Bolton v Stoke

[Vertigo]

Stoke were fairly rubbish though. I wonder if we can actually fight an in from team now.

[ratbert]

http://www.the-wanderer.co.uk/bolton/sp ... m-of-glory" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A match report. At last! Thanks TD...

[boltonboris]

Stoke were fairly rubbish though. I wonder if we can actually fight an in from team now.

Can only beat what's in front of you.. Besides. Look at how much they've spent in the last couple of seasons. Also, this is a side that drew with United

[BL3]

Stoke were fairly rubbish though. I wonder if we can actually fight an in from team now.

Is there some sort of rule that anyone who lives in Australia can only support BWFC if they're a miserable git?

[coffeymagic]

Stoke were fairly rubbish though. I wonder if we can actually fight an in from team now.

Can only beat what's in front of you.. Besides. Look at how much they've spent in the last couple of seasons. Also, this is a side that drew with United

I concur.

Sticking the boot in when a team is down is what it's all about, taking advantage of them and their dozy goalie and defence, non-existant midfield and powder-puff attack made my day on Sunday.

It's about time we did it.

[Lord Kangana]

They also beat Liverpool.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

They really needed an away win, and a win after Europe, and any fule kno that Bolton are the team to play when you need something. Aren't they?

[Worthy4England]

They really needed an away win, and a win after Europe, and any fule kno that Bolton are the team to play when you need something. Aren't they?

Yes. fcking every time.

Oh I see what you did there.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Funnily enough, I've found time to have a look at the stats for this game...

No surprise that we outpassed them; Stoke regularly have fewer passes than any other team, and consequently less possession (we had 65.1% of it). You can also see the difference between our (relatively) patient possession and their impatient knock-it-long play.



But it's not like we suddenly turned into Holland 74: we still turned over possession with roughly one in three passes. For comparison, at Swansea we completed 230 of 289 passes - just 68 fewer successful passes than in the Stoke demolition, except that Swansea were busy racking up 620 of their own, but as usual did most of them in their own half.



But enough about that match. As I noted elsewhere yesterday, Rory Delap was almost as busy with his arms as his feet. I know that's the jokey stereotype but really, 15 passes completed in 90 minutes for a central midfielder? Pitiful. Mind you, he was by no means the worst: of the visitors only Glenn Whelan made more than 18 successful passes.



The Player Influence screen shows average position (where their name is) and how involved they are (how big it is). With the admirably-Movembered but blatantly out of position Jonny Wallets constantly coming inside from the left, Stoke completely lacked width where Etherington normally stretches the play; no doubt this helped Joe Riley get forward, giving us width when Mavies came inside. Promising as he may be, the kid will rarely get a ride this easy.



We had 22 efforts, which equals the most we've had this season. (Care to guess, or remember because I did mention it, which other game we managed 22 shots in?) Oakie Stokies blocked nine of these, while we blocked four of theirs (Cahill 3, Mavies 1).



Notably, though, we made almost twice as many tackles as them. That's probably what irked Pulis the most: we simply wanted the ball more. We also made more interceptions (20v16), and we won 21 of 46 aerial duels, Cahill alone winning 7 of his 11 - more than any other player on the pitch.



On to individuals. We had the top seven successful passers – in descending order: NRC, Robbo, Cahill, Muamba, Mavies, Eagles, SKD. The top two completed more than twice the number of passes of any Stokie except Whelan. We also had the top five successful passers in the attacking third: Eagles, Klasnic, SKD, Mavies, Robbo (oh yes). Oh and nobody attempted more tackles than Mavies, Muamba and NRC. Tip of the hat.

Much discussion about whether we're tippy-tappy or long-ball. We have the ability to do both, especially when KD is on the pitch and on his game. The balls (successfully) received by our two forwards illustrates that Kev is still capable of being an effective target man.



And here's what the front two did when the got the ball. Note that KD had a lot more of it but he's quite simply not as good at passing - 59% successful to Klas's 79%.



Mavies was very neat and tidy but did a good job on the right, creating one chance. Eagles' screen is slightly skewed by him taking more corners (always a higher-risk pass) but ignoring crosses and corners, his pass completion rate is 77% to Mavies's 89%.



The central midfield combination so many were crying out for did a good job of recycling possession; Reo-Coker's 51 attempted passes break down almost perfectly symmetrically into 16 forwards, 18 backwards and 17 square, while Muamba was generally more forward-looking (21 forward, 11 backward, 8 square). The starting positions of the passes showed how they took the chance to get around the pitch, especially Reo-Coker. Nobody passed more than him. For the record, they both had a 78% success rate with their passing – not bad for a four-man midfield looking to get the ball forward rather than tiki-taka.



Wheater and Cahill did their defensive jobs well but their accuracy was only 66% and 68% respectively and their passing trails indicate that, like most, they're better at the short ball than the long. It's sometimes useful to go back-to-front or stretch the game, and we can see one particular great spread from Cahill to the left-wing (to SKD, as it happens) but I'd usually rather see centre-backs recycle unfussily to midfielders or full-backs.



