Pound for pound Premier League

Last night on twitter FourFourTom presented his followers with questions about who had been the best and worst "pound for pound" English teams this season. The two teams who were mentioned more often than not for the worst pound for pound were Chelsea and QPR. These are both understandable and justifiable.

Chelsea often field a front four that was put together for around £125 million (Torres, Mata, Oscar and Hazard) and to be sitting in third a whole seven points from second and an astounding nineteen points off of the leaders Manchester United is simply unacceptable with this fire power available to them.

QPR are also obvious candidates for worst performing team, not only are they six points off of nineteenth position they are also the lowest scorers in the league (19 goals in 27 games, next lowest - Villa/Stoke 26 goals in 27 games). QPR are on the longest run without a win in the league too, having picked up a point or less in each of their last six fixtures.

However I would like to nominate Manchester City for worst team as well (I assure you that this isn't just my red tinted glasses). They may have only lost three league games all season but two of the teams they lost to were Sunderland and Southampton, games that defending champions should be able to come out of with points. They also have dropped points against QPR, West Ham and Stoke. If you look at goals for and against then it isn't apparent that City are having a bad season, they boast the meanest defence in the league (conceding 24 goals in 27 games, next lowest - Arsenal/Spurs/Chelsea 30 goals in 27* games) and are the leagues fourth top scorers. A quick glance at how they did in the cups shows League Cup defeat at the hands of Aston Villa and only accumulating three points across their six Champions League group stage matches. With all of this in mind I feel the largest reason I suggest City is their inability to keep pace with Manchester United, Mancini has been unable to motivate his team to chase down the leaders. If, come the end of the season, City are still twelve points (or possibly even more) off of United then the 2012/13 campaign will be regarded as both a failure and possibly even an embarrassment.

All stats take from whoscored.com and were correct at the time of publishing

*Spurs have only played 26

Championship England Players

It isn’t often that the England National Squad decides to hand an international cap to a player in the Championship, but it does happen. Here I will examine some of the cases where the National side has had to dip down a tier in order to fill the squad.

Jay Bothroyd. Caps: 1, Goals: 0

 Bothroyd made his only appearance for the senior team in November 2010 against France as a second half substitute. He was called up whilst playing for Cardiff, for whom he had scored 40 league goals the previous season.

Robert Green. Caps: 12, Goals: 0

Green had already played 11 times for England when he was relegated to the Championship with West Ham at the end of the 2010-11 season. He was recalled to the squad for the first time since the 2010 World Cup in May 2012, whilst still at West Ham, for a friendly versus Norway in which he kept a clean sheet.

David James. Caps: 53, Goals: 0

James managed to garner several England Caps playing in goal, despite playing for West Ham during the 2003-04 season, in which they played in the Championship. He was the only England player to be chosen from outside the top flight for 8 years between 1999 and 2007.

Joe Hart. Caps: 28, Goals: 0

Hart played the second half of each of England’s 2010 World Cup warm up games in goal, despite having been based at Championship side Birmingham for the previous season. He has since cemented his place as England’s number 1.

David Nugent. Caps: 1, Goals: 1

Nugent made his only appearance for England in 2007 against Andorra as a second half substitute, whilst playing for Preston North End. He is one of only 3 players to have a 1 substitute appearance/1 goal record, the others being Francis Jeffers and Paul Goddard.

Wilfried Zaha. Caps: 1, Goals: 0

Zaha is the most recent player from the Championship to make an appearance for England, making his debut in November 2012 against Sweden. At the time he played for Crystal palace, but in January moved to Manchester United, so he looks all but certain to add to his cap tally.

That’s all the times that have happened so far, but with Championship players such as Thomas Ince and Charlie Austin continuing to impress in the second tier, it may not be long before this list is expanded further.

Written by Paddy Milnes

Follow on Twitter: @thepaddy @chapstalkfootball

Sourced from a variety of different websites including but not limited to:

BBC Sport

Transfermarkt.com

Whoscored.com

Football365.com

Footballdatabase.eu

QPR: good squad, little hope

Queens Park Rangers are currently bottom of the Premier League with 17 points from 26 games, 4 points from the nearest team (Wigan on 21 points) as well as being 7 points from Aston Villa in 17th. Despite the appointment of Harry Redknapp it would still require a gargantuan effort as well as a huge slice of luck for them to begin the 13/14 season as a top flight club. Where has it all gone wrong for them?

