England and Spain Squads

	England
Squad No.	Position	Name	FIFA 12 Rating	Value/£m	Average Match rating 11/12 season
1	GK	J. Hart	83	18.5	6.86
2	DEF	G. Johnson	80	12.5	6.83
3	DEF	A. Cole	85	15	6.91
4	MID	S. Gerrard	87	18.5	7.00
5	DEF	G. Cahill	79	14	6.54
6	DEF	J. Terry	86	21	6.89
7	MID	T. Walcott	82	15	6.60
8	MID	F. Lampard	87	8.4	7.22
9	ATT	A. Carroll	81	15	6.68
10	ATT	W. Rooney	90	57	7.63
11	MID	A. Young	85	22	7.22
12	DEF	L. Baines	80	16	6.96
13	GK	R. Green	78	4	6.00
14	DEF	P. Jones	76	16	6.99
15	DEF	J. Lescott	80	13	6.73
16	MID	J. Milner	81	17.5	6.80
17	MID	S. Parker	82	12.5	7.03
18	DEF	P. Jagielka	80	10.5	6.72
19	MID	S. Downing	82	14	6.60
20	MID	A. Oxlade-C	69	8.8	6.74
21	ATT	J. Defoe	81	9.7	6.85
22	ATT	D. Welbeck	76	11.5	7.42
23	GK	J. Butland	63	0.2	6.00
		Average	80.6	15.2	6.84

Squad No.	Position	Name	FIFA 12 Rating	Value/£m	Average Match rating 11/12 season
1	GK	I. Casillas	89	31	6.83
2	DEF	R. Albiol	82	7.9	6.6
3	DEF	G. Pique	88	33.5	6.85
4	MID	J. Martinez	74	19.5	6.89
5	DEF	Juanfran	79	7	6.84
6	MID	A. Iniesta	91	57	7.4
7	ATT	Pedro	85	24.5	6.92
8	MID	Xavi	92	31	7.78
9	ATT	F. Torres	86	31	6.87
10	MID	C. Fabregas	88	48.5	7.55
11	ATT	A. Negredo	82	16	6.95
12	GK	V. Valdes	85	17.5	6.49
13	MID	J. Mata	86	30	7.19
14	MID	X. Alonso	86	31	7.36
15	DEF	S. Ramos	85	30	7.16
16	MID	S. Busquets	83	31	7.36
17	DEF	A. Arbeloa	83	10.5	6.87
18	DEF	J. Alba	77	8	6.57
19	ATT	F. Llorente	83	22	6.89
20	MID	S. Cazorla	84	17.5	7.6
21	ATT	D. Silva	87	40.5	7.43
22	ATT	J. Navas	84	17.5	7.35
23	GK	P. Reina	84	16.5	6.42
		Average	84.5	25.2	7.05

That's a table I have made comparing the England and Spain squads for Euro 2012. I think it is fairly self- explanatory. Basically, I have taken the FIFA 12 rating, Value and Average Match rating of each player from both squads, and compared them. The results clearly show that the England Squad is just not of the same caliber as that of Spain. It would seem we have very little chance at Euro 2012 if that is how poorly we compare.

By Patrick Milnes. Follow me on Twitter @thepaddy

The stats in this blog are from fifafantic.com, whoscored.com and transfermarkt.com

Manchester United: How to win the title in 2013

After a photo finish to the end of the Premier League season and a decent amount of time to allow the dust to settle it seems a sensible time to dissect what each club needs in order to put in a better performance next season. To start with the EPL runners up shall be scrutinised and no doubt when Sir Alex reads this he will follow my advice and give me a highly paid executive advisor role.

Problems

The lack of a continental style midfielder (Iniesta, Modric or Silva style) is evident in the number of through balls attempted per game. Manchester United attempted, on average, 3 through balls per game. 5 lower than both City and Arsenal and also below Chelsea and Tottenham. That doesn't sound so bad, but 4 other teams averaged 3 through balls per game, including the deeply ingrained unglamorous Bolton.

United also afforded their opposition too many shots, with 508 shots against them all season the likes of Arsenal (398) and City (399) show that their midfields and defences are far less permeable. United actually managed the second most tackles in the league last season, so it may be a case of conceding possession in the wrong areas.

