Goals and assists

[billycopper]

Goals

Drenthe 2
Vellios 2
Anichebe 1
Neville 1
Saha 1

Assists

Drenthe 2
Stracqualursi 1
Hibbert 1
Cahill 1
Rodwell 1

Figures are from Sky Sports. I know it's early days but you'd imagine that Moyes would use players who are effective more often. Drenthe and Vellios both got their first starts on Sunday. Is that a reward for their performances to date or will Moyes use it to say that Tollos is more dangerous coming off the bench and Royston costs us by not tracking back, especially when he tires?

Strac has more assists than Osman, Coleman and Fellaini, yet he's only played 7 minutes for us. Shouldn't we at least be giving him 10 minutes here and there?

 

[Seamus Colemole]

Goals

Drenthe 2
Vellios 2
Anichebe 1
Neville 1
Saha 1

Assists

Drenthe 2
Stracqualursi 1
Hibbert 1
Cahill 1
Rodwell 1

Figures are from Sky Sports. I know it's early days but you'd imagine that Moyes would use players who are effective more often. Drenthe and Vellios both got their first starts on Sunday. Is that a reward for their performances to date or will Moyes use it to say that Tollos is more dangerous coming off the bench and Royston costs us by not tracking back, especially when he tires?

Strac has more assists than Osman, Coleman and Fellaini, yet he's only played 7 minutes for us. Shouldn't we at least be giving him 10 minutes here and there?

No. Because as you say, its very early days yet, too early for them statistics to be of any meaningfull use.

Plus as we've seen before, statistics aren't always representitive of a players impact and influence on a game.

 

[billycopper]

I think you have to take them into consideration. We're close to a quarter of the way into the season already and three out of four of our regular midfielders are yet to provide an assist. In contrast, Micah Richards has 4 for City, Brunt has the same amount for West Brom and Eagles has 3 for Bolton. I'd like to see whether Barkley and Gueye could do any better.

 

[Seamus Colemole]

I think you have to take them into consideration. We're close to a quarter of the way into the season already and three out of four of our regular midfielders are yet to provide an assist. In contrast, Micah Richards has 4 for City, Brunt has the same amount for West Brom and Eagles has 3 for Bolton. I'd like to see whether Barkley and Gueye could do any better.

But there's a lot more to take into consierdation when picking a team than goals and assists where no player is above 2 in 8 games.

Sure they could be better but thats a problem with the team as a whole.

Basically i don't think you should look at those stats (which dont actually seem to be right) and say player x should play because he has 1 assist and player y doesn't (example Strac).

Sure they do suggest Drenthe should be playing but thats about it.

We need to improve those stats as a team.

 

[billycopper]

But there's a lot more to take into consierdation when picking a team than goals and assists where no player is above 2 in 8 games.

Sure they could be better but thats a problem with the team as a whole.

Basically i don't think you should look at those stats (which dont actually seem to be right) and say player x should play because he has 1 assist and player y doesn't (example Strac).

Sure they do suggest Drenthe should be playing but thats about it.

We need to improve those stats as a team.

To an extent I agree, but we're really struggling for goals and I think Moyes needs to consider mixing things up to remedy the situation. The Premier League website has Cahill on 2 assists, but otherwise they seem to be right. Barkley was really bright at the start of the season and appears to have been dropped because of one or two errors against Blackburn. I feel that he deserves another chance to oust Coleman. Could Gueye or Bily do any better than Osman? It's got to be worth a shot.

 

[Neiler]

Drenthe actually has 3 assists for us if you count the Carling Cup, one of the most pleaseing things this season has been his end product. He tries things and has the baility to pull them of hes prob the most effective player we have seen out wide prob since Arteta in his earlier seasons.

Bar his stats im not reading to much into ohter stats of points totals at the mo, we have had a run of difficult fixtures 50% of our total so far, which i think has been a little bit deceptive overall in terms of individual stats and our overall points total when it will come to average. If we can hit 25+ points by the new year, we willbe superbly placed IMO.

 

[Mvflusk]

Where's Rodwell's goal tho?

 

[billycopper]

Drenthe actually has 3 assists for us if you count the Carling Cup, one of the most pleaseing things this season has been his end product. He tries things and has the baility to pull them of hes prob the most effective player we have seen out wide prob since Arteta in his earlier seasons.

Bar his stats im not reading to much into ohter stats of points totals at the mo, we have had a run of difficult fixtures 50% of our total so far, which i think has been a little bit deceptive overall in terms of individual stats and our overall points total when it will come to average. If we can hit 25+ points by the new year, we willbe superbly placed IMO.

We seem to be more open at the back and less ambitious going forward than in previous seasons. I'm concerned about our ability to grind out results.

 

[billycopper]

Where's Rodwell's goal tho?

Good point. I mentioned that I took the stats from Sky Sports because I suspected that they might not be wholly accurate.

 

[Neiler]

We seem to be more open at the back and less ambitious going forward than in previous seasons. I'm concerned about our ability to grind out results.

I think its hard, to give an accurate description of how we are mate given 50% of our fixtures have been against teams that have been in involved in the CL more often then not. Im going to wait untill we come out this run and get a few fixtures under our belts, the Newcastle game should be a good gauge of things.

To be honest the games we have won have been a bit of a grind and showed signs of reslinance against the likes of Blackburn, Wigan and Fulham. Strangely we also seem to be enjoying a bit of luck this season though.

 

[billycopper]

I think its hard, to give an accurate description of how we are mate given 50% of our fixtures have been against teams that have been in involved in the CL more often then not. Im going to wait untill we come out this run and get a few fixtures under our belts, the Newcastle game should be a good gauge of things.

To be honest the games we have won have been a bit of a grind and showed signs of reslinance against the likes of Blackburn, Wigan and Fulham. Strangely we also seem to be enjoying a bit of luck this season though.

I know where you're coming from and we have been lucky, especially against Blackburn and Fulham. We can't rely on that though. I'd like to see us get back to the strong defensive base that we used to have, where we only needed one chance to nick all three points. I think Howard has looked better than he has done for a few years, but we're still making too many basic mistakes and not defending well enough as a team.

 

[Rhino1]

I'm sure Drenthe got credited with both assists against Fulham, that would mean he had 4 assists and 2 goals this season.

 

[billycopper]

He definitely nodded the ball on to Saha for his goal, but a Fulham defender headed his cross out to Rodwell, so he can't have that one.

 

[billycopper]

We're spreading the goals around quite nicely:

Lukaku 8 (league only)...if he carries on at the same rate 24
Coleman 3...9
Baines 2...6
Deulofeu 2...6
Oviedo 2...6
Barry 2...6
Barkley 2...6
Osman 2...6
Mirallas 2...6
Pienaar 1..3
Naismith 1..3

Total 27..81

Last season:

Fellaini 11
Jelavic 7
Anichebe 6
Pienaar 6
Mirallas 6
Baines 5
Osman 5
Naismith 4
Jagielka 2
Gibson 1

So last season we scored 55 league goals. If we carry on at our current rate we will end up with 47% more! And I think that Mirallas, Barkley and Pienaar in particular have more goals in them. What if we can bring another striker in too?

As far as assists go:

Mirallas 5
Lukaku 4
Barry 3
Osman 3
Oviedo 2
Deulofeu 2
Pienaar 1 (before today)

It's strange that Baines hasn't provided any assists.

 

[toffeejack]

i don't think coleman will end up with 9. also how do these work if we're 2 games away from half way through the season?