Inter Milan can return to the top of the Serie A table on Saturday with a victory over Cagliari, an achievement heading into December that even the most impassioned of Nerazzurri supporters couldn’t have predicted. The hiring of Luciano Spalletti has been a masterstroke, and an absence of European competition has allowed the side to flourish domestically with largely unchanged personnel in a 4-2-3-1 formation.
Cristiano Ronaldo is having a no-good, very bad time in La Liga this season, and we have the stats to prove it. Never mind the one goal, this goes far deeper than that.
Scrutinizing the goalkeeper position, more so than any other, requires us to expand the metric of analysis to incorporate the one asset that’s valued above all others in a shot-stopper: consistency. That’s why, although a plethora of recent statistics might tell us otherwise, many would still pony for Gianluigi Buffon over, say, Marc-Andre ter Stegen as the world’s finest keeper. One’s been at the top of his craft for over 20 years, the other for just a few.
Bobby Wood spent an anonymous 56 minutes on the pitch last weekend in Hamburg’s 2-1 defeat to Hertha Berlin, consigning the club to 16th in the 18-team Bundesliga and opening Wood to fierce criticism from manager Markus Gisdol. Wood has started nine league matches for Hamburg this term, but he’s only managed a single goal. That was back in August.
Real Madrid’s shocking 2-1 defeat to Girona yesterday marked the fourth occasion in which Los Blancos have failed to capture all three points this season, a worrying trend that’s seen Barcelona open an eight-point gap on their fiercest rivals after only 10 matches. Real’s attack has been uncharacteristically blunt this campaign, and Cristiano Ronaldo’s return of only one goal in 540 minutes of action has garnered the most attention.
England has five teams in the Champions League for the first time and amazingly all of them are still unbeaten through three matches in group play. Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Tottenham all lead their groups with a combined 11 wins, four draws and no losses.
Does your goalie like to pick out passes to nearby teammates and help the team play out of the back or does he like to hoof it up the park to get it as far away from him as possible? The answer may determine your spot in the English Premier League table. Goalie distribution is almost directly correlated to EPL success according to the chart below.
This graphic shows the percentage of passes from EPL goalies that are long balls and the top five teams are all among the top seven teams through seven games in the 2017-18 season.
The 2017-18 season is young, but dribbling is a young man’s game. According to WhoScored.com, these are the 10 players that, on average, are completing the most dribbles per game (minimum of five league matches). While you’ll find many of the usual suspects off to a flying start with regards to ending defenders’ careers, there are also some of the hottest young prospects in the world here.
Manchester City winger Leroy Sané has set a new record as the fastest player in the EPL. The 21-year-old German was clocked at 22.05 mph during City’s 1-0 win over Chelsea on Saturday. It was the highest speed recorded since Opta began keeping such stats for the English Premier League.
With Karim Benzema recovering from a hamstring injury, Gareth Bale resting due to a hamstring complaint of his own and Cristiano Ronaldo increasing his La Liga tally to 23 shots without a goal, Real Madrid relied on Isco’s best performance of the season to defeat Espanyol 2-0 on Sunday and stay within seven points of early pacesetters Barcelona.