A dependence on Wayne Rooney appeared across the season, with Rooney providing 30% of the Red Devil's Premier League goals across the course of the season. Only three players contributed more heavily to their teams haul of goals (RVP 41%, Yakubu and Dempsey both 35%). Were Rooney to be seriously injured or lose form then another source of goals would need to be found in order for United to maintain their high goal scoring standards.

Finally the United squad performed weakly in the air season long, only Swansea and Wigan won fewer headers across the course of the season. This issue is less pressing however, as Bayern, Barcelona, Chelsea and Real Madrid all won relatively low amounts of headers season long and each enjoyed success to a degree.

Solution

To solve the creative midfielder issue there have been some very well publicised options. Hazard and Kagawa seem two highly likely players to join United, and the likes of Modric and Sneijder are still being mentioned. Kagawa is rumoured to have a price between £10 million and £15 million attached to him, which is half of what any other of the listed players would cost. Also only Franck Ribery (16) created more clear-cut goal scoring opportunities in the Bundesliga this season than Kagawa (15). For a relatively low cost and proven performance in a top league signing Kagawa seems like a no brainer. As for Hazard, whilst an incredible talent with great amounts of promise he seems to enjoy like changing his mind and that is never a great trait for a footballer player to possess.

To crack down on the number of shots conceded per game an energetic midfielder would be a sensible addition to the squad. The likes of Anderson, Park and Fletcher haven't been able to perform this role with any consistency in the past season for their differing reasons. The two stand out options are M'Vila and Arturo Vidal. Arturo Vidal was, in my opinion, one of the best defensive midfielders in Europe last season. However he also won the league in a highly successful Juventus squad, one that he is unlikely to want to leave. Therefore M'Vila is the next best option, and one who would provide defensive steel and passing guile in equal abundance.

The simple answer to dependence on Rooney is already at the club. Both Chicharito and Welbeck are only going to get better. With a summer of rest to regain his first season sharpness and hopefully a summer of Euro 2012 winning experience for Welbeck they both fit amongst the best young strikers in the world.

No solution is required for the winning of aerial duels, Smalling, Evans and Jones all offer physical presence and they are undeniably the future of United's defence. It may, however, be worthwhile not allowing physical presence to deteriorate much further, otherwise defending set pieces may become troublesome.

Summary

There isn't much of an overhaul required in the United Squad. Whilst the ageing legs of Scholes and Giggs may soon need replacing Kagawa and M'Vila would go a long way to doing this. United have the luxury of a big squad that just needs refining if they are to win the league back and claim their 20th English title.

By Alex Pointon

Follow me on twitter - @Jewfrochamp

All statistics are courtesy of whoscored.com and transfermarkt.com

Euro 2012: England

Euro 2012: England

With just over two weeks until the start of UEFA Euro 2012, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about England.

For every tournament that England are involved in, there is always an hysteric expectation that they will eventually lift silverware, despite a forty six year dry spell. Even though England are considered to be the fifth best team in Europe according to the FIFA World Rankings, I believe the chances of an English victory in Kiev on July 1^st are very slim.

The appointment of Roy Hodgson has not been unanimously welcomed by England supporters. However, he has international experience, whereas other more popular candidates, such as Harry Redknapp, lack this. International football and domestic football are very different, and they require different approaches. Although Hodgson lacks the eccentricity that Redknapp is adored by the media for, I believe that Hodgson is a better manager than he is given credit for.

Despite this, I do not believe that England’s squad is as good as previous years. I believe that England are particularly weak in attack. With Wayne Rooney suspended for the first two games against France and Sweden, striking responsibility will fall to one of Andy Carroll, Jermain Defoe or Danny Welbeck. Rooney has been a key influence for Manchester United this season, with 27 goals in 32 Premier League starts.

Rooney is a world class player, but his replacements are not up to this standard. Carroll has scored 4 goals in 35 Premier League games, which hardly warrants his £35 million price tag. Defoe has 11 goals in 25 Premier League games and Welbeck has 9 goals in 30 Premier League games.

France and Sweden are tough teams, and I believe that it will be difficult for England to escape the group stages. The final group game against Ukraine may be particularly challenging, considering that they have home advantage.

