Wolves 0-1 Arsenal Player Rating and Match Reaction

[KSE Comedy Club]

As I understand it the deep block is used by teams who are markedly inferior to the opposition, or are in a markedly inferior circumstance such as being Arsenal in a match reffed by Oliver. It denies space inside the attacking third the opposition might exploit through superior tactics or simply by having better players. It's not something new, Arsenal teams of the past have shamelessly deployed it against rivals particularly in away matches and we've been lampooned for doing it. I don't think it's used to play for a draw, per se, but more to nullify the advantages of a superior opposition. So when a quality team opts for it they rightly get laughed at. But when a team from the lower leagues goes up against top league opposition it's often viewed as "heroic" to deploy such tactics. And it's understandable. It can even be exciting when one team doggedly resists another in such fashion.

So, just parking the bus then for us common folk

End of the day, to me, defending is defending, whether that is 4 men doing it or 11 men doing it. You can be light or heavy in the deployment of the method but it's ultimately the same thing

[Niall_Quinn]

So, just parking the bus then for us common folk

Next you'll be saying false 9 is just a bunch of bullshit.

[KSE Comedy Club]

Next you'll be saying false 9 is just a bunch of bullshit.

Alongside the 'double pivot'

[Niall_Quinn]

Alongside the 'double pivot'

Obviously your game management sucks. I live for the day when we start calling tackles "turnovers"

[Niall_Quinn]

So, just parking the bus then for us common folk

End of the day, to me, defending is defending, whether that is 4 men doing it or 11 men doing it. You can be light or heavy in the deployment of the method but it's ultimately the same thing

There are three types of defending, good, lucky and bad. When you set up your defensive tactics to counter your opponent and it works, that's good defending. When you blindly play to a system regardless of the opponent and it works, that's lucky defending. Everything else is bad defending. You can add labels to various tactics and various positions, that's fine and very useful for people like Jamie Redknapp when it comes to justifying his salary, but most fans will simply say, "That was SHIT defending!", or "Great defending!", or "Where's the fucking defence?" They don't scream, "OMG - what's happened to our transition?!", or, "FFS - try to get the low block right will you arseholes!"

I can get that managers might go into more detailed specifics with their players on the training pitch, I can get they may have a vocabulary that assists them at a professional level, but none of that extends to the fanbase unless they happen to have a YouFace channel and want to make money with ad clicks.

[KSE Comedy Club]

Obviously your game management sucks. I live for the day when we start calling tackles "turnovers"

Oh god please NO!

[KSE Comedy Club]

There are three types of defending, good, lucky and bad. When you set up your defensive tactics to counter your opponent and it works, that's good defending. When you blindly play to a system regardless of the opponent and it works, that's lucky defending. Everything else is bad defending. You can add labels to various tactics and various positions, that's fine and very useful for people like Jamie Redknapp when it comes to justifying his salary, but most fans will simply say, "That was SHIT defending!", or "Great defending!", or "Where's the fucking defence?" They don't scream, "OMG - what's happened to our transition?!", or, "FFS - try to get the low block right will you arseholes!"

I can get that managers might go into more detailed specifics with their players on the training pitch, I can get they may have a vocabulary that assists them at a professional level, but none of that extends to the fanbase unless they happen to have a YouFace channel and want to make money with ad clicks.

exactly!

[Mac76]

"turnovers"

Every time a commentator or 'expert analyst' says that it has me grinding my teeth

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

86% of statistics are made up on the spot

Ok, so your remark actually got me thinking and before I knew it, I brought out the spreadsheets to see what the stats could actually say about our 'feelings vs facts' of facing 90 mins of 11 men pinned in their half behind the ball.

Now though I've seen NQ's reply, there are definitely no stats that can speak to the subjectivity of most of the definition, so for the sake of this discussion, I am using things that can be measured like possession, where the possession occurred (or where passes were concentrated ) and shots taken at the opposition's goal and vice versa.

Ok, so the first stat, possession is easily obtainable and says Arsenal's average in the EPL stands at 55% per match while our opponents is usually 45%. Now we are not no 1 for this as most of us could guess, Man City trumps us and they do by quite a margin at 61% for and 39% against. The surprise however is we are not even number 2 or 3, with Liverpool, Spuds and Chelsea all besting us (58.5%,58.04% and 58% respectively). So factually we are only 5th on the table when it comes to possession, which further supports the argument that other teams also regularly face opponents who are happy to relinquish control to them.

Anyway since I compiled my own spreadsheet I realised that our possession stats have probably been impacted by PGMOL's private war against us and the fact we have faced 4 red cards, which none of the other teams above us have come close to experiencing. So when I remove those games, I come up with a more favourable and realistic 58.5%, which puts us 2nd place on par with Liverpool but still not near Citeh. Also, the bottom teams for possession are Forest, Everton and Ipswich all at roughly 39-40%.

Now the rest of our averages for the season (red card games removed) say we conceded possession 41.5% of the time, take an average of 15 shots, face 8 shots, spend 22% of time defending in our third, 45% of our time engaged in midfield battles and 37% of our time in the opponents final third.

So to come up with some sort of statistical formula that supports parking the bus, I used metrics that state that not only must a team fall below the averages mentioned but it must be quite poor i.e. possession should be 35% or less, and more importantly not only must the time spent in their final third exceed the average (37%) but it must be double the amount spent in our third defending (so even in a case where we spent 50% time in their final third, if we spend more than 25% of the time defending in our third, it would not count).

So statistically, the two worst games of parking the Bus were at home against Everton and Leicester (one of the few games I've not seen this season, not even highlights). Anyway for Everton, they achieved the lowest possession against us this season at 23%, we spent 43% of the time camped in their final third (we were only in our third for 12% of the game) and faced 2 shots (lowest we've faced all season). I don't need to mention the result. As for Leceister who we beat 4-2, their possession was only slightly better at 25%, we faced 5 shots but shockingly (especially for a team that scored 2 goals) they were only in our final third 10% of the game while we were in their third 56% of the game (almost no midfield battle here) and that stands as our record this season for pinning a team down in their own box.

The only other 2 games that satisfy all the criteria are our draw with Fulham and our win 1-0 win against Ipswich.

Our recent 2-2 draw with Villa also satisfies most of the criteria ( Villa's possession 34%, 47% of our time in Villa's final third while they got in ours only 13% of the time) but Villa managed to take 8 shots, so they equalled the attacking average for shots.

Also, special mention for the Spuds and Southampton at home wins, though we spent a lot of time camped in their final thirds, they equalled the average shots and possession stats.

@Letters, I think that kind of shows out of 4 games where stats support the argument of deep blocks, we won 2 and dropped points in 2, basically 50% like I suggested earlier But if you can find better measures, please go ahead (I must admit I've found putting together the spreadsheet interesting)

As for the 2 games we've lost this season, the refs helped Bournemouth out with a red (though we'd probably still have only drawn) and though Newcastle also played pretty deep against us (36% possession) we didn't reach the milestone of spending twice as much time in their third and we also faced 9 shots. So none of our losses for now can be attributed to deep blocks using this formula anyway.

[HCZ_Reborn]

Every time a commentator or 'expert analyst' says that it has me grinding my teeth

If I was watching the six nations I’d be fine with it