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unique

Feeding on scraps

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Aspas and Sturridge had 290 touches of the ball between them in the final third of the pitch. Benteke had 79 touches of the ball at Arsenal.......

Yes Norwich had three or four players missing. Yes the result was a good one, Everton were a real handful and don''t look to have suffered with a change of manager. There were decent performances by Bennett, Whittaker, Martin and Redmond. Two superb goals by Whittaker and RVW.

But our centre-forward had eighteen touches of the ball in the entire game - one touch of the ball every five minutes...playing at home.....I''m not sure RVW will be finding his way into my Fantasy Football team just yet.......unless Hughton''s moves to ''plan B''.

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18 touches, but one of them put the ball in the net which is all that really matters

i dont like 1 up front and i dont like hughtons style but i think things will be different this season with a midfield of fer, johnson, howson, snoddy and redmond. City really lacked a clinical edge last season so the few chances they did create playing that way got wasted, think that will be different now.

not worried in the slightest. first time since weve been back in the division that we have 4 or 5 quality players capable if really impacting on a gameeven in a game missing nearly half the first choice 11 they looked compact and organised enough to get something from it

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A telling stat... I believe if Elmander arrives and Leroy Fer gets played, that stat will change.

It goes to show how prolific he could potentially be. If we actually were a bit more positive and put ourselves on the front foot in some games, he could do some serious damage!

I believe we''ll settle on something like this:

Ruddy

Whittaker/ Martin

New Centre Back/ Turner

Bassong

Olsson/ Garrido

Fer

Tettey/ BJ/ Howson

Snodgrass

New guy (Elmander?)/ Hooper/ Hoolahan

Redmond/ Pilkington

RVW/ Hooper

Tettey will cover well, allowing Fer to do some Patrick Vieira esque marauding into the opposition half. There, he''ll have a genuine second striker type player and 2 crafty wingers to combine with to feed the wolf. Saturday we were denied that opportunity due to the new guy not being there/ Hooper being out, Snoddy being injured and Fer being suspended.

Looking forward to seeing how we approach Hull game

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RVW off the ball was superbHe made so much space and was pulling their defense apart.He then scored with one of his only chances in the gameFair Play to him in my opinion !Seeing we didn''t have Snodgrass'' usual service, Fer to play the role of linking up midfield and the strike force I thought we played quite well.We didn''t have as much possession as Everton, but anyone who saw Monday Night Football''s analysis of Martinez''s Everton will understand why.They had completely changed their play style since we last player them. Averaging over 100 more passes in a game than they did under Moyes.

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I don''t blame RVW at all, his movement couldn''t have been better. I just hope we can assert ourselves at home and against week away teams more often

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Now that''s a mature and proper reply. I think your parents should oversee all your posts.

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I think you answered your own question. Four first choice players were out, five if you count Pilks. Apart from Bassong the rest were attacking options. We did rather well considering that probably was our plan b.

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Would Hooper have possibly played? Especially if we could have put Fer and one of Johnno or Tettey in a powerful centre mid duo.

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If RVW touched the ball just eighteen times in the entire match, what exactly was Hoolahan''s role on Saturday?

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"unique"

If RVW touched the ball just eighteen times in the entire match, what exactly was Hoolahan''s role on Saturday?

His role is to become the first scapegoat of the season. It takes the pressure off the others.

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"His role is to become the first scapegoat of the season. It takes the pressure off the others."

This....don''t forget Garrido though, he''s a close second.

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[quote user="unique"]Aspas and Sturridge had 290 touches of the ball between them in the final third of the pitch. Benteke had 79 touches of the ball at Arsenal.......

Yes Norwich had three or four players missing. Yes the result was a good one, Everton were a real handful and don''t look to have suffered with a change of manager. There were decent performances by Bennett, Whittaker, Martin and Redmond. Two superb goals by Whittaker and RVW.

But our centre-forward had eighteen touches of the ball in the entire game - one touch of the ball every five minutes...playing at home.....I''m not sure RVW will be finding his way into my Fantasy Football team just yet.......unless Hughton''s moves to ''plan B''.[/quote]

 

Really? I don''t know where those figures come from but they look on the high side. About 145 touches each in the final third? Take Sturridge. According to The Technical Area section of Fantasy Football Scout, in the 69 minutes he played as the main striker in Liverpool''s 5-0 beating of us last season he had 23 touches in the final third. Which is very neatly one every three minutes. On Saturday he went from a touch every three minutes to one every 45 seconds or so? The same report gives a 22-game average for Suarez (playing up front) as 45.1 final-third touches. Further reason to doubt the supposed number for Sturridge on Saturday.

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[quote user="unique"]Aspas and Sturridge had 290 touches of the ball between them in the final third of the pitch. Benteke had 79 touches of the ball at Arsenal.......

Yes Norwich had three or four players missing. Yes the result was a good one, Everton were a real handful and don''t look to have suffered with a change of manager. There were decent performances by Bennett, Whittaker, Martin and Redmond. Two superb goals by Whittaker and RVW.

But our centre-forward had eighteen touches of the ball in the entire game - one touch of the ball every five minutes...playing at home.....I''m not sure RVW will be finding his way into my Fantasy Football team just yet.......unless Hughton''s moves to ''plan B''.[/quote]

what a load of meaningless sh ite !

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[quote user="City1st"][quote user="unique"]Aspas and Sturridge had 290 touches of the ball between them in the final third of the pitch. Benteke had 79 touches of the ball at Arsenal.......

Yes Norwich had three or four players missing. Yes the result was a good one, Everton were a real handful and don''t look to have suffered with a change of manager. There were decent performances by Bennett, Whittaker, Martin and Redmond. Two superb goals by Whittaker and RVW.

But our centre-forward had eighteen touches of the ball in the entire game - one touch of the ball every five minutes...playing at home.....I''m not sure RVW will be finding his way into my Fantasy Football team just yet.......unless Hughton''s moves to ''plan B''.[/quote]

what a load of meaningless sh ite !

[/quote]12 touches in 90 minutes is still rather shocking thoughEven though he played extremely well and scoredif he''s given the service he could scored bag loads !

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Joe Hart must have been sh ite tonight on this nonsensical basis

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Of all the stats that are now collected for football "touches" must be the most stupid / meaningless.
One player might be a master of one touch passes, a player like Hoolahan might touch the ball 10 times in one move?
How do they actually count these ''touches'', I guess that Huckerby has about 12 touches on route to scoring this single goal? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO11cu-N6f8 
If that is the case then Welbeck probably has about five times the number of touches as Van Persie in a game.... because he runs with the ball. That is how meaningless the statistic is.
A much more meaningful statistic for a striker is how many chances they need for a goal, and how many goals they score per game. Currently Van Wolfswinkel has had 2 chances scored 1 goal and has a scoring rate of a goal in every game.

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a far more meaningful statistic is how many actually rely on what they see on the pitch and how many don''t

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I understand that stats only tell so much, I don''t needed my degree in it to tell me that, but it''s reasonably telling isn''t it? The least touches in 6 years! I understand he''s not one who will go on Mazy dribbles etc but it does show what a poor job we did getting the ball to him.

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Has anybody watched the game back and attempted to verify it? 
I''d like to know whether it is true, doesn''t sound right to me. It''s one touch every 6 minutes pretty much (94 minute game).
But either way, two of touches were headers at goal and I''m sure there were plenty of games last season where Holt managed 90 minutes without two headers at goal, so he can keep on not touching the ball as far as I''m concerned as long as he keeps getting on the end of a few crosses.

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