By Kelvin Jones

Statistics courtesy of whoscored.com

Follow me on Twitter: @Kelvin_Jones

Champions League Final 11/12 Summary

After a remarkable night of football seen by millions across the world many Chelsea fans will inevitably be waking up with very sore heads. The Champions League final didn't, for the majority of regulation time anyway, provide much of a spectacle. What happened after the 80th minute however  was football at its most delightful.

Bayern managed 43 shots across the course of the evening, by even their standards 43 is a ludicrous amount. Bayern averaged 15.7 shots per match in the 11/12 domestic season so they were gifted over 2.5 times more chances than normal. Frank Lampard was the Chelsea player who had the most touches of the ball with 97, which was bettered by 4 Bayern Munich players. With 56% of ball possession (with 44% of the games total play occurring within the Chelsea half) and a pass accuracy of 87% (only Barcelona averaged higher than this in all of Europe's top 5 leagues last season), Bayern were certainly on top. But if you watched the game you don't need the statistics to tell you that Chelsea were on the back foot. It was, defensively anyway, a glorious performance from Chelsea. Their shape, as shown by their average positions across the night below, was nigh on flawless.

On only one occasion can I recall Chelsea being caught out seriously due to poor positioning, and that was a defensive lapse by Ashley Cole (and possibly Malouda) to allow Mueller a free header at the back post to score Bayern's goal. Of the 43 attempts on goal by the Munich team 22 were blocked by Chelsea players. 14 of the 22 blocks were by either Bosingwa, Cahill, Luiz or Cole, who performed impressively whilst having to remain disciplined all night.

Chelsea were aided by poor finishing from the "home" side though. Of the 21 shots which managed to make it past a Chelsea player only 7 were on target. The shooting of Arjen Robben was particularly poor, with only 5 of his attempted 15 shots testing the glorious Petr Cech. Mario Gomes had an equally as poor night, penned by many as the man who would win the final for Bayern, he was unable to test Cech all night. In total Gomez managed 5 shots all night and none on target, a far cry from the form she showed in the rest of the Champions League this season. Were Bayern Munich to have finished as they normally would have then it goes without saying that a different name would be on the trophy.

In the 53rd minute Bayern did have the ball in the back of the Chelsea net, but Franck Ribery adjudged to have been offside, a decision which replays suggested was correct, but tight none the less. Were the goal to have stood Chelsea would have been aggrieved, but worse decisions have been made in big games this season (Juan Mata'a ghost goal in the FA cup semi-final against Spurs a brilliant example).

In the 83rd minute Thomas Mueller broke the deadlock when he was afforded a free header at Chelsea's back post. Similarly to how Jamie Mackie scored against City in the boring Premier League final day Mueller headed the ball into the ground and it looped over Petr Cech and into the net. The joy in Mueller's celebration was obvious to see, he thought that he had just won the Champions League final for his team.

When Didier Drogba headed in the equaliser in the 88th minute it appeared, as Gary Neville said, "written in the stars". After the goal Munich did seem flustered for the rest of the first 90 minutes plus injury time. They had already sent on the man mountain Van Buyten to assist them in seeing out the game, showing that they didn't expect Chelsea to sucker punch them.

Going into extra time it still seemed that if the game were to be settled from open play it would be Bayern Munich lifting the trophy. It was simply a case of could Chelsea hold on? And Drogba seemed to answer that question for us after 5 minutes. Having given away a penalty in their semi-final second leg Drogba once again felled an opposition attacker. It seemed certain that a player of Arjen Robben's technique and quality would manage to do what Messi had failed in the semi and score the penalty. But a combination of a poor hit by Robben and a correct guess by Cech kept the score level. At this point I was thinking "if there is a god, he is a Chelsea fan". The rest of extra time passed without incident, meaning Chelsea had to better their performance in the 2008 Moscow final penalty shoot out and they would become the 5th English team to lift the EC/CL trophy.

