England’s squad for their summer friendlies with the Republic of Ireland and Brazil were revealed yesterday and the one position that is up for debate more than any is the 2nd striker role. Although there is the possibility of Roy Hodgson only choosing one striker, having watched Hodgson in charge of West Brom last season [...]
Ok, so Landry was talking about the ‘other’ type of football, however the sentiment remains true for ‘real’ football. One of the most beautiful things about the beautiful game is the potential for a freak, unexpected result. An incredible, unbelievable result. There’s nothing that neutral football fans enjoy more than seeing an underdog grabbing a [...]
The Belgians are coming, you have been warned. If we didn’t already know about the remarkable number of talented players coming out of Belgium in recent years we do now. Many people have already earmarked them as dark horses for next year’s World Cup with a view to them becoming genuine contenders for the European [...]
Stamford Bridge hosted Spurs this week where once again Benitez made his usual rotation, changing three players for this game compared to the XI starting at Old Trafford few days ago. Lampard gave way to Cahill, who slotted alongside Ivanovic in defence – Luiz was therefore pushed in midfield. Hazard returned to the starting XI [...]
Wednesday night sees what could well be the decisive match in the Premier League’s fascinating race for the Champions League spots. Tottenham finished two places above Chelsea last season but had to make do with Europa League football after the Blues’ Champions League triumph in Munich. This season the two have been locked in a [...]
It was yet another glorious spring day and north Londoners Tottenham were hosting Southampton, in a bid to secure their position for a place in the Champions League. Both teams had some key absentees and it was interesting to watch how both managers coped with them. For Tottenham Parker was injured and on top of [...]
Teams that can hit you on the counter attack at any moment are incredibly hard to defend against, especially when speed merchants such as Gareth Bale and Theo Walcott are running at your defence. So which teams have impressed in the counter attack and …
Andre Villas-Boas has assured Tottenham fans that Gareth Bale will still be at White Hart Lane next season, whether the North London side qualify for the Champions League or not. The Tottenham manager said ”The information that I have from the club, which was mistakenly written about last week, is that the player is here to [...]
Ashley Cole has dominated the England left-back spot for many years, first breaking into the team against Albania in 2001, back when Sven was in charge. Wayne Bridge provided a little competition from 2002 until his last appearance in 2009. Since then we’ve seen Leighton Baines come into his own at Everton, being linked with [...]
A much anticipated match at the DW stadium ended in a dismal 2-2 draw for Wigan and Spurs. Both teams urgently required that vital win however neither achieved the three points they so desperately needed as Wigan were looking to come clear out of the relegation zone and Tottenham were vying for the coveted 4th [...]
Welcome to our monthly edition of the Premier League’s top players. With Manchester United wrapping up the title against Aston Villa on Monday night the attention now turns to the battle for the Champions League places, the race for survival and which player will be crowned as the player of the year and young player [...]
An excellent encounter at White Hart Lane ended with Tottenham Hotspur coming from behind to win. A game that Man City took a grip of initially, eventually saw key tactical changes from Villa Boas which dragged Spurs forward and altered the complexion of the game. Line Ups Having recovered from injury, Villa Boas put Gareth [...]
Welcome to our monthly edition of the Premier League’s top players. With Manchester United wrapping up the title against Aston Villa on Monday night the attention now turns to the battle for the Champions League places, the race for survival and which player will be crowned as the player of the year and young player [...]
The first thing I noticed about Mousa Dembélé was his technique, every shot, touch and pass had something I haven’t seen in a player. Nothing was quaint or delicate, the ball was always moved deliberately and powerfully. He’s a great player to watch. Martin Jol has gone even further: He has definitely become an important [...]
Manchester United are well-known for making a comeback and Arsenal have scored more goals in the last 10 minutes of matches than any other team this season, but which teams out of the top 7 have actually been the best at coming from behind this season?…
We’ve all been there. Your team is a goal down, with 20 minutes to go and you know the only way to get a result is to make substitutions. But how many? And who? Once the changes have been made you can sit back and wait for the sub to score the goal that may salvage a [...]
As I get older I am finding that I am becoming less interested in the players at clubs and much more interested in the managers. What do they do? Are they worth the money? Are they actually needed at all? Once the team is picked and the tactics discussed, is there anything that a manager [...]
There has been a lot of debate with regards to the Player of the Year for the 2012/13 season and with the debate in mind we thought we’d put together a brief statistical analysis of the players being mentioned and their form this season. We’ve predominantly used goals scored and clear-cut chances as the two [...]
