Lineups provided approximately 1 hour before kick off Everton team (to face Spurs): Howard, Coleman, Baines, Jagielka, Distin, McCarthy, Barry, Osman, Pienaar, Mirallas, Lukaku #EFCTHFC — Everton (@Everton) November 3, 2013 Team – Lloris; Walker, Chiriches, Dawson, Vertonghen; Paulinho, Sandro; Lennon, Holtby, Townsend; Soldado. #THFC #COYS — Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) November 3, 2013 #SuperSunday If […]
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GW9 Preview: Tottenham’s tricky Townsend to terrorise Tigers?
Picking out a player before they come popular with Fantasy Premier League bosses is often a sure-fire way to success, and the next must-have buy might just be emerging from North London.
Everyone knows about the likes of Mesut Ozil (£10.7m and with a 33.2% ownership rate at the time of writing), Aaron Ramsey (£6.8m and a massive 51.5%) and Olivier Giroud (£9.5m and 40.1%), but instead of Arsenal we’re looking at Tottenham, and their new England star.
Andros Townsend (£5.7m) grabbed his first Premier League goal in the win at Aston Villa at the weekend, and whilst that might make this seem like a simple reaction to that, there is plenty to suggest that a punt on the Spurs man will prove worthwhile.
The wide player has started Tottenham’s last seven games in the league, revelling the trust placed in him by boss Andre Villas-Boas and earning his place in the Portuguese’s team ahead of summer signings Erik Lamela (£8.1m) and Nacer Chadli (£6.9m).
Townsend is incredibly confident right now, enjoying his football for both club and country and seemingly encouraged to express himself by the managers of both.
His goal at Villa Park may have been somewhat freakish and fortunate, but those are the sort of things that happen for you when you’re on fire, and the 22-year-old will be seeking to continue in that form as he takes on Hull City at White Hart Lane on Saturday.
The visit of the Tigers will represent a match that Spurs expect to win, and the winger can help in that and look to provide service to forward Roberto Soldado (£9.2m), who might just have recovered some of his lost confidence thanks to his first Premier League goal from open play in the Villa game.
A win here will be crucial for Spurs if they are to keep the pressure on the teams at the top, and Townsend can contribute to that.
https://twitter.com/zoo/status/393330004597014528
Elsewhere, those aforementioned Arsenal players will all be vital as Arsene Wenger takes his side to the managerless (although Tony Pulis is lurking) Crystal Palace, whilst Fulham, the team that beat the Eagles on Monday, head for the tricky trip to Southampton. Pajtim Kasami (£4.5m) may have caught the eye at Selhurst Park, but Saints skipper Adam Lallana (£6.2m) might well be the man to back here.
The midfielder scored the equaliser at Old Trafford last weekend, but after a Champions League win in midweek Manchester United will seek another victory as they host Stoke.
Adnan Januzaj (£4.9m) remains the flavour of the month for many, but it is Wayne Rooney (£10.9m) who really makes United tick at the moment. He scored twice for the hosts in this fixture last season, and against a Stoke side who are winless in their last five league games – failing to score in four of those – he is sure to be a key man yet again as United chase what would be only a second home league win of the season.
Saturday also sees Liverpool face a potentially tricky clash with a West Brom side who have somewhat surprisingly won four of the last five league meetings between the pair.
It could be tight at Anfield, where Liverpool might end up relying on the penalty taking prowess of Steven Gerrard (£8.9m), who’s last five Reds strikes have all come from the spot.
Sunday’s big games pit Sunderland against Newcastle before the heavyweight meeting between Chelsea and Manchester City.
Oscar (£9.0m) retains the star billing amongst the hosts’ midfielders following his goal against Cardiff, but Eden Hazard (£9.0) scored twice in the same game and is now closing in on him.
If you fancy City to prevail though then Sergio Aguero (£11.1m) is sure to play a key role.
The forward’s brace in Moscow on Wednesday took his tally to eight goals in his last six games, a record sure to make Jose Mourinho sit up and take notice.