Just as they had in the match Chelsea went the hard route through the penalty shoot out. After Mata's missed penalty it seemed once again inevitable that Bayern Munich would win the trophy. Alas fantastic penalties by Luiz, Lampard and Cole meant that the miss by Olic put the two teams level with one spot kick left each. One peculiar moment during the penalty shoot out was Manuel Neur stepping up to take a penalty. Whilst Bayern's reserve keeper Butt is renown as a penalty taking goal keeper Neur has no such reputation, none the less he held his nerve and despatched the penalty expertly. Then a rare penalty miss from 27 year old Schweinsteiger, who has been at Bayern Munich since 1998, allowed Drogba to score the final penalty for Chelsea and seal the win for the first ever Champions League winning team from London.

It was a night which defied all logic. Every statistic suggests that Chelsea should have lost by a cricket score, but on the night the stars aligned in such a way that allowed the underdogs (written off by Kelvin pre-match) to lift the trophy. That raises the question, if the 6th best team from England are the best team in Europe and the top two English teams aren't even able to progress to the business end of the Europa League, what on earth will happen next year? But for now it is time to catch my breath after a truly incredible end to the season in preparation for Euro 2012.

By Alex Pointon

Follow me on twitter - @Jewfrochamp

All statistics and the fantastic graphic are from whoscored.com

UEFA Champions League Final: Bayern Munich vs Chelsea

According to the Euro Club Index, only one place separates Bayern Munich and Chelsea; they are placed fifth and sixth respectively. However, after their battle on the Allianz Arena turf tomorrow, I can only see Bayern Munich extending this lead.

Firstly, Bayern Munich have won all seven of their UEFA Champions League games at the Allianz Arena this season. They recorded impressive victories against Manchester City and Real Madrid, and they also destroyed FC Basel 7-0.

But, home advantage may be less effective than predicted. UEFA Champions League finals, in recent years at least, have had an atmosphere dominated by corporatism. Bayern fans will take up 17,500 seats on Saturday evening. On a normal match-day, over 60,000 Bayern fans are present. This may have a psychological effect on the players, as they are not used to this. Psychological factors play a huge part in football, and their effects are often overlooked. Chelsea may be able to exploit this.

Chelsea also have many key personnel ineligible; John Terry, Branislav Ivanovic, Raul Meireles and Ramires are all suspended. All four players scored en route to the final, and they will be significantly weakened by this. Chelsea will especially miss the leadership qualities of their controversial captain.

With Chelsea’s weakened back line, and Bayern’s formidable strike force of Mario Gomez, Arjen Robben and Franck Ribéry, the Germans are likely to claim their fifth UEFA Champions League title. Although Chelsea memorably defeated FC Barcelona in their semi-final clash, I do not believe that Chelsea can repeat a performance of this magnitude.

By Kelvin Jones

@Kelvin_Jones

Statistics courtesy of euroclubindex.com and whoscored.com

How I Would Like It Wide - Euro 2012

Many of you will now be aware that Hodgson has decided to include some of our poorest wingers in our Euro 2012 squad, the first of them being Theodor Walcott who decides to fall over whenever an opposing player enters within a 5 metre radius of him, and Stewart Downing who has failed to do anything positive this season.

Theodor is a nice chap, but to say that I am displeased with his footballing contribution for England is an understatement. I was thrilled along with everyone else when he scored his famous hat-trick against Croatia in September 2008 and become the youngest player ever to score a hat-trick for England. The world assured us that this young talent would spark a new era for England; sadly I don’t think this has been the case. Adam Johnson is a player that I would like to highlight who I think has undeservedly lost out on a place in the England squad, and when you compare the stats my reasoning is justified. This season Theodor has netted just 8 goals in 35 appearances, giving him a record of a goal every 341 minutes. Alternatively Johnson who has missed out on the squad has managed 6 goals in 26 appearances, only 10 of them were starts, this gives Johnson a record of a goal every 191 minutes which is far superior that of Theodor’s. It’s not just goal scoring where Johnson appears to have the edge over his right sided alternative, both players managed to create the same amount of chances that they managed to put away themselves so you could further argue that the likes of Rooney, Defoe and Welbeck would much prefer to have Johnson crossing the ball in opposed to Walcott. I’m not even going to bother mentioning Carroll.

