Good work there. A tough loss against Arsenal though.
Results
Again, come unstuck vs a very good Spurs side. We performed better than the Arsenal game, but still not good enough, losing 1-0 to a Kane 88th winner.
Did well in the cup competitions. Didn't really rotate that much, which wasn't that great.
Sitting in 3rd which is what my goal is, but losing to Arsenal and Spurs in that fashion isn't a great sign
Squad Analysis
Injuries are the name of the game at the moment. Looking at some depth players for sure in the January market. LB is an issue I need to address and maybe another forward.
Martial made his first start in 2 months vs Torino, so could be good things to come. Still one to monitor.
Reserves and Youth
Only 3 games played between them this month, will update next month.
Scouting
James Rodriguez' price has dropped below 30m. Starting to become quite tasty. Only thing would be the wage.
Reports have been updated for our youth players. Talles Magno, Thiago Almada, Ryan Gravenberch, Bruno Amione, Tomas Esteves are the 5 that are performing extremely well. Bukayo Saka is one who I'm monitoring for that LB position, but would probably be extremely difficult to get hold of.
Future fixtures
Easier month, but on a bit of a road trip. See how we go.
Bonus Analysis
Over the last couple of months, I've seen an emerging trend. We lose out on possession almost every game. I'll use 2 of the more recent games as examples. Arsenal in the Carabao Cup and Torino at home in the Europa League, both games we won.
Vs Torino at home we had 45% possession compared to Torino's 55%. However we won every key relevant stat that goes into winning games.
As you can see, even though Torino had 55% possesion, their threat is almost non existent.
out of their 383 passes, this is how it breaks down.
-274 passes were backwards or sideways, or 70%
-214 passes were in their own half, or 56%
-Out of 1270 touches, only 414 were in our half, or 32%
-This resulted in 2 shots on target, 0 clear cut chances, 0 half chances, 3 passes completed in our box and 20 total touches in our box.
Take a look at the heat map
Lets compare that to us
We completed 258 passes. Broken down
-170 passes were sideways or backwards, or 66%
-123 passes were in our own half, or 47%
-Out of 1130 touches, 675 were in their half, or 60%
-This resulted in 13 shots on target, 2 clear cut chances, 1 half chance, 5 passes completed in their box and 67 touches in their box.
Vs Arsenal
Arsenal had 60%. This is what it looked like
508 completed passes
Broken down
-348 were sideways or backwards, or 69%
-349 in their own half, or 69%
-Out of 1458, 607 were in our half, or 41%
-This resulted in 7 shots on target, 3 clear cut chances, 2 half chances, 4 passes completed in our box and 29 touches in our box
272 passes completed
broken down
-183 passes were sideways or backwards, or 67%
-157 passes were in our own half, or 57%
-Out of 1103 touches, 514 were in their half, or 47%
-This resulted in 12 shots on target, 4 clear cut chances, 7 half chances, 7 passes completed in their box and 61 touches in their box.
Conclusion
Even though we lose the possession battle, we keep the ball out of dangerous areas. Having a the bank of 3 forwards as our immediate press who sit a lot deeper without the ball, makes forward, accurate passes difficult to complete. I'm more than happy losing the possession stat since it results in them passing it sideways or backwards in their own half a lot.
We are a lot more direct with our passing and using our IWB on the right hand side is extremely effective as you can see from the heat map. Will do a write up the important on the IWB at a later date.
I'm extremely happy with our tactic at the moment. The way that we are setting up defensively is pleasing.
Till next time
