Possession Stats

[Armchair]

Interesting PL article giving some insight into the correlation between teams average posession %, goals scored/created and league placing.

 

http://www.eplindex.com/24619/possession-football-spanish-success-changed-premier-league-11-12.html

 

No team with over 51% average possession has ever been relegated from PL. We currently boast a 50.3% average possession whilst Wigan's is 53.9%. Reading, Villa and QPR have much poorer overall possession stats.

 

The following article gives breakdown of possession stats for PL each team

 

http://www.eplindex.com/24264/possession-creating-chances-goals-epl-stats-analysis.html

 

The articles draws the following conclusion

 

For all the time Reading, West Ham, Stoke and Southampton spend in the opposition’s third, their chance creation and goal output is very poor. The better teams manoeuvre the ball into those areas with speed and don’t give opposition teams time to get their shape and ‘mark’ efficiently.

[jasoneuelllfanclub]

Interesting.

 

I think ow JRod is getting more game time, our attacking approach will be more varied. Before it was to Lamberts feet with Lallana/Puncheon/Ramirez collecting the knowdowns in front of him rather than actually getting beyond him and behind the defense. JRod has the pace and intelligent running that will allow us to vary how we attack.

[The9]

Interesting PL article giving some insight into the correlation between teams average posession %, goals scored/created and league placing.

 

http://www.eplindex.com/24619/possession-football-spanish-success-changed-premier-league-11-12.html

 

No team with over 51% average possession has ever been relegated from PL. We currently boast a 50.3% average possession whilst Wigan's is 53.9%. Reading, Villa and QPR have much poorer overall possession stats.

 

The following article gives breakdown of possession stats for PL each team

 

http://www.eplindex.com/24264/possession-creating-chances-goals-epl-stats-analysis.html

 

The articles draws the following conclusion

 

For all the time Reading, West Ham, Stoke and Southampton spend in the opposition’s third, their chance creation and goal output is very poor. The better teams manoeuvre the ball into those areas with speed and don’t give opposition teams time to get their shape and ‘mark’ efficiently.

 

Let's play a game of "spot the teams without pacy, mobile strikers" shall we ?

Le Fondre doesn't start for Reading and Kenwyne's effectiveness despite having pace, agility and mobility is limited by his slow reactions and a tendency to sloppiness.

 

Top teams move the ball quickly in the final third and use pace and quickness of thought to do things before the opposition has time to react. Lower ranked teams generally can only attack in limited ways, making them predictable and easier to defend, or just can't do things quickly enough.

 

Having said all that, I'm still naively hopeful that due to the overall terrible quality of defending in the Prem this season, mainly caused by the use of an additional ball player in midfield instead of a recognised defensive midfielder, the teams we face in the second half of the season won't have just watched a ton of video and worked us out, but that tends to be what happens. At least we have other options to mix things up should we show signs of becoming "uncreative", and it'll probably be defensively that decide if we'll stay up or not.

 

You'll notice I haven't taken this opportunity to mention Lambert specifically, can't be bothered to try and discuss him on merit any more because some people... just can't.

Edited 15 January, 2013 by The9

[CanadaSaint]

Top teams move the ball quickly in the final third and use pace and quickness of thought to do things before the opposition has time to react. Lower ranked teams generally can only attack in limited ways, making them predictable and easier to defend, or just can't do things quickly enough.

 

I'm reasonably satisfied with our play in the middle third, although we sometimes lose our momentum with too many needless square passes. However, we're very good at pulling sides "out of shape" but the emphasis then has to switch to quicker ball movement in the final third. That's what makes opponents pay for lost shape.

 

This is where we need to improve things. The biggest "sinner", for me, is Punch. He has a ton of tight-space skill but everything else closes down while he exhibits it, which is about 90% of the time. If he could master the art of the occasional quick delivery to complement his tight-space skill set, he and we would become a much bigger threat in the final third and we'd see more of our build-up resulting in a decent strike. Right now, "the book" on us is to stay tight on us in-and-around the box and let us fart around, because it likely won't come to much.

