The One Question Weekend Preview Review
Sorry you didn't get a preview of this review but a review of my preview is what you will have to settle for. We start with Cardiff vs Fulham. I guessed that 15-20% of Cardiff's passes would end close to Fulham's goal in an enormous test for Fulham's leaky defense that seems to funnel back-to-front moves for shots against an offense set up only to do that. 31 of Cardiff's 268 open-play passes ended inside the penalty box, with 16 or so just a step or two outside the box. Doing the numbers there gets you 17.5%, what a handy number to come up with!
The one question was can Fulham successfully stop Cardiff from roaring forward and getting good shots? I did not think they could and said they were at risk of conceding multiple goals and identified it as a betting opportunity. What happened? Well....simply the lowest passes per shot of any game in the Premier League this season: 12.2 vs the league average of 30.1. With 22 shots and 268 open play passes, Cardiff beat their own record and absolutely battered Fulham for 4 goals. The Fulham defensive problem is showing no sign of easing and is actually dangerous now. With how they pass, you wouldn't think they'd be at serious risk of relegation but this defense is so bad they absolutely are. You just can't get crushed by Cardiff like this, you knew how they were going to play.
Moving to the biggest game of the weekend: Barcelona and Sevilla. In my preview I said Sevilla were going to try a "bend but don't break" defense and stop Barcelona from moving forward at the almost final barrier, from Zone 3 forward. Sevilla allowed the lowest forward progression per pass from that zone of any team in the league. So what happened?
They got absolutely slaughtered there. They didn't slow Barcelona down at all, trying to go bend-but-don't-break with a defense that really isn't good at much was never much of a hope.
Arthur and Coutinho were especially active in creating from this zone. Barcelona had 4 goals, 23 shots, 14 in the box and 4 big chances. Sevilla's defense was torched. I mentioned their attack in passing, saying they'd hit directly through Barcelona's defense as they played vertically a lot for such a good team but that's more than one question. Sevilla's offense remains fantastic but their defense is just too leaky right now to sustain any sort of serious title challenge.
Schalke v Werder Bremen I said "If you watch this game, watch Zone 5" because of these numbers.
[gallery ids="412,411" type="rectangular"]
I did watch this during the 45 minutes I watched and I thought Schalke kind of made Bremen uncomfortable and broke their game up and the numbers bore that out: Schalke won this battle, allowing .2 forward completions per pass allowed in Zone 5, basically their season average while Bremen's tendency to push it forward smoothly was totally disrupted. Moisander was one of the best in the league at moving it forward, almost 50% of his passes from this zone advanced the ball but Schalke brought him down to .35 and then forced Kruse/Sahin to make a lot of passes from this zone, players who were mostly passing backwards or sideways (3 forward progressions from 31 total passes). Schalke totally shut down Werder's attack really: 8 shots, 4 in the box, 0 big chances. It was interesting to see Schalke impose their will and stop the Bremen attack up the pitch. I would never have comprehended the exactly how they were controlling the game without the preview, watching the game a new way.
In the Man Utd-Chelsea game my question was who can win the action zone in the extended center when Chelsea had the ball? That zone was seen here:
[gallery ids="414,413" type="rectangular"]
I said United had to disrupt passing there or get rolled over. Did they stop Chelsea from getting there?
That's a chart of every Big 6 game this year with passes allowed into that zone and the white bar is Chelsea vs Man Utd. Plenty of chances came from this area. Did Manchester United get rolled over? Yes: 21 shots, 14 in the box and 4 big chances. They just can't chop up the game this year, Chelsea totally controlled the ball and the game.
I'm quite pleased with the One Question Preview and it really added to my viewing experience of the Fulham and Schalke games, wasn't able to watch the other two. Hope you enjoyed it, I enjoyed it and it really helped me watch better, hope it does for you also.