One thing it most certainly isn't is the quality of the squad. The Malaysian money provided be Tony Fernandes have allowed them to buy players with a surprising amount of experience, in fact I have prepared a table stating the number of Champions League, Europa League (or UEFA Cup) and International caps acquired by each player currently available to QPR, also in the right hand column I have added together CL, IC and EL multiplied by 0.66, as it is deemed a lesser competition I considered it unfair for it to carry the same weight.

	CL	EL	IC
Remy	18	7	17	37
Samba	0	15	26	36
Fabio	14	2	2	17
Cesar	52	0	65	117
Traore	2	2	4	7
Park	54	3	100	156
M'Bia	15	4	41	59
Taarabt	0	4	15	18
Granero	15	9	0	21
Jenas	14	38	21	60
Zamora	0	21	2	16
Onuoha	0	6	0	4
Bosingwa	63	4	24	90
Mackie	0	0	9	9
Hoilett	0	0	0	0
Diakite	0	0	8	8
Wright-Phillips	17	20	36	66
Johnson	0	15	8	18
Ben Haim	1	14	63	73
Young	0	8	7	12
Bothroyd	0	2	1	2
Green	0	0	12	12
DJ Campbell	0	0	0	0
Clint Hill	0	0	0	0
Yun Suk-Young	0	0	1	1
Cerny	0	23	3	18
Murphy	0	0	0	0
Derry	0	0	0	0
Ephraim	0	0	0	0
Townsend	0	9	0	6

A startling amount of experience is held just between Park, Cesar and Bosingwa, who all happen to have won the Champions League. There are, however, 2 worrying things about having so many big players within a team like QPR. Firstly, without looking it up I think it's safe to say that none of QPRs stars (bar the man mountain Christopher Samba) have been involved in a relegation battle before.  Secondly, should QPR get relegated there would have to be a mass exodus of players. A championship team would struggle to pay for the wages of that many big names, players like that understandably want to be playing top flight football and as none of the "big" players have been at QPR very long it seems unlikely that they would have developed the loyalty to take a pay cut and stay to help fight for promotion.

With all of this taken into account I think QPR would have to rely on a run of form based on being the better team in order to stay in the league (i.e. being the better team in all of the games they play as opposed to nicking wins despite being dominated). If we look at all of the Premier League fixtures they have reaming;

Opponent	Venue	Date
Manchester United	Home	23/02
Southampton	Away	02/03
Sunderland	Home	09/03
Aston Villa	Away	16/03
Fulham	Away	01/04
Wigan	Home	07/04
Everton	Away	13/04
Stoke	Home	20/04
Reading	Away	28/04
Arsenal	Home	04/05
Newcastle	Home	12/05
Liverpool	Away	19/05

How many of them are winnable? There are 5 games between Manchester United and Everton which present QPR with a brilliant opportunity to pick up points, followed by Stoke and Reading. So if QPR are to stay up, which doesn't look impossible, they can hardly afford to drop any points in these 7 fixtures and must aim to cause upsets in the other 5 games. Can I see them doing it? No. Expect to see the big names leaving Loftus road for cut prices in the summer.

By Alex

Follow US on twitter: @ChapsTalkFBall

All statistics and facts are from the marvellous sites transfermarkt.co.uk and whoscored.com

Since Arsenal Last Won a Trophy

Arsenal FC last won a trophy at the end of the 2004-05  football season, well over 7 years ago. It was the FA Cup and they beat Manchester United 5-4 on penalties, after the game had finished 0-0. Since that day players who have transferred away from Arsenal have won a combined total of 73 trophies, in various leagues across the world. I am now going to tell you who those players and trophies are.

