First things first; CT scans have revealed that Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink has suffered no long-term damage following his nasty clash of heads with Richard Dunne. That’s good news indeed, it’s always a concern when someone apparently spends so long unconscious. He’ll be able to train next week and should be able to play again before the end of the season.
To the game itself. Well, we won this in the first 25 minutes and then coasted to
No narrative from me this time, what can you really say to provide any kind of worthwhile analysis? It was a freak result that doesn’t reflect our part in proceedings? Don’t believe me? Compare the numbers below with the statistics from the 2-1 victory over Chelsea at Villa Park back in October.
I guess sometimes it’s a really fine line between a great victory and a humiliating drubbing.
Incidentally, apart from Luke Young in at right back in place of Carlos
My personal feeling about this game is that MON gambled. He rolled the dice on Richard Dunne and James Milner’s fitness and neither looked like they should have started this game. Richard Dunne was caught off guard on a number of occasions and it was clear he was off the pace. James Milner struggled to make any impact in this game and it was little surprise that he left the pitch in the 77th minute. I
I think we’ve touched on this in the past, but one of the weaknesses of our current system when we play two strikers is that it can leave Petrov a little over run. Perhaps I was hasty in wondering whether his mind was elsewhere and maybe he just had a tough game. Either way, he wasn’t able to stamp his usual authority on the game.
Let’s start with a graphic showing the two systems against each other, and this
I sometimes struggle to enjoy a game now and again, even ones we win, because the nervous energy doesn’t allow me to relax and be entertained. Maybe you’re the same. Maybe it’s just me. Either way, this wasn’t one of those games, I enjoyed almost every minute, even the final few. OK, maybe not the final few so much and probably not the opening 5 or so minutes, but in between it was really entertaining.
One of the things that I enjoy about pulling the Statshacks together is that the statistics often don’t reflect my perception of the game, which really challenges what I think I know, and this one is no exception. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think that the scoreline flatters us much, but if you were to make a judgment based solely on the numbers below you might not agree.
You can see for yourself that the passing and possession
The first thing I notice when I create the average position maps is whether our players were deeper or more advanced in comparison to the previous match; in this case the game against Tottenham. This is most noticeable among the back four and I was encouraged to note that they were considerably more advanced on average during this game, especially Carlos Cuellar.
I sang Fabian Delph’s praises on Twitter during the game, I sang them again in the first review
This might seem like an odd question to introduce the statistics from Saturday’s 0-0 draw with Tottenham, but do you remember the 4-4 draw we had at White Hart Lane back in 2007? Of course you do!
Last week I was looking at how Aston Villa have performed based purely on passing over the last couple of seasons and was surprised to find that the 4-4 draw with Spurs contained our least number of passes during a game for the period
If you hadn’t seen this game and just saw the statistics below, you might think that Fulham had a good chance in this game and were unlucky not to get something. They weren’t and they weren’t.
The possession finished 55/45 in Fulham’s favour, but midway through the first half it was 43/57. I know this because I was poking fun of the official Fulham Twitter account when they were claiming it was “pretty even stuff”. No, it wasn’t.
However, we