OK, it’s finally a done deal, full details to follow, but it’s official, Stephen Ireland is an Aston Villa player, James Milner is a Man City player.
Going the other way, Stephen Ireland has also completed his transfer from City to Villa. Ireland spent eight years at City, having come through the ranks as a teenager. He made 142 starts in that time, scoring 23 goals. His best season in a City shirt came in 2008/09, when he was named as
In Part I I used a little slight of hand when comparing detailed playing stats for Milner and Ireland by putting two different seasons against each other. I was open about that and it was done with the expressed purpose of illustrating that at their best, they are extremely comparable players. But will we be getting Stephen Ireland at his best?
That remains to be seen, there’s obviously no guarantees, but for what it’s worth, here are their key
I’ve been doing a little research. I worked these same stats a while ago in the Luke Young vs Carlos Cuellar at right back comparison, so you should be familiar. However, this time I didn’t isolate games played in the same position – they’re both versatile midfielders – and I’m not comparing data from the same season.
It seems to me that we’re all optimistic about getting the Stephen Ireland from two years ago. For whatever reason, and
It would appear James Milner’s 24 hour ultimatum has forced some action and it’s currently being reported that he is heading to Manchester for a medical. Presumably he’ll pass Stephen Ireland on the way. Not sure they’ll wave to each other.
As it stands, it sounds like our side of the bargain will be Stephen Ireland plus £16m. What will happen to that money is another question, but I wouldn’t assume it will all go to fund new
I finally got round to compiling manager performance data going back a wee bit further than 1992. 1946 to be precise; the first league season after World War II.
There’s very little narrative required, but I should explain the data is limited to the top flight only, seasons in the old Divisions Two and Three were excluded. All matches were recalculated on a basis of three points for a win. A handful of games without a permanent manager
An extremely interesting, and in some cases surprising, opening weekend to the new 2010/11 Premiership season. From Mancini’s millionaires leaving London with a point thanks to a quite amazing performance from the young Joe Hart, through caretaker manager Kevin MacDonald overseeing a scintillating display from his temporary charges at Villa Park, to Pepe Reina gifting Arsenal a share of the spoils at Anfield with a comedy own goal.
Hart Saves The Day
The curtain opener took place at White Hart Lane,
As we don’t get too many opportunities to see Brad Guzan play, I thought it worth dropping in the highlights from the USA vs Brazil friendly from last Tuesday. Guzan played the second half – which starts around the 3:30 mark if you’re not particularly interested in seeing Brazil’s goals – and he made a number of excellent saves.
Not the best USA performance, but Brazil were close to their best, playing some exceptionally good football at times.
YouTube Video
While it’s up, here’s the goals and some highlights from today’s fantastic game.
Goals from Downing (15′), Petrov (40′) and Milner (66′).
YouTube Video
I’ve been working on developing Statshack 2.0, but I have to confess that I left myself with more to do than I realised and despite a late night last night, it’s still not ready. Also, I’m not sure why, but the average position map data doesn’t seem to be working, so I’m using my own interpretation of the general positions the players took up for now.
System wise, it was more of a 4-4-1-1 than a 4-2-3-1, although they may