Blogger: #14
So, #18's insightful article on the toughest league in the world was part one of our little comeback. Part two is......A SERIES OF MATCH REPORTS!!!! Wait, so what's so earth shattering about that, you ask? Well, it's a blind match report. Not the kind of blind associated with the Michael Owen school of blindness - where you watch the match but talk like you didn't watch it - but with the school of blindness that advocates not watching the match but talking about it.
So, the idea is simple. The writer of the post will not watch the match, will not watch any highlights, will not read any tweets or match reports, nor will he ask anybody their opinion of the game. He will look at numbers of his choosing (he will mention the source, don't worry) and try to recreate what happened in the game. It's an experiment, and we confess we aren't sure how successful it's going to be. We anticipate that our reports could be wildly off from time to time. But the idea is to see how close the numbers get to the general consensus. Hopefully, we get better at this over time. Don't bet on it though.
I must start off by confessing I read a few stray tweets about the game. Nothing too insightful, so no harm, no foul. I did however, take a look at one stat. I apologize for breaching your trust. What's the stat, you ask? Well...
With that out of the way, let's get down to business.
In the first period of the game, right up to Mata's goal in the 13th minute, United absolutely battered Liverpool. United comfortably led their rivals in passes made, ball recoveries, tackles, interceptions, and aerial duels won. This was dominance of a high order. Take a look.
Had United continued in the same vein for the entire game, they would have completed 707 passes out of 847 attempts ( 83.47% pass accuracy). One thing that caught my eye was the influence regions that the excellent FourFourTwo website provides in its match centre. Liverpool were very narrow, and perhaps, this was a game more suited to a player who liked staying wide for United. The left footed Mata and the right footed Young started on the right and the left respectively and tended to stay wider than their Liverpudlian counterparts.
This is backed up by WhoScored's heatmaps. Take a look at Mata and Valencia's heat-map versus Sterling, Can and Lallana's.
Young and Blind's heat-map compared to Moreno and Coutinho's tells a similar tale.
So successful were United's wide players that the top 9 passing combinations of the entire game involved at least one of Blind, Mata and Valencia (On another note, 9 of the top 10 passing combinations were between United players). Young was a spectator throughout and it's no surprise that he was hooked for Di Maria. Perhaps starting with the Argentine would have yielded better results.
That's not to say Liverpool completely surrendered. They responded strongly after going one down, winning 7 out of 11 aerial duels contested, creating 4 out of their 5 chances and taking 4 of their 7 shots between the 13th and 45th minutes. Despite Steven Gerrard's red card, Liverpool didn't really falter. United didn't really dominate the opening 13 minutes of the second half like they did in the first. Interestingly, their second goal came 13 minutes after the restart. Take a look at the numbers. For convenience, I've compared the opening 13 minutes with the 45-58 window and then compared the 45-58 minute window (projected to 90 minutes) with the entire game. Take a look.
It's interesting to note that in both these periods, United won the majority of the aerial duels. In these two windows, totalling 26 minutes, United won 10 out of 13 duels. In other words, in the remaining 64 minutes, United won 11 duels out of 26 contested. In this game, Fellaini contested 16 aerial duels, winning 11 of them. In these 26 minutes, he won 7 out of 8 duels (Conversely, he won just 4 out of 8 in the remaining 64 minutes). It would be interesting if this pattern continues in more games for United. They would also be a trifle concerned, methinks, that their remaining players won just 10 out of 23 duels.
In the 10 minutes between Mata's (and United's) second goal and Liverpool's first, Liverpool recovered the ball 7 times (and won 2/2 aerial duels, but that's too small a sample to lend weight to the trend observed in this game). Outside of this, there wasn't any notable shift in the game's play. The game petered out to a rather comfortable win for United. Liverpool created zero chances after their goal, despite whipping in half of their 8 unsuccessful crosses and winning both their corners in the last 10 minutes of the game. Far from having to cling on for dear life, United were allowed to walk away from Anfield with 3 easy points.
Summary:
So, #18's insightful article on the toughest league in the world was part one of our little comeback. Part two is......A SERIES OF MATCH REPORTS!!!! Wait, so what's so earth shattering about that, you ask? Well, it's a blind match report. Not the kind of blind associated with the Michael Owen school of blindness - where you watch the match but talk like you didn't watch it - but with the school of blindness that advocates not watching the match but talking about it.
So, the idea is simple. The writer of the post will not watch the match, will not watch any highlights, will not read any tweets or match reports, nor will he ask anybody their opinion of the game. He will look at numbers of his choosing (he will mention the source, don't worry) and try to recreate what happened in the game. It's an experiment, and we confess we aren't sure how successful it's going to be. We anticipate that our reports could be wildly off from time to time. But the idea is to see how close the numbers get to the general consensus. Hopefully, we get better at this over time. Don't bet on it though.
