Thanks as always to @shots_on_target for his great GW Review. You can read more of his quality work at http://www.shotsontarget.co.uk

I’ve included indicators to the team match stats for each team, the little arrows.  This is calculated by taking the attacking stat for a team and comparing it against the opposition’s average corresponding defensive stat.  If the value is above 1 standard deviation above the mean then it’s a green arrow, 1 SD below it’s red, in between it’s yellow.

For example, in the first game Arsenal’s 7 SOT exceeds Tottenham’s average SOT conceded away from home of 3.8 by quite a bit, so it’s a green arrow (you’ll have to account for the red card yourself I’m afraid).  Arsenal’s total shots of 13 is not too far from Tottenham’s away shots conceded average of 11.9 so that’s a yellow arrow.

This adds some context to the stats I believe and tells you how a team performed to the league average.  Again using the first game, you can see Tottenham achieved close close to average shot totals against Arsenal despite being down to 10 men for much of the game.

As discussed already in the intro, difficult to judge this game with Adebayor sent off after just 18 minutes.  The chances were spread out for Arsenal with the exception of Giroud who is definetly becoming the focal point for the Gunner’s attack.

Have to say Everton’s dominance here, especially in the first half,  deservered at least a draw, and Moyes was indeed quite vocal about his team failing to finish off opponents.  Perhaps need to try and fire up Jelavic in this respect.  Le Fondre for Reading was very busy as was Nicky Shorey creating 6 of the home team’s chances.

As expected by many of us, Liverpool were in fine fettle here, both offensively and in defence racking up a tonne of chances and conceding very little indeed.  Sterling was amongst the FPL points once again and Enrique‘s position in midfield needs close attention.  You no longer need me to tell you that Suarez was Liverpool’s main goal threat though.

West Brom need to be given great credit for the way they are playing this year and are doing the important things right.  Shane Long is doing superbly this season and when you take a closer look at his stats from last season they compare well.  This was a confusing line-up for Chelsea with them missing a large number of first team regulars in Terry, Cole, Lampard, Mata and Ivanovic.  Sturridge‘s continued role and performance in the side will need watching.

Total dominance from City here, who really excelled with Tevez stealing the show statistically although it should be noted Aguero played less of the match.  Nasri had a much better game than he’s managed of late and Silva looked like he took up a more attacking role than the creative one.  For Villa, well, they can feel hard done by from the penalty decision but would never really have been expected to do much here.

Southampton dominated the stats here in all areas.  There defensive performance has been on the up recently although midfielder Puncheon stole the show with a very impressive number of shots.  If he can keep his place, even a little, then he becomes a great player to own.  What’s wrong with QPR though?  Why can’t they score.  Some of the players stats here looked good, perhaps lacking accuracy when in the box (Cisse).

A stunning number of shots overall in this game, almost 50 shots in total, averaging 1 every 2 minutes.  I’m well impressed!  Swansea’s Michu and Newcastle’s Ba, as their teams central strikers not suprisingly had the most of their teams chances, with Hernandez and Ben Arfa chief amongst creativity.  Ba’s totals in particular would usually easily be enough for a brace.

Norwich’s defence is much improved and that can be seen in United’s shot totals not exceeding Norwich’s home averages despite some relatively low looking numbers. In contrast Norwich did not put in a display of great attacking verve but got the all important goal and clean sheet.  Pilkington‘s winner just reward for his attacking performance.  For United it’s still all about Van Persie in the shots department although Ashley Young matching his efforts deserves a mention.  Hernandez managing just 1 shot and from outside the box probably tells you about this game.

Another early red card prevents this results from telling the true strory of this match-up but again, as for the ARS-TOT game, we can see Fulham had a good go at Sunderland despite their 10 men with lots of threat from Berbatov, Sidwell and Petric.  For Sunderland Fletcher got back amongst the goals and Adam Johnson picked up 2 assists but I wouldn’t read too much into this result for the Black Cats.

This match finished exactly as many people had called it with neither team impressing in a pure attacking sense.  A few Hammers had chances to score and Nolan could have added a goal to his collection.  Instead it was a rival for his place in the midpriced midfielder’s category, Jon Walters, who picked up attacking points.