Would Liverpool have the best ‘local lads’ 5-a-side?

Would Liverpool have the best ‘local lads’ 5-a-side?

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com, if you would be so kind.

Best three-man midfield?
The mailbox compiler asks what would be the Premier League’s best three-man midfield? I’m sure you’ll get plenty of emails telling you the answer is of course N’Golo Kante.
Bren, Dublin

The best three-man midfield is Yaya Toure.
Craig Morrison, Athens

Best fantasy midfield in the prem?

Kante, Dembele….. Cazorla!

I get fuzzy feelings just thinking about it

I’d also like to congratulate Oxford United for getting to Wembley, beating my beloved Hatters 3-2. What a game it was, disappointed there was no F365 coverage though, it was on Sky Sports 3 after all…..
Liam, LTFC

Worth his weight in gold
I just finished enjoying your feature about Kante and his value to first Leicester, then Chelsea. Mahrez was amazing last year and fully deserved his player of the year award. But judging by his appearances this year it seems like he was just a good player on form and this year he’s been found out a bit. On the other hand Kante seems to have gotten even better, and has somewhat inevitably shown that £30m was a bargain. But is he, as you said, worth his weight in gold? Is any player?

Well, gold is currently around £32,000/kg (thanks Google), and the average footballer weighs 75kg (thanks made-up facts), so the average player should cost around £2.4m if they were literally worth their weight in gold.

Zach Clough recently moved to Nottingham Forest for around £2.5m (thanks wiki). Now there is a man worth his weight in gold. But I think you’re selling Kante a little short.
Adam G, NUFC, Tokushima

The truth
James, Cape Town – if you’re going to base an entire mail on statistics alone, please prepare for the fact that the mailbox readers are generally passionate, obsessive football fanatics. Some of them are even obsessive enough to check your statistics.

“Tackles
52 successful (136 attempted) – 54 successful (127 attempted)”

Given that Kante receives universal praise for his incredible tackling stats, I find it hard to believe he has only made 2 more than Herrera even though he has played more league minutes this season. What is this injustice that Herrera has suffered in not receiving equal acclaim? Off to whoscored I go…

Tackles:
Kante – 91 out of 120 attempted
Herrera – 65 out of 109 attempted.

The mailbox needs to know the truth.

I appreciate James has included the caveat that his stats were recorded 15th Feb, but I find it hard to believe Kante made 37 tackles in the 1 league game he has played since.

Also, don’t judge your holding midfielders on their number of goals and assists, perhaps it would be more appropriate to look at distance covered, number of times each player was dribbled past, or number of blocked shots and tackles. All of these are more relevant to the position.

Well done, you got your nibble.

Rant over.
Adam H, CFC

Van Bronckhorst to Arsenal
In reply to Paul London’s recommendation for Roberto Mancini, for purely sentimental reasons I would prefer a manager who used to play for Arsenal, but has successful management experience. That rules out Henry, Bergkamp et al, but there is one former player who seems to be doing well at Feyenoord, winning the Dutch cup last year and currently leading Ajax and PSV in the Dutch league. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…Giovanni van Bronckhorst. I’m pretty sure he would come, and he knows the club and the Premier League (and we know how important that is, eh?!) I think when you look at our past appointments, managers who are on the up but not A-listers, then  van Bronckhorst fits the bill.
Peter, London

 

Big Weekend‘s little brother
Leicester City – Hull City. OK, what now? The Foxes smashed Liverpool, a pressing team that’s weak at the back, but then they did the same to Manchester City when Claudio Ranieri was still managing. Hull present a very different profile. They should be well-suited to handling the Leicester press, with Harry Maguire and Tom Huddlestone confident moving the ball up the pitch. Lazar Markovic is back from injury and will stretch Christian Fuchs, one of Leicester’s biggest disappointments this season. Now that Dieumerci Mbokani is out for a while, the guess is Oumar Niasse will be preferred to Abel Hernández up front. Wilfred Ndidi was outstanding in central midfield against Liverpool; with Evandro injured, it’s not clear who’ll be his primary challenge. One player who didn’t look sharp for the Foxes last week was Riyad Mahrez, and his matchup against an in-form Andy Robertson should be a highlight.

Stat: Hull are next-to-last in dribbles per game at 6.9, ahead only of Burnley.