Now onto the subject of the inclusion of Stewart Downing, he was a relatively consistent performer at Villa; he scored goals and chipped in with a fair amount of assists. However since his £20million move to Liverpool he has failed to kick a football with any amount of class or composure, and for these types of performances to be rewarded by a place in the Euro 2012 squad is absolute twoddle. Yes twoddle. This “player” has achieved a dazzling 0 goals and an even more impressive 0 assists this season. A friend of mine, Tong Tu, had this to say about him “He’s s**t”, which I think sums it all up. I can think of a limitless amount of players that would be more useful than Downing at this year’s Euro Championships, Aaron Lennon, Shaun Wright-Phillips, I would even go as far as the underrated Matt Jarvis of Wolves who I believe would do more of a job than Downing.

By Ryan Pantrey

The statistics from this extract are sourced from whoscored.com and fantasy.premierleague.com

Nike Football: My Time Is Now - Cast Value

Nike have just released a new advertisement. Watch it right this second...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMv8g8CO4cQ

Now I bet you're thinking, gosh that's a whole heap of footballing talent in a 3 minute video. How much are they all all worth? Well I shall watch the whole video many many times over and note down all of the players I see and then look up their values on http://www.transfermarket.co.uk/

Van Der Wiel - 8.8 million
Sneijder - 28 million
Lloris - 16 million
Strootman - 7 million
Van Der Vaart - 22 million
M'Vila - 17.5 million
Ribery - 37 million
Ronaldo - 79 million
Ozil - 28 million
Gotze - 26.5 million
Hernandez - 17.5 million
Pique - 33.5 million
Iniesta - 57 million
Neymar - 26.5 million
Pato - 26.5 million
Wilshere - 19.5 million
Van Bommel - 2.2 million

And honourable mentioned goes to Lebron James, who Forbes magazine estimates is worth roughly 63 million to his current club.

That adds up to £515.5 million. Wow.

By Alex Pointon

Ashley Cole, the Unsung Hero

My first idea for a piece to do for this blog was going to be, originally, a criticism of Stewart Downing. However, I have been beaten to that topic, and so I have decided to write instead an appraisal of England and Chelsea left back Ashley Cole. It is my opinion that Ashley Cole is one of the best full backs in the world, and that despite being so highly rated by many he has received too few accolades, and is the unsung hero of both his club and country.

First of all, Cole is rated, by first of all, this website, and second of all, this website, in the top 3 full backs in the world at that time. That is no small achievement. He is also the second highest rated fullback on this list, behind only Dani Alves, the Brazil and Barcelona wing-back. Further to this, Cole has made over 350 club appearances for a combination of Arsenal, Crystal Palace and Chelsea, since his debut for Arsenal in the 1999-00 EPL season. That is undoubtedly an impressive total. This can then be added to the fact he has 93 caps for the England National team, making him the most capped full back ever, and the sixth most capped England player ever. He made his debut in 2001 for the national side, and has been the default left back since then, holding off all attempts by others to usurp his position in the side. That is an impressive streak, and it is set to continue into Euro 2012 and presumably beyond. As well, as his high number of appearances for both club and country, he has been part of title and cup winning squads numerous times. He holds 3 EPL winner’s medals, 7 FA Cup winner’s medals (the highest number of any player ever), 1 League Cup winner’s medal and 3 Community Shield winner’s medals. He may not have the attacking prowess of Gareth Bale, or the supreme defensive ability of Gary Neville at his peak, but as a well-rounded defender, and in terms of his versatility as a left back, there is, in my opinion, no-one better.

However, his list of individual accolades does not match up to the success he has had with his club. He has been entered into the PFA Team of the Year for the EPL for 4 seasons, and twice into the UEFA Team of the Year. Beyond that, his only other recognition comes in the form of 1 England Player of the Year award and 2 Chelsea Players’ Player of the Year awards. I feel that Ashley Cole is often by-passed when it comes to recognising the talents of footballers. I have a theory on this. Cole is not flash, or flamboyant. He rarely has moments of footballing genius, and he will never change a game on his own. However, Cole has a workmanlike attitude. He does the job he is told to do by the manager and he does it well. Just because his game has no frills or thrills, it does not mean he is not a true piece of footballing quality. It is easy to forget about Ashley Cole, but that is because he does his job so well, and so efficiently, that there is never any cause to notice that he is there. However, if he were to disappear from the game, his absence would be all too apparent both for club and country.