Aston Villa vs Tottenham: Lineups and Preview (NO BENTEKE)
Oct 20
Aston Villa vs Tottenham KO Sunday 20th October 4pm Team Lineups provided approximately 1 hour before Kick Off! https://twitter.com/AVFCOfficial/statuses/391927832558850049 https://twitter.com/AVFCOfficial/statuses/391927956345335808 Team – Lloris; Walker, Chiriches, Dawson, Vertonghen; Paulinho, Sandro; Townsend, Holtby, Sigurdsson; Soldado. #THFC — Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) October 20, 2013 Our subs at Villa – Friedel, Naughton, Dembele, Eriksen, Lamela, Lennon, Defoe. #THFC — […]
Ultra Fantasy Football App : SuperSunday Giveaway
Sep 1
The highly anticipated team management app for players of the ‘Official Barclays Fantasy Premier League’ game. Ensuring managing your team on the go is effortless. *** The Number 1 sports app in 19 countries around the world *** The app is currently not compatible with the iOS 7 beta #SuperSunday Win a copy of the […]
Fantasy Football Weekly RoundUp: Manchester City, Arsenal vs Spurs and Bonus Points frustration
Aug 30
It’s been another eventful week as we say goodbye to Gameweek 2 and the 9 cleansheets those fixtures produced. For the stat fans out there last week provided us with an average of 1.7 Goals per game, put this into context with a 4 year average of approximately 2.8 and you will see that we […]
Paulinho’s Spurs switch a sign of Villas-Boas’ desire to look to Porto past?
With the Fantasy Premier League getting back up and running this week we have already had people asking about the potential of some of the new summer signings as viable options for your Fantasy squad. Players such as Jesus Navas, Wilfried Bony and the wonderfully named Ricky van Wolfswinkel have all been mentioned as potential fantasy selections in recent weeks.
In addition to this the recent Confederations Cup gave us the opportunity to look at Paulinho up close. The 24-year-old collected the Bronze Ball as Brazil won the tournament on their own patch and impressed onlookers with his performances.
With this in mind we have a great guest post from the @FootballButler who goes into detail over the role he expects Paulinho to play for Spurs and how this may lead to a change in tactics.
A great football insight and also invaluable research when scouting for your fantasy team!
*R
Paulinho’s Spurs switch a sign of Villas-Boas’ desire to reinstate successful Porto tactics
Another Brazilian midfielder is heading east to ply his trade in the Premier League, and the tactical implications of Paulinho’s North London arrival could be indicative of a stark change in Andre Villas Boas’ Tottenham Hotspur tactics.
Villas Boas’ time in England has seen him predominately switch between a 4-2-3-1 and a 4-3-3, the former utilized this season at Spurs and the latter used at Chelsea.
His premature sacking from Chelsea and his switch to a 4-2-3-1 this year at Spurs might suggest that his old 4-3-3, most effectively used during his tenure at Porto, was a striking failure. Regardless of how you interpret the reasons for that tactical change, a £17m investment in a defensive midfielder is a huge statement of intent from a team playing in Europe’s second string competition, especially when a number of Spurs fans would have unanimously agreed that Clint Dempsey and Gylfi Sigurdsson’s underwhelming performances might have warranted a substantial investment in the attacking midfield role instead.
Paulinho will now become Spurs’ third high class defensive-minded midfielder, and it seems highly unlikely that if he, Moussa Dembele and Sandro are all fit Villas Boas would omit any of them from his starting XI. With that in mind, it’s not unreasonable to think that a switch to the 4-3-3- as so effectively used at his time at Porto- could be the framework for Spurs’ 2013/14 campaign.
Rewind two years and that Porto team was quite something, full of flair and individual excellence, exceeding all expectations when it claimed 2 domestic cups, an unbeaten season (by a record breaking 20 points) and the Europa league. It would be naive to assume that Villas Boas’ Porto side was just a team of good players- there were many tactical features to that side, a credit to his managerial ability.
Attacking full backs are by no means a tactical revolution, but Alvaro Pereira and Cristian Săpunaru bombed forward relentlessly. Hulk used his sheer power to cut in from the right to support the superb Radamal Falcao, while Silvestre Varela played a more withdrawn wide role on the opposite flank.
But the tactical highlight of that team was midfield rotation, an uncommon British tactical theme. The system primarily revolved around Porto’s no.6, the excellent Fernando, who tended to bomb forward despite being a pure holding midfielder, switching places with Freddy Guarin who usually had license to get forward, but would drop deep himself if Fernando advanced. With Joao Moutinho fulfilling an archetypal box to box role, Porto’s midfield had incredible variety, with opposition teams completely unable to track forward runs from anyone of those 3 midfield players.
Alas, midfield rotation- when it works- is hugely effective. Unfortunately, Villas Boas’ time at Chelsea proved that the Premier League was better suited with coping with such a system.
