Liverpool have 2nd sewn up - EPL 2018/19

And he plays very centrally so no crosses is not a relevant metric on which to judge

there aren't really any stats that mark out wijnaldum

And yet, and yet, etc. Would like to read an honest list of spoilers more versatile than Gini, because the list you posted up here was mostly challops. (Pereyra? Fraser? All those Silva's? Mhki, really?!)

as the stats-defender I note with interest that wijnaldum does have v low figures for losing possession (8.1 times a game), which is verging on dembele territory

Fabinho is absolute quality imo but only really emerged halfway through the season. His passing from deep is a joy and he breaks up the play really well.

dembele never lost possession 8 times in a game

scholes assist/goals ratio would have been high

i mean lads

An assist every 8 or 9 games

Goal every 5,which admittedly is higher than I remember

I'm probably Pogba's biggest stan on here but apart from a couple of matches he's been woefully underperforming all season

That's a pretty odd opinion for Pogba's biggest stan to take because he's easily been Utd's best player this season, even outside the notable post-Mourinho purple patch.

Does he deserve to be in the team of the season? Who knows. But he's performed in way more than a "couple of matches" and even in the recent terrible run of form he's been the only player who's created anything for our bumbling front men, which is a fucking miracle considering the lazy tossers couldn't make an off the ball run if you were paying them €200,000 a week to do it.

The guy can't win, honestly.

Mkhitaryan is the wrong player to be discussing here because he is really a modern wide forward and should be compared to the likes of Sterling, Salah, Sane, Son etc and by those standards he comes up way short.

Most of the higher level teams have at least one player like Wijnaldum whose job it is to glue moves together and transition from defence to attack without every appearing particularly great at either and without being visionary enough to ever look like a real playmaker or without being an orthodox box-to-box type either. Gundogan at City, Dembele/Sissoko at Spurs, yes Pogba at United and its one reason why his contribution to the team always seems undervalued. Really the stats that matter with these players are number of passes, the number of moves they're involved in that eventually lead to a goal, the amount of running they do etc.

The only genuinely elite midfield in the league, City's, by in large sidestepped the need for that player last year by shifting a world class playmaker in KDB into a deeper role where he started in the gap between Fernandinho and a more orthodox #10 like David Silva but regularly appearing much further up the pitch. Not every team can have a Modric and that's the next best thing.

It's not remotely controversial to suggest Pogba has been comfortably the best player in position this year.

it is a bit

xp It was perhaps a tad harsh. The rubbishness of the rest of ManU really rubs off on him, this is true, and probably clouds what I saw of him this season.

This season, Paul Pogba ranks 1st for United in:

🥇 goals/xGoals
🥇 assists/xAssists
🥇 goal-involvements
🥇 xGChain
🥇 chances cheated
🥇 dribbles
🥇 touches
🥇 passing chains
🥇 progressive passes
🥇 through balls
🥇 duels won
🥇 distance covered pic.twitter.com/7GgEoB9Ccm

— UtdArena. (@utdarena) April 25, 2019

im a pretty big player at dept education i havent the stats to hand

The guy can't win, honestly.

― Number None, Friday, 26 April 2019 06:10 (two hours ago)

This seems an unfortunate statistic.

lord help me this has had me analysing the liverpool midfield. klopp has tinkered with it quite a bit & moving wijnaldum to a 6 ameliorates his overly ghostly/anonymous tendencies by forcing him to have more of the ball. I think his head-down industry makes him preferable to henderson in this role & I wldn't be surprised if this is wijnaldum's best season at liverpool but I think fabinho is the better long term bet as he's more of a destroyer, reads the game v well and has an excellent range of passing.

it's pleasing to see the normally undersung defensive and central midfielders get more recognition. the all time stats ghost was javi garcia, a player so phantasmal I imagine he has quickly faded from most ppl's memory, but he didn't even really touch the ball, he was just a troubling presence. most midfielders have to be versatile & I think at the top level esp teams are getting more fluid, which makes it harder to define roles and makes comparing the differences between players interesting. mkhitaryan has played as a defensive midfielder, 10 and now as a winger. over the last two seasons kante and wijnaldum have basically swapped positions. creative players like eriksen & kdb get pushed deeper & given more defensive duties a la modric. some DMs drop into defence and other have a knack from running into the box from v deep. it's hard to say what isn't part of any position. a lot of players cover so much ground and pop up all over the place they make a mockery of average position, and as they get fitter ever more so. we are nearing the pep all-midfielder singularity.

Legally obliged to bang on about the Wolves but our 3 first choice mids all have that about them, Moutinho is a complete terrier for somebody with his passing vision, Ruben and Donk have the potential to play any role there too.

lol

great to see the original and best AOC back last night.

huh.. there was a game last night?

apparently karlan grant is looking quite dangerous in the premiership, which leads me to wonder if the premiership is really all that

peak spurs imminent

I need to believe the prem is top quality, anything else would mean that the current squad is Mick Wadsworth level bab that will take us to the basement again.

it's all relative. even if by some miracle roland offers our current squad contracts and (this bit is actually far more likely) we go up, what is an amazing L1 squad will probably turn out to be borderline survivable in the championship

good game this

orange card snodgrass

Anderson has way too much space when they go forward.

sonny of all ppl with snodgrass retribution

dele salah

One of these West Ham half-chances is going in eventually. You can only whack the ball directly at Eric Dier so many times before it takes a lucky bounce and flies past Lloris.

pisstake from ref in twenty seconds there to allow rose chopped down then give anderson such a soft one

much more direct in our passing attempts and runs today and i hope the poor final execution isnt used as an excuse to abandon it as an option

pen shout worth a loot but really he should be stronger there

ffs

ah fuck off what now

i have slow stream paranoia

cunts

West Ham have absolutely deserved it based on the second half tbf.

all focus on sanchez as if it wasnt yet another case of one of our experienced centre halves being drawn uselessly to the ball for no cause whatsover and no fucks given to whats behind them

weve conceded that goal the past three years with alarming consistency and its still nobodys job to track men in the box, and us playing three central defenders often as not

pisstake

could do without danny roses me me me show playing a huge part in the next twenty minutes tbh

alli dogshit today and most of this season

It’s Janssen time.

radio commentator hyping up Spurs's "unbeaten at their new ground" record it's been what? 4 games ffs

ey u cunt that's only 450m per victory

well we're never getting two here.

study in ineffective possession on the left all day rly

just think you could've paid Poch off for a fraction of that money

stop stop im not sleeping as it is

West Ham look more likely to score.

imagine with that money you cpuld have ten dele allis on your team

One Robert Snodgrass worth ten Dele Allis imo.