Archive for October 2008
Gunners, Spurs in pulsating draw
Spurs were 4-2 down with just minutes to the end of the match but they managed to level the score to bring the highlight of round 10 in the premiership.
This was the first 4 all draw for this season and and in total there has been 20 draws out of a total of 99 matches.
Interestingly before this match Spurs had managed to score seven goals and in one match they increased their goals scored by just over 30%.
The table below shows the draw score and the frequency of that score:
| Scoreline | Frequency |
|---|---|
| 0-0 | 7 |
| 1-1 | 9 |
| 2-2 | 3 |
| 3-3 | 0 |
| 4-4 | 1 |
| 5-5 | 0 |
The most popular score for a draw so far this season is 1-1.
Elsewhere, for the first time Hull lost to a London club after losing three nil to Chelsea and Liverpool maintained top position with a 1-nil win over Portsmouth.
At the bottom of the ladder, Newcastle crawled out of the relegation zone after beating West Browmwich Albion 2-1 and joining Spurs in the drop zone are now Wigan and Bolton.
The standout fixture for round 11 is the match between top and bottom as Spurs host Liverpool at White Hart Lane.
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Spurs win as Chelsea lose
Liverpool inflicted a rare home defeat on Chelsea and now they remain they only unbeaten side in the competition and add also top the ladder.
For Spurs it was their first win of the season and their first win in the league since a 1 nil win over Reading in early May.
Spurs last home win was against Portsmouth in March when they won by two goals to nil.
Another result that could have a bearing on the title is Manchester United's draw against Everton.
Hull City's winning run continued after beating fellow promoted side West Bromwich Albion 3 nil and their next match is a very interesting one as they face Chelsea at home.
Hull hasn't lost to a London side so far in the premier league.
They have beaten Arsenal, West Ham, Spurs, Fulham and now they face the remaining London based side they haven't played so far and so its going to be interesting to see if they can also beat Chelsea and overtake them on the ladder.
Sydney back on track
Also like in the previous round, only one losing team managed to score a goal and this time it was Perth Glory who scored the only goal to be scored by the losing sides.
So the winning sides are managing to keep clean sheets and in a round of very few goals, Melbourne Victory lost by the biggest margin of two goals but finished their match with eleven players.
It was back to winning ways for Sydney FC and Queensland Roar and back to losing ways for the Glory and Wellington Phoenix and this week we look at the form of all the teams in the last six matches.
The notation is W for a win, D for a draw and L for a loss.
| Team | Recent Form |
|---|---|
| Adelaide United FC | LLWDWW |
| Central Coast Mariners | DDWDLW |
| Melbourne Victory | WDLWLL |
| Newcastle Jets | DWLDWL |
| Perth Glory | LWLLWL |
| Queensland Roar | WLWDLW |
| Sydney FC | DWLDLW |
| Wellington Phoenix | DLWDWL |
So basically every team in the last six matches but the Central Coast Mariners have lost only once with the remaining seven teams having lost at least twice.
Adelaide reach AFC Champions League final
The AFC Champions League final is two legged affair and the first leg will be in Osaka on the 5th of November with the second leg in Adelaide a week later.
By reaching the final Adelaide will also go to 2008 FIFA Club World Cup in Japan in December where they could potentially meet English Premier League champions Manchester United.
If Adelaide win then there will be three teams in the AFC Champions league next season because Adelaide will go in as defending champions. The other two teams will be Newcastle Jets and Central Coast Mariners.
In future the Asian Champions League is a tournament we could have on TipsChallenge.
Barcelona remain unbeaten
Half the matches finished 1-0 and there were two draws draws in the matches between Atletico Madrid and Liverpool (one all) and then a two all draw between Panathinaikos and Werder Bremen.
For the record a total of 17 goals were scored and this is less than half the goals scored on day 1.
Bordeaux and Panathinaikos got their first points of the campaign whilst Basel and Marseille are still to pick up their first points.