Villas Boas confessed his difficulties of applying that system to his unsuccessful Chelsea side:
“Our No 6 [at Porto, usually Fernando] sometimes became a more attacking midfielder and we tried to do that here [at Chelsea]. We decided it doesn’t work here, so that’s one of the things I have adapted. You lose a little bit of balance in the Premier League if you play that way. Transitions here are much more direct, making the importance of the No 6 to stay in position most decisive.”
Fast forward another 18 months and Villas Boas has yet to reinstate this tactic. But that could- could– be about to change with the signing of Paulinho. Whether Villas Boas is directly looking to reassert midfield rotation amongst his team is difficult to know, but Spurs now have the perfect players to carry out the system.
Moussa Dembele is a fantastically mobile player, and is perhaps one of the finest box-to-box midfield players in Europe- the role that Moutinho played in that Porto team. Sandro is perhaps a finer version of Fernando, an intricately intelligent player who almost certainly is able to rotate with Paulinho- should Paulinho operate the advanced Guarin role.
England currently seems obsessed with the midfield variety of a holder, box-to-box player and a playmaker in a 4-2-3-1, with each midfield player playing a well defined role. The genius of midfield rotation is that it creates a far more fluid midfield, and omits having certain ‘specialists’ within the team. Villas Boas might just about be ready to play his trump card again.
On a final, more general note, the 2012/13 season seems to have accentuated the use of the 4-2-3-1. Bar Barcelona and Juventus, 6 of Europe’s 8 Champions League quarter finalists (Galatasaray, Malaga, Dortmund, Madrid, Bayern, PSG), and 5 of England’s top 7 (Arsenal, Liverpool, City, Chelsea, and Spurs) stuck to the system.
Granted, Barca (4-3-3), Juventus (3-5-2) and United (Ferguson played something like a 4-4-2 that looked like a 4-2-3-1) stuck to their own unique systems and found domestic success, but all three teams struggled in Europe.
If not playing the 4-2-3-1 is a path to domestic success by that rational, then perhaps Villas Boas’ acquisition of Paulinho could be a masterstroke in elevating to Spurs to Europe’s elite tournament. It’s still early days in this highly active transfer window, but Paulinho’s arrival could be the first major clue of changing tactical trends in the 2013/14 season.
How do you think Tottenham will do this season?? Drop a comment below
Follow the Football Butler on Twitter: @footballbutler
Many thanks to @footballbutler for the guest post. You can read more from them at http://thefootballbutler.blogspot.co.uk/
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#FPL Luis Suárez gets maximum Bonus with snappy performance.
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9 of the 10 games from GW34 have been played so far with only Man United taking on Aston Villa in the Monday night match remaining.
Luis Suarez will make the headlines this week, no doubt on both the back and front pages thanks to what looks like an attempted bite on Ivanovic.
Unquestionable talent as a footballer- Suarez is excellent, however the other side of his game appeared today in Liverpool’s 2-2 game with Chelsea. I think I can sum up his performance as follows.
Assist, handball, yellow card, spot of lunch, last gasp equaliser.
From a #FPL perspective this was enough to see him bring home all 3 bonus points and 11points in total. It would seem that the FA will have to take action so if Suarez is in your team at the minute.. you will need to start looking at replacements. Hopefully the FA will make a decision on any retrospective action within the next 24 hours.
Elsewhere… and yes other games have taken place this weekend, Gareth Bale came back where he left off with a goal, assist and all 3 bonus as Spurs came from a goal down to beat Man City 3-1.
Per Mertesacker scored the only goal of the game and fantasy owners that held onto Big Per after he was suspended have been rewarded with over 20 points in the last 2 games alone!
Crouch scored the first goal for Stoke on Saturday against his old club QPR taking all 3 bonus points and ensuring that QPR are all but relegated pending Steve Mc Queen signing on an emergency loan in the next few days.
Sessegnon for Sunderland was a very popular selection last year, not so much this season. Di Canio’s arrival seems to have revitalised him as he bagged another goal and takes all 3 bonus points in their impressive win against Everton.
Elsewhere, Kevin Nolan showed us some of his early season form with another goal and a 3pt bonus haul, Ryan Bennett took the plaudits for Norwich, Jack Cork for Southampton and Newcastle forward Gouffran all with maximum bonus point allocation.
*R
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Who got bonus that surprised you?
Who didn’t get but should have in your opinion?