Watford – Southampton. The oddest game of the week. How Southampton will react after the cup final loss is anyone’s guess, although let’s hope it’s with better defence than on United’s second and third goals. Martín Cáceres has been training well, and could make his debut. One of the most interesting questions for the rest of the season is whether Sofiane Boufal, a player who likes to keep the ball, can combine effectively with Manolo Gabbiadini, who’s sure to be making runs into space. Watford are the dictionary definition of “muddling along,” but they’ve only lost one of their last six games, to Manchester United. They’ve also only lost one of their last six home games, to Spurs. The injury to Mauro Zarate leaves them back where they were, without a creative force in midfield, relying on Etienne Capoue or (sadly) Tom Cleverley to give them some drive.

Stat: Southampton deliver more crosses than any team in the league, 26.7/game.

Sunderland – Manchester City. Before you raise your eyebrows, remember that Sunderland have had their moments at the Stadium of Light, holding both Liverpool and Tottenham this year. City have never recovered their early-season league form, and have their share of distractions. Jordan Pickford is back, too. David Moyes will probably want to play three at the back, and with Jason Denayer unavailable against his parent club, Mr. Inconsistency, Papy Djilobodji, almost certainly goes back in the lineup. But how to structure the midfield and attack? I’d like to see Adnan Januzaj playing closer to Jermain Defoe, instead of out on the wing as against Everton. Seb Larsson has been poor lately, and might give way to George Honeyman just to shake things up. City should be reasonably fresh after the cup breeze, with Yaya Toure and David Silva probably coming back into the lineup.

Stat: Manchester City have allowed only 7.8 shots/game, fewest in the league.
Peter G, Pennsylvania, USA

Love for Peter G
I don’t know who had the idea to give Peter Goldstein a platform but whoever it was – well done. His articles are the best thing about football365 by some distance at the moment.

His thoughtful and detailed Pulis analysis was well researched, considered and not skewed towards one viewpoint. Peter produces the stats, gives some theories to explain them and then allows the reader a bit of intelligence to make up their own minds. Revolutionary stuff.

I didn’t smell an iota of agenda either which is so refreshing. I love Daniel Storey’s work and think he deserved his award last year but even he ignores facts if they don’t suit his agenda on occasion – Note his repeated knocks on the affable Sean Dyche and implication that he is stupid and xenophobic. Something he patently is not. Yes he said that he felt he was under appreciated as an English manager although he certainly does not repeat this regularly as Storey incorrectly asserted. For the record Dyche’s comment on British managers on August 8th last year – I think he is mostly wrong. I also think football365 is mostly wrong for having the polar opposite opinion. Now football365 do speak regularly and forcefully about their view. You and Dyche are 2 sides of the same coin. Anyway I digress..

Peter Goldstein… thank you. Your articles are excellent and long may they continue. I also love how you deal with all the whole premiership and not just the big clubs. Your comments after the article, even in response to people who inexplicably took offence, show you are a conscientous, reasonable and polite gent. Carry on the excellent work.
Howard (genuinely think Daniel Storey’s writing is amazing, best football writer in the country, but hey – nobody’s perfect)

Poor Peter G. His writing is by far the most factual and balanced of all writers on this site (admittedly the rest mostly write opinion pieces), and he calmly responds to below the line comments….but yet he has been roundly slaughtered in the last mailbox and the comments on his Tony Pulis article – who knew the magic cap had so many fans?

His article (like most of his series) uses stats to try to answer a question worth answering – why have West Brom scored so many more goals per game this season than last season? He tries to answer this very logically – he first asks has anything changed, and concludes that West Brom are playing largely in the same way, although have adopted more of a counter-attacking style at home (and notes this has been paying dividends).

He then asks if this counter-attacking style could be responsible for the increase in goals (much like Leicester last season fashioned fewer, but higher-quality chances than average). To his (noted) surprise, this hasn’t been the case – shots on target and expected goals are improved, but only slightly. His conclusion is basically that West Brom’s finishing can’t be explained by anything other than luck; a Sherlock Holmes-esque conclusion, but a very reasonable one.

