Tuesday 18 December 2012

GW17 Match Centre

 
No real surprises here.  Rooney and Van Persie continue to dominate chances for the most attacking team in the league.  Sunderland did very well actually, beating the league average in the shot categories (green arrows).  Sessegnon looks back in the kind of form which saw him attract such attention last season.

 
Stoke are a tricky team to play against and took a large hammer to Everton's recent form, limiting them to just one shot on target from Jelavic (not including Shawcross's own goal). Everton did manage to get shots off in the box but this often suits Stoke's physical defence.


Newcastle have really picked up through the season in an attacking sense, and have started generating lots of chances.  This of course is good news for Demba Ba who was doing well before hand anyway and got a goal here this week.  City are moving up the gears too and deserved their win, Aguero and Tevez forming the focal point of the attack with Silva back pulling the strings.

 
Liverpool were tactically outdone here.  Villa defended deep and in numbers and in Benteke and Weimann they have the power, pace and skill to do well on the counter-attack. Suarez continues to be the beating heart of Liverpool's attack but it's not an attack which can simply walk over a team like Villa who are playing well for Lambert now.

 
No shots on target for Swansea, and only 3 all day, compared to a quite massive 29 for Spurs.  I'm going to hazard a guess that Villas-Boas's hugely successful tactical nous from his Porto's days was not actually a fluke and all those nights playing Football Manager must have rubbed off.  There are a lot of great options in this side - Defoe and Adebayor and of course the returning Gareth Bale.  Vertonghen has been promising a good game (pointswise) for a while now too.


Contrary to popular belief QPR's home form defensively is not too dissimilar to most team's in the division and Redknapp's switch to playing Taarabt higher up the pitch has perhaps released the shackles from the Moroccan. He still chose to hit all 7 of his shots from outside the penalty area and perhaps could be tagged as the the poor man's Luis Suarez in this respect.  If so represents quite a FPL asset as a midfielder.  For Fulham, 'Shots on Target' favourite Bulgarian failed again to register a single shot, and despite QPR's buoyancy under Redknapp this was a pretty woeful display for Martin Jol's men.

  
Norwich's fine form continues in a game in which they showed some guile to go with their grit.  Pilkington and Hoolahan, two players frequently flirted with in FPL last season, scored and assisted the goals.  The all round performance of Snodgrass stands out too.  Wigan's chief hope of something was with Kone this week but nothing to get excited about.

 
 Another resilient display can be chalked up on Sam Allardyce's record as he grabbed a point for his team after a game devoid of a lot of creativity.  Carlton Cole is doing his best to lead the line for the Hammers in support of Nolan and the absence of Andy Carroll.  James Morrison's return to the lineup for West Brom saw him back amongst the think of the action.

 
Monday night's final match of the gameweek brought perhaps the most thrill and excitement and Arsenal, led by Santi Cazorla hat-trick put the sword into Reading.  Walcott's inclusion ahead of Giroud will raise plenty of eyebrows and he had plenty of chances to score, as did Podolski.  Is this a case for Theo's inclusion in the team as the main striker from now on, does he create space and openings for the other players to flourish that Giroud does not?  Or are Reading just warming up from the Championship?



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