Let us know and we will be happy to Retweet
| 20 Apr 15:00 | Fulham |  |
0 – 1 |  |
Arsenal |
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| 20 Apr 15:00 | Norwich |  |
2 – 1 |  |
Reading |
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| 20 Apr 15:00 | QPR |  |
0 – 2 |  |
Stoke City |
| 20 Apr 15:00 | Sunderland |  |
1 – 0 |  |
Everton |
| 20 Apr 15:00 | Swansea |  |
0 – 0 |  |
Southampton |
| 20 Apr 15:00 | West Brom |  |
1 – 1 |  |
Newcastle |
| 20 Apr 15:00 | West Ham |  |
2 – 0 |  |
Wigan |
| 21 Apr 13:30 | Tottenham |  |
3 – 1 |  |
Man City |
| 21 Apr 16:00 | Liverpool |  |
2 – 2 |  |
Chelsea |
| 22 Apr 20:00 | Man Utd |  |
v |  |
Aston Villa |
Gameweek 25 preview: Gareth Bale to sting The Hawthorns?
The closure of the January transfer window may excite manic Sky Sports News presenters, the Twitter rumour-mongers and Harry Redknapp, but Fantasy bosses are often better off just sticking to what they know.
At this point of the season – pretty much exactly two-thirds of the way through – you’ll know who you can rely on in your team, who you’ll be keeping an eye on bringing in and who you desperately need to get rid of. New arrivals into the division shouldn’t alter that.
Of course there are those new players who can arrive into the Premier League and immediately take it by storm – Papiss Cisse last season anyone? – but the bedding in period often needed by foreign imports makes adding any deadline day signing to your team a risk. At least this weekend anyway.
No, it would be better to go with the tried and tested ahead of an intriguing set of games, and there aren’t many players in the division this season who have proved their worth more than Tottenham’s Gareth Bale (£9.8m).
The Welshman’s fine solo goal at Carrow Road on Wednesday night was a 10th Premier League strike of the season, and with eight of those 10 coming in matches away from White Hart Lane – in which he can make more use of the space afforded to him – then the winger will be the man to watch when Spurs visit West Brom on Sunday afternoon.
The Baggies have only won two of their last 11 in the league, and so whilst you don’t want Bale running at you at the best of times it is likely to be especially tough for Steve Clarke’s men to cope with the confidence of the winger here. Bale could score big.
Elsewhere, the headline match of the weekend is probably the last one, as Manchester City welcome Liverpool in a contest which the hosts will need to win after dropping points at QPR last time out.
Sergio Aguero (£10.9m) returned to the team there and should definitely be considered here, but even though Liverpool are facing a tough game the eagle-eyed Fantasy bosses will have noted that they have a Double Gameweek coming up next time around which brings home matches against West Brom and Swansea. Luis Suarez (£10.5m) is only going to see his price go up. More on him next week…
Reading’s Adam Le Fondre (£4.7m) might be a slightly less talked about forward than Suarez, but he proved more than his worth with the two late goals which earned a point against Chelsea in midweek, and at home to Sunderland he’ll be backed by many to find the net again. If you need a cheap forward to supplement your big boys then there are few better options at the moment.
Defensively, the scope for clean sheets doesn’t look all too great this weekend, but although QPR’s match at home to fellow strugglers Norwich will be full of new Rangers players introducing themselves to one another, it might just see the home side keep it tight at the back.
After the 3-0 loss at home to Liverpool before the turn of the year, Redknapp’s boys have kept back-to-back clean sheets at Loftus Road against opposition of the calibre of Tottenham and Manchester City, as well as shutting out Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
The Canaries should offer little to be worried about then, and after playing 90 minutes in each of QPR’s last four games the on-loan Manchester United defender Fabio da Silva (£4.2m) could just be worth considering if you need to add a cheap defender to make room elsewhere.
At the other end of the scale Leighton Baines (£7.5m) is the game’s most expensive defender and he’ll be looking to follow-up his brace against West Brom when Everton entertain Aston Villa, but the Blues have only kept two clean sheets at home all season and so Christian Benteke (£6.5m) shouldn’t be discounted for the visitors.
Finally and not too far away at Wigan, the hosts will hope that the increasingly effective Franco di Santo (£5.3m) impresses as they host Southampton on Saturday.
That’s if no-one else has signed him by then of course…
Premier League: Fightback Statistics! (Part 2)
Many thanks to @JonnyGrossmark for providing this excellent guest post. If you are not following him on Twitter already – get on it!