I must start off by confessing I read a few stray tweets about the game. Nothing too insightful, so no harm, no foul. I did however, take a look at one stat. I apologize for breaching your trust. What's the stat, you ask? Well...
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| Steven Gerrard's Heat map |
In the first period of the game, right up to Mata's goal in the 13th minute, United absolutely battered Liverpool. United comfortably led their rivals in passes made, ball recoveries, tackles, interceptions, and aerial duels won. This was dominance of a high order. Take a look.
 |
| Numbers courtesy FourFourTwo |
Had United continued in the same vein for the entire game, they would have completed 707 passes out of 847 attempts ( 83.47% pass accuracy). One thing that caught my eye was the influence regions that the excellent FourFourTwo website provides in its match centre. Liverpool were very narrow, and perhaps, this was a game more suited to a player who liked staying wide for United. The left footed Mata and the right footed Young started on the right and the left respectively and tended to stay wider than their Liverpudlian counterparts.
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| Not as expansive as Rodgers would have liked |
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| A more spread out United |
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So successful were United's wide players that the top 9 passing combinations of the entire game involved at least one of Blind, Mata and Valencia (On another note, 9 of the top 10 passing combinations were between United players). Young was a spectator throughout and it's no surprise that he was hooked for Di Maria. Perhaps starting with the Argentine would have yielded better results.
That's not to say Liverpool completely surrendered. They responded strongly after going one down, winning 7 out of 11 aerial duels contested, creating 4 out of their 5 chances and taking 4 of their 7 shots between the 13th and 45th minutes. Despite Steven Gerrard's red card, Liverpool didn't really falter. United didn't really dominate the opening 13 minutes of the second half like they did in the first. Interestingly, their second goal came 13 minutes after the restart. Take a look at the numbers. For convenience, I've compared the opening 13 minutes with the 45-58 window and then compared the 45-58 minute window (projected to 90 minutes) with the entire game. Take a look.
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| A more even battle |
It's interesting to note that in both these periods, United won the majority of the aerial duels. In these two windows, totalling 26 minutes, United won 10 out of 13 duels. In other words, in the remaining 64 minutes, United won 11 duels out of 26 contested. In this game, Fellaini contested 16 aerial duels, winning 11 of them. In these 26 minutes, he won 7 out of 8 duels (Conversely, he won just 4 out of 8 in the remaining 64 minutes). It would be interesting if this pattern continues in more games for United. They would also be a trifle concerned, methinks, that their remaining players won just 10 out of 23 duels.
In the 10 minutes between Mata's (and United's) second goal and Liverpool's first, Liverpool recovered the ball 7 times (and won 2/2 aerial duels, but that's too small a sample to lend weight to the trend observed in this game). Outside of this, there wasn't any notable shift in the game's play. The game petered out to a rather comfortable win for United. Liverpool created zero chances after their goal, despite whipping in half of their 8 unsuccessful crosses and winning both their corners in the last 10 minutes of the game. Far from having to cling on for dear life, United were allowed to walk away from Anfield with 3 easy points.
Summary:
- United started brilliantly, set up camp in Liverpool's half. Whilst not really cutting them open, they ensured Liverpool were completely suppressed
- Liverpool wrestle back some measure of control. In the ascendancy by the end of the first half
- Gerrard's red card takes the sting out of Liverpool's tail. United take control in a very professional manner. Second goal effectively kills the game
- Liverpool get a fresh lease on life with Sturridge's goal in the 68th minute, but do very little afterwards. United hold steady and take home a well-deserved 3 points
- United's wide players key to dominating the game. Liverpool too narrow. Lallana, Sturridge, Sterling, Coutinho are all given license to roam. When it works, it's wonderfully fluid. In this game, they seemed to get in each other's way more than anything
- Valencia and Blind greatly involved, along with Mata. Had Young done better out on the left hand side (only 20 touches in his 55 minutes on the pitch. In contrast, his replacement, Di Maria, had 32 touches in 35 minutes), United could have had an even better result
There you go, my blind match report. Though given my eyesight, I don't think my watching the game makes much difference. This is an experimental venture. Maybe next time, we'll look at player stats in more detail. Or look at different numbers. Or look at the same numbers differently. We'll not look at the match though, we promise (I know it's 'see', but I had to make that lame joke, I'm sorry).
Do drop in a comment with your view on how the match panned out and how you think I did in the report. Even if you think I did terribly. It's perfectly alright. Given the state we're in, any publicity is good publicity. With that in mind...
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| Your reward for reading the entire article......or for scrolling down |
Thanking You (Should seriously be welcoming you this time),
Yours sincerely,