Before the game against Chelsea, Southampton’s midfielder Jack Cork started psywar by stating that The Saints’ ace striker, Rickie Lambert is better than Fernando Torres. What Cork was saying could be perceived as nothing but a usual pre-battle war dance, but not only did Lambert play superbly in that game, the talisman scored the winning goal [...]
Both West Brom and Southampton possess teams that are full of underrated or unheralded players. I have identified both as teams with criminally underrated players in the central midfield areas: Yacob and Mulumbu for West Brom; Cork and defensive stalwart Morgan Schneiderlin for Southampton. Within football circles all four players have impressed and we could well [...]
With England’s recent struggle against Montenegro we thought it would be interesting to take a look just how well the English players have fared in the Premier League this season. In this first article we have looked at which English players have been the most creative this season. We have also taken a look at [...]
Yesterday we analysed which positions (defence, midfield or forwards) Premier League teams get their goals from so far this season (Premier League Goal Distribution by position article) and following on with the distribution theme we’ll today be looking at first half and second half goals so far this season. To start with here are some [...]
There’s an old saying that the team that wins the League depends not only on goals from their strikers but also from their midfield and defenders. This article briefly analyses the number and proportion of goals by defenders, midfielders and forwards have scored in the Premier League for their teams. The column chart below shows [...]
There were some exceptional performances on Match Day 31 in the Premier League. There were many supporters on our Twitter account surprised that Ashley Young created so many chances on the weekend. The stats don’t lie and Ashley Young created eight chances against Sunderland, two more than his closest rival Samir Nasri created against Newcastle [...]
Research has been conducted looking into whether referee’s are biased towards certain teams or individuals. Manchester United tend to have a reputation from rival supporters for ‘Fergie time’, gaining more penalties than other teams at home, especially with Howard Webb. Marouane Fellaini even stated that referee’s were biased towards English players following his head butt [...]
Welcome to our monthly edition of the Premier League’s Top Players. With only 8 games left for the majority of the sides it’s a good time to look at where players are and see what players could achieve. As always you can use the buttons at the bottom of the page to navigate or use [...]
In the final segment of the series looking at Andre Villas-Boas’ revolutionary tactics at Tottenham Hotspur, we acquaint you with the changes surrounding the club’s strike-force and Gareth Bale. You can find the previous parts here: Parts 1 & Part 2 Under Harry Redknapp, Spurs usually played with Emmanuel Adebayor upfront, while Rafael van der Vaart [...]
With only eight games left to go in the fight for a top four finish in the Premier League, Tottenham will be hoping that one of their strikers can find a bit of form to help them with their pursuit. There is no denying that both Jermain Defoe and Emmanuel Adebayor have struggled this term [...]
I’m a fan of Mark Noble and I don’t mind admitting, he’s proved me wrong this season and for me, he’s been excellent for West Ham. At the time of writing , and with Noble missing for 5 of West Ham’s 29 games through injury, no West Ham player has made more tackles than him [...]
In my second part of how Andre Villas-Boas has rebuilt and reshaped Tottenham Hotspur, we look into the new defensive set-up of the team. Part 1 can be found here: Analysing the Club’s Tactics Under AVB Part 1 Since taking over the managerial helms at the White Hart Lane, Villas-Boas has inherited a new set [...]
Despite a worrying slip in form which could eventually undo all Tottenham’s hard work this season, they have to some extent already exceeded their fans expectations this term. The biggest and most obvious change that the new manager Andre Villas-Boas has brought to the North London outfit is in their style of play. The former [...]
Last weeks article showed how inefficient crossing is, especially from open play due to the low accuracy levels across the league. The focus of this article is the relationship between possession and goals scored, conceded and both combined. I will look to compare all three, as well as focusing on the correlations depending on league position. Firstly, [...]
With a quarter of the season remaining the title race looks to be sewn up. Manchester United will need to throw away a lot of points to not regain their Premier League crown and City look comfortable in second. Finishing 3rd or 4th then and qualification for the Champion’s League will perhaps offer the most [...]
With the Premier League now entering the last 10 games of the season it is the perfect time to use statistics to draw conclusions about why your team produced success/failure. Last week my focus was on chance conversion rate. This week the focus is on crossing accuracy. The table directly below portrays the total crosses performed [...]
Welcome to a weekly article on EPLIndex.com examining some of the statistical Talking-Points from the Premier League fixture week. This week Karsten looks at Super Jan, Lucas Leiva, Lukaku, Benteke, Remy and Norwich City. All of the Talking Points are below. Super Jan for So-so Spurs It’s safe to say many expected a former Ajax [...]
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