As always, Guest posts are welcome on the FantasyYirma page. If you have an idea for a new article or would like to promote a recent piece contact Ryan at fantasyYirma@hotmail.com for more information.
Part 1 of this series is available here
Mid-Table Sides “FightBack” Analysis
Having looked at the Top 6 teams, it is appropriate to look at the teams which sit outside the top six but which were expected at the beginning of the season to find a mid table berth and have no fear of relegation but no thoughts of getting into Europe.
I have written extensively about Newcastle this season and they are a very interesting in terms of the phrase “yo- yo’ on the basis that they are a team that goes up and down the EPL table.
Focusing on their inability to fight back when conceding first should have given some doubt in the ability of Pardew to get Newcastle into the Top 6 again this season.
Pardew was awarded the League Managers Association award for last season which is voted for by fellow professional managers and Sir Alex won it in 2011 and this is a prestigious award. In effect this cemented the 8 year contract that Pardew signed to give him time to deliver the first trophy since they won the fairs Cup in 1969.
My question is do we take at face value that Pardew did an excellent job or do we add raw data to the mix to show that last season Newcastle over achieved and a drop in positions was an expected outcome this season with potential that Newcastle could easily drop out of the EPL in the next few seasons again?
If I advise that Pardew does not have the ability to micro manage players you could rightly counter and say that Newcastle finished 5th last year so obviously he must have the mindset to lead his squad and motivate the players on and off the pitch with a solid team behind him.
I would argue that under Pardew, Newcastle have only won 37% of games and that he has had success with regard to getting teams from the Championship into the EPL but not been able to consolidate on the progress.
It is also a well known fact that at West Ham, Pardew was given media training to be able to connect with the fans more and I express the thought that how well does he communicate with his own players after the BBC described him as a …”distant animal”. I have watched a number of games this season (mainly recorded) looking at the body language of Pardew and apart from writing notes, I have not seen anything to suggest that he commands the loyalty of the players as in too many games this season, Newcastle have given up as soon as they have conceded first and they are also showing an inability to hold onto leads having won just 50% of the games where they scored first this season which is not top six form and astonishingly since Pardew joined, Newcastle have not won one game when conceding first and their last win was against West Ham in October 2010. Newcastle conceded an early goal scored by Carlton Cole on 12 minutes to “fightback” and Newcastle dominated most of the game under Hughton who I consider to be far more capable as a Manager then Pardew.
Football blogging is at a stage where if it does not fit the model then it must be a random event such as playing snakes and ladders which has zero skill value but I think this is a dangerous route to take as one of the biggest academic arguments is over sample size but in football past performance is not an indicator of future performance although there is no reason to think that Newcastle will become a “fightback” team in the near future.
We are only limited by our interpretation of the data presented. When Spurs beat Wigan 9-1 we can clearly see that this is a random event as there was not expectation at Half Time that Wigan would concede eight second half goals. Newcastle coming 5th last season cannot be explained as a random event but can show the limitations of the understanding of data as we are now in a situation where Pardew is now publicly blaming the players(survival analysis) when he is the one who should be blamed.
Compare this to Sunderland conceding first exactly 17 times over the previous four completed seasons. Is this consistent behaviour random or explained?
Premier League: Fightback Statistics! (Part 1)
Many thanks to @JonnyGrossmark for providing this excellent guest post. If you are not following him on Twitter already – get on it!
As always, Guest posts are welcome on the FantasyYirma page. If you have an idea for a new article or would like to promote a recent piece contact Ryan at fantasyYirma@hotmail.com for more information.
#FY
How Well Does Your Team “Fightback” When Conceding 1st? Stats Analysis
The phrase “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics” is certainly appropriate when discussing football data at a time when data is now readily available to the public should they be inclined to look at it. Manchester City have tried to raise the bar by offering data in the hope that some bright blogger/analyst will be able to add to the debate about improving performance via analysis of the data.
In this article I want to show how important the analysis of data is but at the same time I am hoping to push the boundaries in terms of stimulating interest in raw football data by looking at data from the 2008-2009 onwards including the current season to find out if there is a correlation between conceding and the strength of a team.
If we look at teams that regularly occupy the Championship League spots and the Europa League places we see a level of consistency that the other teams cannot produce. But are there any variables that preclude established sides such as Spurs from considering winning the EPL?