If it’s not luck, what is it? West Brom are scoring shots on target (adjusted for type of shot and area of the field from where it was taken) at a better rate than any team in the league has in the last 8 years. One suggestion is Rondon, McAuley, Morrison, Chadli have improved (or are just better) finishers; better than last year I could believe, but better than any team in the last 8 years (including the Suarez/Sturridge-led Liverpool, who are second-highest) I find unlikely.

I have a suspicion (completely unresearched) that momentum plays a meaningful role, with a self-reinforcing positive effect – after a few “lucky” goals and positive results (particularly early in the season), players become more confident and composed and so finish their chances better and runs like this (and Leicester last year) go on longer than statistical models might expect (distributions have fatter tails, in the parlance).

I know this is an unprintable 5 paragraphs now, but I have to throw in a shoutout to the other misunderstood genius at F365 Towers, Steven Chicken – I enjoyed the handshake article, although from reading the comments below no-one else seems to have read past the 5th paragraph. Maybe that will teach him not to write such tortured intros!
Colm, London

 

A mail about Wolves
Hi guys. With the recent call for more Football League mails, I thought I’d shared my thoughts on one of my first loves, Wolverhampton Wanderers, and our current predicament.

Unfortunately, we are currently hovering 2 points above the relegation zone, which, as you can imagine with the takepver and the money spent in the summer, was the last place we expected to be.

But over the course of the last few months, it’s become increasingly clear that our scattershot approach to transfers has not had an effect, and arguably  only one of them has come off, in Helder Costa. Others either not given much of a chance, or frozen out completely.

In all honesty, Paul Lambert has so far been a massive letdown. We had hoped we got the PL at Norwich rather than the one at Villa. Fantastic results in the FA Cup against Stoke and Liverpool have papered over VERY wide cracks, and the decisions not to buy either a centre half or striker in the window may prove to be extremely costly.

The recent home performances against Wigan and Birmingham included some of the worst football I’ve ever seen in my life, and we’ve had two goals from strikers since August. Centre halves are struggling massively, and our midfield have strained necks from the ball being played over them each game.

In all honesty it’s not looking good for us, and now with huge backing, you wonder how long Fosun will hang around if we continue to fall.

But you know what, we have a flag across the front of our stand that reads ‘This is our love and it knows no division.’ That may soon be put to the test I’m sorry to say.

But yknow what, Wolves Ay We.

All the best,
Jonny, Wolverhampton 

The best local 5-a-side?
I’ve just been party to a discussion on Twitter about a dream 5-a side team of Liverpool’s best Premier League era players (because that is when football started, obviously). There were plenty of Suarez/Torres/Alonso/Arphexad shouts naturally but when thinking about my choices, I realised 3 were local lads. Running with this, I ended up with a 5 of Tony Warner (not the greatest I know but he had a pretty solid career with Millwall), Carragher, Gerrard, McManaman and Fowler.

The issue for debate therefore being – can any other Premier League club boast as good a ‘local lads’ 5 a side?
Phil (I’d probably have to say…the Best of the Beatles), Liverpool

Get well soon, Fernando
I know there will be a ton of these especially since the last mailbox was discussing the impact of Torres at Atletico but I do hope he’s fine and recovers quickly. Simeone’s presser was enough to tell you how much he still means to the club, his teammates and the people there. Despite him playing for Liverpool and completely terrorizing United, I always felt warm tingly feelings when I watched him play at his prime. He was one of the most natural finishers in the league and despite his rocky spell at Chelsea – he still has that finisher’s instinct.

Wish you well Nando.
Budhaditya

Just wanted to send this in after seeing what happened last night when former Liverpool and chelsea star Fernando Torres was knocked out cold during Atletico’s la liga match against Deportivo la coruna in which he collided with the opposing player and awkwardly landed on the turf head-first. Torres had Gabi and co. to thank for their swift reaction in preventing him from choking on his own tongue.

Simeone was furious on the touchline. Both sets of players were visibly shaken (especially Gimenez) and the crowd showed support by applauding the man as he was stretchered off the field to the ambulance. Though it was later confirmed that Torres was fine after several scans.

Incidence like these serves to remind us of the fact that football is only a sport after all. Life matters
Shayo (Get well soon El Nino)

 

Chicken > Storey
Steven Chicken’s article on handshake confusion is without a doubt the most hilarious article I have read on Football365.

Daniel Storey’s position as my favourite F365 writer is coming under serious threat.
Deji-Demoy MUFC