By Paddy Milnes

Unless linked otherwise, the information is this blog is from whoscored.com or Wikipedia.

Swansea & Barcelona: How Similar Are They?

The comparison between Barcelona and the club they try to emulate, Swansea, has been done and done to death. Despite that, when I looked at the end of season figures I was startled to find out just how well Swansea performed. In many key areas they matched the big spending EPL clubs punch for punch. Swansea City's squad is currently valued at £60.5 million, which is a whole £10 million below the value of £70.5 million placed upon the squad of the EPL's worst club last term, Wolves. Only one EPL club has a squad which comes in at a price lower than Swansea's, and that is Norwich (who are only valued at a measly £47 million). But they are a success story to be told in another post.

The two trademark features of Barcelona's style of play, to the relatively untrained eye anyway, are insane levels of possession and the much revered short passing game.

Passing

In the 11/12 Liga BBVA season Barcelona completed 23,848 passes of 26,942 attempted passes, to put into perspective Real Madrid only attempted 20,130 passes. So, rather predictably Barcelona achieved the highest past success in their league with 88.5%, 3.5% superior to the next most accurate passers Real Madrid. Now to show you Swansea's passing statistics. With 20,794 passes attempted last season Swansea attempted the second highest number of passes in the league, only 70 passes below the highest passing EPL team, Manchester City. Swansea completed 17,813 of their passes and therefore attained a passing success of 85.7%. Only Manchester City bettered this, and that was only by 0.2%.

Possession

Barcelona managed a whopping 69.3% average possession last season, 10.5% greater than Real Madrid, the obvious second in the list. 33% of Barca's possession was within the opposition half (the highest in their league), 47% was in the middle third of the pitch (also the highest in their league) and only 19% of Barcelona possession was within the restraints of their own defensive third (which is the lowest in their league). Swansea had the third highest average possession in the EPL with 57.6%, only 2% lower than Arsenal who sit atop of the possession chart with 59.6%. Barcelona enjoyed the highest level of their possession within the opposition third when compared to the rest of their league. In comparison to this Swansea had 31% of their possession between their own half, the second highest in the EPL. 46% of Swansea's play was in the middle of the pitch, the highest managed in the league. Hence finally, and pivotally to the point I will conclude on, only 22% of Swansea's possession was in the opposition half. This was the lowest in the entire league.

Conclusion

From the passing statistics it can be concluded, as far as I'm concerned anyway, that Swansea have definitely managed to adapt their passing game to the Premier League, as shown by their incredibly high passing accuracy (85.7%) and number of passes (especially only ever being topped by "rich clubs" with CL experience). Whilst Barcelona topped Swansea by 2.7%, Barcelona have a squad valued at £520 million. So for between an eighth and ninth of price of the Barcelona squad Swansea have managed to achieve percentage figures of a similar ilk to Barcelona's. Swansea haven't yet imitated the "pass the opposition to death" style made famous by Barcelona, shown by the fact that Swansea's number of passes attempted does not stand head and shoulders above the rest of the league in the same way that Barcelona's does. None the less Swansea have certainly made admirable strides in the right direction by placing themselves amongst the best teams of the "passes attempted" list. The 59.7% possession achieved by Swansea shows that, just as the passing statistics do, that Swansea are achieving the closest style attainable within their budget. Budget being the key factor in Swansea spending the lowest proportion of their possession within the opposition half. This demonstrates a key lack of penetration in the Swansea team. It is worth noting that teams such as Norwich, West Brom and Bolton are all within the top ten of proportion of their possession in the opposition half, so it is not a case of Swansea being a "lesser club" and thus not being able to achieve the level of penetration exhibited by Barcelona. It can be stated, with great certainty on my part, that no club team will ever be able to take a group of players as cheaply assembled as the Swansea squad and play as similarly to Barcelona. Brendan Rogers has shown great faith in his players, and I can only see them improving. Testament to his commitment to playing football "the right way" is the fact that Brendan Rogers is accompanying the Spain national team to Euro 2012 in order to observe.

By Alex Pointon

All statistics in this post are courtesy of either www.whoscored.com or www.transfermarkt.co.uk