The Top 6 Sides “FightBack” Analysis
We can see that Arsenal and Manchester City have both conceded first 59 times in the sample and Man City have been the team that have consolidated their position as a Top 2 team while Arsenal have declined in status but have maintained their levels in terms of being consistent regarding the the number of games a season where they concede first. We can also see that although Manchester City have drawn a higher % when conceding first (27%) , it is Arsenal who have only lost 49% of games when conceding first, which is much better than Manchester City as they have lost 57% of the games.
Manchester United have conceded the first goal of the game, the least amount of times (45) and Everton the most (76). There are some key issues to discuss.
- Why have Manchester United conceded the first goal so many times this season (11 at just over the half-way point) compared to 8, 8 ,12 and 6 in the previous seasons in the sample?
I could discuss that the Manchester United midfield is not good enough to protect the defence or that this is a random event that I cannot explain but I will leave that to other football bloggers because as long as Manchester United win their games when they concede first, the relevance of this new trend is weakened. It means that in the EPL when Manchester United concede then there is still expectation that they will win but this is dependent on so many factors so we cannot just put a value on Man United beating Fulham when Fulham scored on 3 minutes to lead 1-0.
– What is the expectation of further goals given that Fulham have scored the first goal on 3 minutes and are the away team?
– Will the expectation of goals increase (greater then calculated before the game started) or impede for both the teams or will the early away goal have an effect on just one team?
What value do we put on Carrick having to play as the emergency centre-half in that game or the laughable own goal by Vidic in the game or the fact that Rooney started on the bench due to lack of form and Nani did not even make the bench for the game?
It is easy to put a figure on the expectation of Man United winning at 1-0 down but much harder to justify that figure without the inclusion of several other variables such as the pitch conditions, the strength of the shots, the accuracy prevention of both teams, the weather conditions, the motivation of both teams and the possible under performance of players on the day plus the fact that Carrick had to play in a position that I do not think he is best suited to. But when Carrick has played centre-back what % of games have Manchester United lost compared to the average which also is irrelevant unless you look at the strength of the team that they play each time Carrick has played in the role.
I remember reading in the paper on the last game of the season(2010-2011) to be advised that Manchester United do not score many goals during the last game of the season. The final score was Manchester United 4 Wolves 2 . The flaw of the argument is that the strength and motivation of both teams and the time of the first goal and the goal expectation and any rain or beach balls or referee blunders or freak goals or Red cards could alter the course of the game.
As Man United are winning 72% of their games when conceding first this season then I do not believe Sir Alex will be losing too much sleep. A problem may occur if they are losing 1-0 to a team like Dortmund or Bayern Munich as they will find it rather tougher to get back in the game than they did against teams at the level of Fulham.
Sir Alex Ferguson has acknowledged that the biggest mistake he made was letting Stam go who I would consider to be one of the best defenders in the History of Manchester United.
Do we believe the story that Sir Alex was advised that Stam was tackling less in games and as a result a perceived view that his best days were behind him or was it as Stam has publicly said that Man United were in financial difficulty and needed the cash flow urgently.
At the petrol station he parked his car and got in with me. He told me that I had to be transferred. Then he said: “Will you please move to Lazio quickly?”
If we look at Everton they have consolidated their position as a top 6 side as far as I am concerned, but recently I was listening to the radio to be advised that “Everton have over achieved this season” and that this is a blip and their levels of performance will drop.
They did not offer any data to back up their prediction and I offer the following in the case for the defence of Everton
- Everton have in Baines and Fellani – two of the best players in the EPL in their positions and I would argue the case for Fellani to be player of the season with the qualities that he brings to the game. If Fellani and Baines were sold then I would re evaluate my thoughts on this by waiting to see who Everton Purchased as replacements. Players such as Howard, Neville and Distan have years of experience but I appreciate that the squad does not have youth on its side.
- Historically Everton have been very consistent finishing no lower then seventh since the 2008-2009 season and Moyes is a fantastic motivator of his squad and I can see him in charge at Old Trafford one day.
- If we look at Everton conceding first which is an excellent indicator of the strength of the team. I am not personally concerned by how many times a team concede but by how they react to the event.
Everton have conceded the first goal in 76 games during the sample but the levels remain very consistent and it has not impeded them from a high finish as they have only lost this season 9% of games when conceding first and in the sample overall they have drawn 34.66% and avoided losing 53.94% of the time. Only Manchester United in the sample of games can boast a better % which is 60.
By Jonny Grossmark
Follow Jonny on twitter
@JonnyGrossmark
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