 

IMO we actually make several of our purchases somewhat irrelevant by playing the way we do - Lee, Mayuka and (perhaps especially) Billy Sharp are all players that look best with an early ball.

[old_southy]

Good post, interesting read.

[The9]

I'm reasonably satisfied with our play in the middle third, although we sometimes lose our momentum with too many needless square passes. However, we're very good at pulling sides "out of shape" but the emphasis then has to switch to quicker ball movement in the final third. That's what makes opponents pay for lost shape.

 

This is where we need to improve things. The biggest "sinner", for me, is Punch. He has a ton of tight-space skill but everything else closes down while he exhibits it, which is about 90% of the time. If he could master the art of the occasional quick delivery to complement his tight-space skill set, he and we would become a much bigger threat in the final third and we'd see more of our build-up resulting in a decent strike. Right now, "the book" on us is to stay tight on us in-and-around the box and let us fart around, because it likely won't come to much.

 

IMO we actually make several of our purchases somewhat irrelevant by playing the way we do - Lee, Mayuka and (perhaps especially) Billy Sharp are all players that look best with an early ball.

 

Yup, Rodriguez would benefit from it as well - though I think we're a lot less predictable than last season when we basically played ball to Lambert, ball to right wing, faff about to get the ball to Richardson as Lambert ambles to the far post, cross. On almost every attack. As you've said, when we plugged Lee and Sharp into it they made loads of direct runs whilst we passed it around midfield ignoring them until we could get it out the the wing. We also used long diagonals from Fox to Lambert on the opposite flank a lot too.

 

It certainly helps having a superbly talented player like Ramirez in there with a variety of options, he can run with it and beat players, hold off pressure, pass accurately short and long, or shoot - so many options.

 

Underlines how completely different we are this season and how much has been rebuilt, but then we saw that from pre-season. You can also see from that why West Ham struggled a bit with the Championship but got off to a good start when they came back up this season having retained a core of Prem players.

Edited 15 January, 2013 by The9

[Thedelldays]

I still think we are pretty wasteful in front of goal

 

In missing shots or ruining very good positions.

 

I agree with the above. Be nice if we could get more quick deliveries in the box.

 

Back stick for lambert. He is still very good at that

[saintbob40]

Punch has sticky feet and needs to move the ball on with more speed. Ramirez needs to add a bit of strength so that he can hold the ball up better.

[OttawaSaint]

 

Top teams move the ball quickly in the final third and use pace and quickness of thought to do things before the opposition has time to react. Lower ranked teams generally can only attack in limited ways, making them predictable and easier to defend, or just can't do things quickly enough.

 

 

 

True that. Having just watched the EPL highlights show they put on here, it was really noticeable the way the likes of Man U, City, Spurs, Chelsea and to some extent Arsenal move the ball around with such quick incisive passing in the final third. Sad to say they make Saints look really slow and predictable. I just wish the likes of Puncheon, Lallana (when fit) and Gaston would take less time on the ball and either pass it off into space or take a potshot at goal. Loads of goals scored from outside the 18 in this weeks show, and often our boys get into a great position to shoot but dwell on it and get crowded off the ball.

[CanadaSaint]

I'd like to see us use more of the variety we're capable of producing.

 

Lambert's a far-post kind of striker, so Rodriguez should go near, with Ramirez finding the vacuum between them.

 

Then we're set up to exploit an earlier ball - near, far or cut-back. But Punch is key. He needs to get the ball in earlier every so often. Right now, our front guys spend a lot of time trying to get out of his way, because he doesn't know where he's going next so how can they?

[Toadhall Saint]

Punch has sticky feet and needs to move the ball on with more speed. Ramirez needs to add a bit of strength so that he can hold the ball up better.

 

Succinct and to the point - and very true.