Tutti gli articoli WhoScored.com di Jonathan Wilson RSS

Team Focus: Have Sunderland Actually Improved Under Poyet?

by
Team Focus: Have Sunderland Actually Improved Under Poyet? The nightmare run is over and Sunderland can perhaps, at last, begin to contemplate a brighter future. After facing Fulham on the opening day of the season – a game they lost after conceding to the only corner Fulham had – their next seven home games were against Arsenal, Liverpool, Manc...

Player Focus: Is Tom Cleverley United Material?

by
Player Focus: Is Tom Cleverley United Material? Tom Cleverley has a distinctive style of running, something that was particularly noticeable during Manchester United’s 2-2 draw at Tottenham last Sunday. Again and again, he spreads his arms, waddling with them outstretched so he looks like a confused penguin. Presumably he’s gesturing ...

Team Focus: The Problem With Tottenham's Attack

by
Team Focus: The Problem With Tottenham's Attack There is no side in the Premier League whose attack has so failed to live up to expectations this season as Tottenham’s. Only Crystal Palace and Sunderland have scored fewer than Spurs’ nine goals in 12 games so far, and that figure becomes even more worrying when it’s considered t...

Team Focus: The Evolution of Liverpool Ahead of Merseyside Derby

by
Team Focus: The Evolution of Liverpool Ahead of Merseyside Derby Brendan Rodgers, the theory went, was the king of possession, a manager who prioritised having the ball almost above all else. There was even talk at times last season that he cared more about possession than goals, and that his side was great at moving the ball sideways but not so good at putting i...

Team Focus: Manchester City's Troubles on the Road

by
Team Focus: Manchester City's Troubles on the Road Sometimes football is so wrapped in its own conventions that we take for granted things that actually defy explanation. It’s a given that the vast majority of teams will be better at home than away, and soit’s accepted that some teams will, for reasons that are never quite explained, suf...

Team Focus: Stopping Swansea's Build-Up Play at Source

by
Team Focus: Stopping Swansea's Build-Up Play at Source Marcelo Bielsa spends hours watching videos of football. When he was appointed manager of Velez Sarsfield in 1997, he made only one demand: that a television and video recorder be installed in his office. He was asked once what he had planned for Christmas: he was going back to his parents’ ho...

Player Focus: Is Frank Lampard Showing Serious Signs of Decline?

by
Player Focus: Is Frank Lampard Showing Serious Signs of Decline? At Chelsea last season, there were two basic narratives: firstly, the fans hated Rafa Benitez, who it seemed won the Europa League almost to spite them; and secondly, Frank Lampard’s contract expired at the end of the season and there seemed little prospect of a new deal, despite a series ...

Player Focus: Jordan Henderson Now Of Huge Value To Liverpool

by
Player Focus: Jordan Henderson Now Of Huge Value To Liverpool The gulf between the very best players and those dismissed as useless is never as vast as people would like to make out. Gervinho has shown this season that even players who have been derided can, when fully fit, look like world-beaters when confident and playing in a tactical system that suits them...

Player Focus: Cole & Baines' Contrasting Styles Causing Hodgson Headache

by
Player Focus: Cole & Baines' Contrasting Styles Causing Hodgson Headache If England were a club team, it’s a safe bet that they wouldn’t have 
both Ashley Cole and Leighton Baines. Anybody with the capacity to 
transfer players looking at the England squad would sell one or the other,
 reasoning that Kieran Gibbs is more than adequate back-up, and look to
 us...

Team Focus: Pochettino's Positive Effect at Southampton

by
Team Focus: Pochettino's Positive Effect at Southampton In their book The Numbers Game, Chris Anderson and David Sally, while evangelising for the use of statistical analysis in football, acknowledge that the use of data in football is in its infancy: if the discipline were medicine, they say, we would still be at the stage of leeches. While statistics h...