Finally, the full-backs. Credit to "Blimey" Joe Riley for a promising debut, but the lad's gotta learn to find his team-mates. Of his 27 forward passes he only completed five, a ratio that would see some full-backs swinging from lamp-posts. For a good example – and you may wish to sit before reading this – he could do much worse than study Robbo on the other flank. Whatever his defensive fallibilities, you can't complain at a 76% completion rate – especially when, unlike centre-backs or central midfielders, the vast majority of his passes are forwards (24 completed out of 36, compared to 5/5 backward and 9/9 square).

[Wandering Willy]

My guess is we had 22 shots against Utd. 0-5.

[irie Cee Bee]

Supurb analysis DSB. How you are able to do this is beyond me. Interesting analysis on Riley. I must have been watching another game.

[plymouth wanderer]

intresting read that DSB

top man

[officer_dibble]

Are davies and klasnics passing analysis arrowy thing right? the yellow assists look wrong. Excellent stuff tho ta.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

No problem. Like I say, given time and inclination, I don't mind.

Dibs, re strikers/assists: on the first screen (with all the long straight balls at Davo) the arrows represent passes *received*, so there's one yellow arrow for Klasnic being set up by Robbo. On the one under that, there's two yellow arrows for Klasnic setting up Davo (the opening free kick) and Eagles' dink over the keeper. There's no assist for Eagles' first – Begovic set that up! - or for the fifth goal, which is interesting, but then Wheater didn't really "set it up" (although I now note that it does go down as one of corner-taker Eagles' four Chances Created).

(NB to avoid firsthalf/secondhalf confusion the teams *always* play towards the right)

By the way, WW was right: we (also) had 22 shots against the rags. We're far from the only team this season they've allowed that many shots too, so hopefully their bubble will burst.

[Prufrock]

just back from holiday and desperate to see the game but being a technophobe i cannot get the download to work. I've downloaded the file but i've no idea what to do thereafter, any advice for a techno dinosaur?

The site you download it from is a bit of a pain the arse. You just need to hit the download button and then enter the captcha code. It will make you wait about 15 seconds and then alert you by saying your download is ready. Click the link and it should commence. Unless you want to pay for the service, which is a bit pointless, you can't have more than two downloads going at once.

Hope this helps.

cheers for the advice but i refer to the reply to a previous post, my god i'm clueless! i couldn't contain my excitement on my holiday when i heard the result so much so the offer of champagne margheritas all night to my mrs was eventually offered to everyone i met, it cost me over over $150 but it was worth it

VLC player plays it. Plays most things.

[Worthy4England]

Great analysis DSB.

Couple of points. Robbo, who I think I once mentioned I thought was a bit average, consistently has a pass completion up i the late 70/early 80% bracket - and generally over a large volume of passes. That said, I will be delighted when OPTA finally implement the "backed off a player" heatmap.

Davo generally wins the pot for "least successful" passer often in the 45 - 55% pass completion bracket. I suspect "passes" may include headers, which would go some way to explaining why Davo's is so low (number of punts from the back that hit his head and the oppo pick up.)

[Andy Waller]

I immediately dismiss the opinion of anyone that quotes OPTA stats.

[Little Green Man]

I immediately dismiss the opinion of anyone that quotes OPTA stats.

Yeah, as any fule kno, you can prove anything you want with stats.

[Spartan2]

just back from holiday and desperate to see the game but being a technophobe i cannot get the download to work. I've downloaded the file but i've no idea what to do thereafter, any advice for a techno dinosaur?

The file is a rar file, you first need to extract the video file using winrar before you can play it.

1. Download winrar from here:
http://download.cnet.com/WinRAR-32-bit/ ... 07677.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

2. install it.

3. double click the original match download (the .rar file)

4. extract the video to either desktop or documents or whatever.

5. play the extracted video file with media player classic or VLC

6. you can get MPC here:
http://download.cnet.com/Media-Player-C ... 99375.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Couple of points. Robbo, who I think I once mentioned I thought was a bit average, consistently has a pass completion up i the late 70/early 80% bracket - and generally over a large volume of passes. That said, I will be delighted when OPTA finally implement the "backed off a player" heatmap.

Davo generally wins the pot for "least successful" passer often in the 45 - 55% pass completion bracket. I suspect "passes" may include headers, which would go some way to explaining why Davo's is so low (number of punts from the back that hit his head and the oppo pick up.)

I don't think Robbo's a bad full-back on the ball. It's the defending that terrifies me.

Passes can be headed, yep, and I can't sub-divide them into head/foot/other. I suspect you're right that a lot of his which don't hit the mark are flick-ons (in which he usually easily leads the league). Certainly the length of the passes he (successfully) receives says he's batting on a far stickier wicket than most.