Here is the fifth and final of my league wide offensive and defensive efficiencies. In this final one, I will take a look at the Premier League. Given there have only been three games, there may not be a whole lot to draw from the data, but there are some interesting things to look at anyways. Here is the data.
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Yesterday, I posted the efficiencies for Italy and Spain. I will post them for Germany and France here. Germany again will be a list as they have only played two games, but I will give a little bit of analysis for France which has already played four games this season.
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Last year I calculated the offensive and defensive efficiencies for the Premier League. This year I have decided to do this for England, Spain, Italy, Germany, and France. I will try to do these at the end of each month.
Here are the statistics for Spain and Italy, which I am going to just list since there has only been 1 week of games played in both leagues. I will have the others tomorrow with a brief analysis of them.
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It was an intriguing final, but Morelia got the job done behind two goals from Miguel Sabah. The first came after Darius Barnes fouled Luis Gabriel Rey for a penalty. Sabah stepped up and put the penalty away. He doubled the lead in the 75th minute when he hit a shot that lobbed over Matt Reis. New England responded through a nice run and finish by Kevin Alston, but they were unable to complete the comeback even after Sabah was ejected for a second yellow for diving. Morelia were the deserved winner although New England did very well but their offense relied almost exclusively on set pieces. Here are some of my thoughts on the game.
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This day seemed a lot more exciting than it really was. There were very few surprises with the only player of major note that was omitted from the squads was Jonathan Woodgate from Tottenham, which had to happen in order to make space for new signing Rafael van der Vaart.
The complete list of the squads is here. It will be interesting to see if these rules will have much of an effect as many teams did not even list 25 players on their team. Manchester City and Chelsea seemed to be only teams affected by the rules where City had to sell off some of their players who would not have made the squad while Chelsea were unable to buy more players over 21 due to their lack of homegrown players.
The most annoying part of this announcement was the constant speculation around Owen Hargreaves. Manchester United named only 24 players in the squad including Hargreaves, so I still don’t understand why anyone considers it a surprise or a risk that he was named into the squad. The only real risk Sir Alex Ferguson runs is that he can only sign one player on a free transfer instead of two. He is running a risk that two free agents will come along before January that he wishes he could have signed, which I find highly unlikely.
Let me know what you think about these Premier League squads and the FA’s decision to make these rules.
Superliga finishes off today as New England faces off with Morelia from Mexico. These teams met earlier in the tournament with New England edging them out for a 1-0 win. However, New England will be short-handed in this game as Sainey Nyassi and Kenny Mansally are away on national team duty with Gambia. New England will be seeking their second Superliga title having won in 2008. Here is a closer look at the teams.
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It was an active final day of the transfer window but most of the moves were small. The big moves of the day were Robinho moving from Manchester City to AC Milan and Sunderland getting Ghanian Asamoah Gyan from Rennes in France. There still remains a deal that would send Rafael van der Vaart from Real Madrid to Tottenham that as of now has not been confirmed but the paper work for it has been filed according to Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp.
Some of the big deals outside of the Premier League include Jurado moving from Atletico Madrid to Schalke. This move is in addition to Klaas Jan Huntelaar joining Schalke earlier in the day. Marco Boriello is going on loan at Roma from AC Milan with all of Milan’s new strikers forcing him out. The smaller deals in the Premier League include youngsters Franco Di Santo and Tom Cleverley going to Wigan on loan from Chelsea and Manchester United, respectively. Liverpool brought in Paul Konchesky from Fulham and moved Emiliano Insua to Galatasaray. Birmingham was active as they picked up Alexander Hleb and Jean Beasejour from Barcelona and Club America respectively. Stoke City were also busy picking up Eidur Gudjohnsen and Jermaine Pennant.
Here is a complete list of the transfers.
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Bob Bradley agreed to an extension with the US Soccer to coach the national team for the next World Cup cycle. The announcement ends any real chance that Bob Bradley will be making a move to coach overseas.
It is good that the US has finally made a decision and settled on a coach, but I am disappointed that Bradley did not go to Europe. I am not sure he is better than some other MLS managers like Sigi Schmid, Dominic Kinnear, or Bruce Arena, but he is positioned far better than any previous American coach to move to Europe. His rumored connection to Aston Villa may have been a bit more daunting for his first stint in Europe, but the fact that he was even connected to such a job was a good sign for the United States.
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Atletico were coming off an impressive 2-0 victory over Inter Milan in the UEFA Super Cup and they could have taken Sporting Gijon too lightly. However, they started the season impressively as they defeated the northern Spanish side 4-0 behind goals from Jose Jurado, Simao, and a brace from Diego Forlan. Atletico pressured Sporting from the start and they got the breakthrough early from a Jurado strike in the 11th minute and they took firm control in the 35th minute when Forlan put away a close range shot after an outstanding run by Kun Aguero into the box. The team was in cruise control after Forlan struck again right after the hour mark and a late Simao goal was the final touch on an impressive performance.
Despite struggling in the preseason, Atletico have impressed in their last two games and will look to continue that form into the La Liga season. They might be disappointed to head into the international break given the momentum they have built up. It has taken a couple of seasons, but the current squad looks to have the makings of being a strong squad. They are well short of the juggernauts Barcelona and Real Madrid, but they have positioned themselves to potentially be the best of the rest.
They did not lose players from last year’s squad with Aguero staying put in a slow transfer market. Furthermore, they have strengthened the squad in defense by adding Diego Godin and Felipe from Villarreal and Deportivo La Coruna, respectively. They are still waiting for Tiago to get up to full fitness as he arrives from Juventus who should help solidify the center of midfield. With all of these additions, the team has depth in addition to having a quality starting lineup. The one weakness in the starting lineup is at right back. Tomas Ujfalusi has gotten more comfortable there, but it is clear that he is a center back playing out wide. The only other concern with the squad will be depth at forward where as after Forlan and Aguero, there is little experience for the rest of the forwards.
Based on their performances, they know that if they are on their game they can defeat anyone in the world including the top two in Spain. To have no real chance at the title may seem depressing, but after their struggles at the beginning of the league campaign last year, Atletico fans will be pleased to see them getting off to such a great start.
It is still early in the season, but Manchester City have been somewhat of a conundrum as they have had two underwhelming performances against Tottenham and Sunderland on the road mixed in with an impressive home win against a somewhat lackluster Liverpool side. With all of the money they have spent, they will have expected a far better performance. Here is a closer look at the performances at each position for the Manchester City.
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