• ·         Alexander Hleb, transferred to Barcelona, won the 2009 La Liga, the 2009 Copa del Rey and the 2009 UEFA Champions League with Barcelona, won the 2011 Football League Cup with Birmingham City.
• ·         Anthony Stokes, transferred to Sunderland, won the 2007 Football League Championship with Sunderland, won the 2012 Scottish Premier League and 2011 Scottish Cup with Celtic.
• ·         Ashley Cole, transferred to Chelsea, won the 2010 Premier League, the 2007, 09, 10 and 12 FA Cups, the 2007 League Cup, the 2009 FA Community Shield and the 2012 UEFA Champions League.
• ·         Cesc Fabregas, transferred to Barcelona, won the 2012 Copa del Rey, the 2011 Supercopa de Espana, the 2011 UEFA Super Cup and the 2011 FIFA Club World Cup with Barcelona.
• ·         Eduardo, transferred to Shakhtar Donetsk, won the 2011 and 12 Ukrainian Premier League, the 2011 and 12 Ukrainian Cup and the 2012 Ukrainian Super Cup with Shakhtar Donestk.
• ·         Emmanuel Adebayor, transferred to Manchester City, won the 2011 Copa del Rey with Real Madrid.
• ·         Emmanuel Eboue, transferred to Galatasaray, won the 2012 Super Lig and 2012 Super Kupa with Galatasaray.
• ·         Fran Merida, transferred to Atletico Madrid, won the 2010 UEFA Super Cup with Atletico Madrid.
• ·         Frederik Ljunberg, transferred to West Ham United, won the 2009 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup with the Seattle Sounders.
• ·         Gael Clichy, transferred to Manchester City, won the 2012 Premier League and the 2012 FA Community Shield with Manchester City.
• ·         Gilberto Silva, transferred to Panathinaikos, won the 2010 Super League Greece and the 2010 Greek Football Cup with Panathinaikos.
• ·         Jermaine Pennant, transferred to Birmingham City, won the 2006 FA Community Shield with Liverpool.
• ·         Jose Antonio Reyes, transferred to Atletico Madrid, won the 2007 La Liga with Real Madrid, won the 2009 Taca da Liga with Benfica, won the 2007 UEFA Intertoto Cup, the 2010 UEFA Europa League and the 2010 UEFA Super Cup with Atletico Madrid.
• ·         Kerrea Gilbert, transferred to Portland Timbers, won the 2009 Football League One with Leicester City, won the 2012 Leinster Senior Cup with Shamrock Rovers.
• ·         Kolo Toure, transferred to Manchester City, won the 2011 FA Cup, the 2012 Premier League and the 2012 FA Community Shield with Manchester City.
• ·         Lassana Diarra, transferred to Portsmouth, won the 2008 FA Cup with Portsmouth, won the 2012 La Liga, the 2011 Copa del Rey  and the 2012 Supercopa de Espana with Real Madrid.
• ·         Lauren, transferred to Portsmouth, won the 2008 FA Cup with Portsmouth.
• ·         Mathieu Flamini, transferred to AC Milan, won the 2011 Serie A and 2011 Supercoppa Italiana with AC Milan.
• ·          Matthew Connolly, transferred to AFC Bournemouth, won the 2011 Football League Championship with Queens Park Rangers, won the 2012 Football League Championship with Reading.
• ·         Patrick Viera, transferred to Juventus, won the 2006 Serie A with Juventus, won the 2007, 08, 09 and 10 Serie A and the 2006 and 08 Supercoppa Italiana with Inter Milan, won the 2011 FA Cup with Manchester City.
• ·         Samir Nasri, transferred to Manchester City, won the 2012 Premier League and the 2012 FA Community Shield with Manchester City.
• ·         Sebastian Larsson, transferred to Birmingham City, won the 2011 Football League Cup with Birmingham City.
• ·         Sol Campbell, transferred to Newcastle United, won the 2008 FA Cup with Portsmouth.
• ·         Thierry Henry, transferred to Barcelona, won the 2009 and 10 La Liga, the 2009 Copa del Rey, the 2009 Supercopa de Espana, the 2009 UEFA Champions League, the 2009 UEFA Super Cup and the 2009 FIFA Club World Cup with Barcelona, won the 2010 MLS Eastern Conference with the New York Red Bulls.

With Arsenal out of both domestic cups and European competition already this year, and them sitting 21 points behind Premier League leaders Manchester United, it looks set for this list to only expand further.

by Paddy Milnes

Follow me on Twitter: @thepaddy

Source:

footballdatabase.eu