with Wayne Rooney? Dimitar Berbatov, Javier Hernandez (Chicharito) or Danny Welbeck?
(Michael Owen excluded due to current lack of available data – his two goals against Leeds in the Carling Cup were his first involvement of the season).
Lets start by taking a look at each players characteristics, based upon match data (courtesy of whoscored.com)
Danny Welbeck:
Barcelona vs Porto: Porto show the way to beat Barca…almost!
How to beat Barcelona? That has been one of the questions of the summer (or even of the last couple of season) and will be asked countless times this season. In the 2011 UEFA Super Cup, despite losing 0-2, FC Porto showed us how Barca can be neutralised.
OK, Porto actually lost the game, but there were some promising signs throughout the game.
The game finished 2-0 to Barcelona, with Barca having 9 shots, 5 on target, to Porto’s 8 shots, 2 on target. However, Porto were reduced to 10 men in the 86th minute with the score still 1-0, and then had another man sent off on 90 minutes. At that point, Barca had managed 7 shots, with 3 on target. The first goal also was a bit misfortunate (despite in part being caused by the Barca press), with Fredy Guarin passing the ball towards Sapunaru, who didnt anticipate the pass and missed the ball, which then rolled on to Leo Messi, who was 8 yards behind the defence and rounded the keeper to slot away.
There are two general views to playing Barca (or pretty much any team for that matter) – drop off and sit deep, or push on and press them. Porto took the second option here which largely worked quite well.
Before the first goal on 38 minutes, Barca had only had 2 shots, both off target (although it is fair to say they could have scored at least one – getting in behind the high Porto line both occasions).
Porto prevented Barca entering their defensive third for 12 minutes, from 16:45 on the clock until 28:20.
There were plenty of positives to take from the display of FC Porto, and here I will look at how they attempted to neutralise Barca and how they looked to attack them, how this differed to Man Utd’s attempt in last seasons Champions League final, and then a general look at how different formations faired against Barca last season.
Formations
English Premier League: Two Weeks In – What Have We Learned So Far? (part 2)
Key to player dashboards (diagrams provided by FourFourTwo Stats Zone/Opta):
Everton – Full backs see most action, but Arteta key
Only one game played (due to the postponed game against Tottenham), so slightly harder to spot any recurring factors, but the two players to see the most action were the two full backs, and this was a similar case last season:
English Premier League: Two Weeks In – What Have We Learned So Far? (part 1)
So we’re two rounds into the English Premier League 2011/12 season already and I thought I’d take a look at the some of the tactical highlights being shown by all 20 top flight teams. This article won’t be looking at formations (these are readily available in many places) but rather the key areas, strengths and weaknesses of individual teams football tactics, and key players.
You may think 2 games aren’t much to spot any ‘trends’ or traits, but Opposition Scouts will have to be doing this. I will look to revisit this every so often throughout the season, so we can see if those tactics we highlighted are continued and how effective they become.
Key to player dashboards (diagrams provided by FourFourTwo Stats Zone/Opta):
Arsenal – Neat Passing in midfield, problems either end
Nothing particularly of interest in terms of tactics from Arsenal. In their two games so far, Arsenal look to continue the same old short passing game, attempting an average of over 500 passes per game, with an average completion rate of 83%. Their main problem appears to be in the final third – only 5 shots from 23 (22%) have hit the target in the two games so far, and a significant reduction in chances created:
Coming Soon: English Premier League – Tactical Observations So Far
After the second round of fixtures, I will be providing a run down of any tactical trends appearing over the first two games, for all 20 teams.
Please be sure to check back towards the middle of next week.
Keywords: football tactics, team tactics, premier league, soccer tactics, team analysis
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