Barcelona maintained their 100% record and its the only team in the competition with a 100% record and nine points.
CFR Cluj-Napoca suffered their first defeat against Bordeaux but maintain their second position in Group A as Roma went down to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
The next round sees the reverse fixtures and so lets see if the clubs that lost in this round can turn around the tables in the next round.
Villareal hit Aalborg for six
Villareal beat Aalborg 6-3 and Manchester United beat Celtic 3 nil.
It should be noted that Celtic is the only team in the whole competition without a single goal to its name in the competition so far this season.
In Group G it was goals galore in a match between Fenerbahce and Arsenal where the Gunners won 5-2 and were leading 3-1 at half-time. The other match between Porto and Dynamo Kiev finished 1-0 in favour of the visitors and hence a total of 8 goals in that group.
In Group F, Steaua Bucharest and Lyon had another high scoring encounter with Lyon emerging victors with a scoreline of 5-3. Steaua Bucharest scored all their three goals before half-time and were actually leading 3-2 at the half way mark.
In the other match, Bayern Munich powered past Fiorentina with a 3 nil victory. So that was eleven goals in that group.
Finally, Group H had the least number of goals with just five scored.
Group H was also the group where none of the teams managed to score at least three goals but its also the only group where all four teams managed to score at least one goal.
So a total of 36 goals were scored in eight matches averaging four goals per match.
City snare point at St. James Park
On Saturday there were three draws and all finished goalless.
These were the matches between Aston Villa and Portsmouth, Fulham and Sunderland and Blackburn Rovers and Bolton Wanderers.
Manchester City have struggled since beating Portsmouth 6-nil and the round 8 point is the first one since that match.
On the other hand this is the second successive 2-all draw for Newcastle after drawing Everton in their last match.
Hull continued its hold over London clubs beating West Ham by an odd goal to stay third in the ladder.
Hull has beaten both Tottenham and Arsenal in its previous two matches.
Hull will need to start scoring more goals to match the goal differences of the teams around it on the ladder.
We can now take a look at every team's results in the last six matches in terms of winning(W), drawing(D) and losing(L):
| Team | Last six matches |
|---|---|
| Arsenal | WWWLDW |
| Aston Villa | DWWWLD |
| Blackburn | LLWWLD |
| Bolton | DLLLWD |
| Chelsea | DWDWWW |
| Everton | LWDLDL |
| Fulham | WWLLLD |
| Hull City | LWDWWW |
| Liverpool | DWDWWW |
| Manchester City | LLWLLD |
| Manchester United | WLDWWW |
| Middlesbrough | WLLLWL |
| Newcastle | LLLLDD |
| Portsmouth | WWLWWD |
| Stoke City | LLDLLW |
| Sunderland | LDWLDD |
| Tottenham | DLDLLL |
| West Bromwich Albion | DWLWWL |
| West Ham | WLWWLL |
| Wigan | WDDWLL |
So in the last six matches Liverpool and Chelsea have been the best performers and Spurs and Newcastle the worst.
Upsets all round in A-League
Its interesting to see that after eight rounds only three teams have more than two wins and these are Melbourne Victory, Sydney FC and Adelaide United.
Adelaide has only scored two away goals this season and both the goals have been scored against Queensland at the Suncorp Stadium. Unfortunately the next match against the Roar will be at Hindmarsh.
Wellington Phoenix scored its first away win with a lone goal against the Central Coast Mariners. This win follows a win over Sydney at home in round 7.
Newcastle also needed just one goal to beat the ten men Melbourne outfit.
This is the third round of this season when there has been no draws and its interesting to see that all the wins were by a one goal margin.
Sydney FC was the only losing team to score a goal and next they meet Victory away.
A-League teams' goals
The table below shows the number of goals each team has scored since the start of the A-League and these goals include those scored in the finals series but does not include those scored in the pre-season friendly.
New Zealand Knights is also included and for a comparison there is a similar post on this blog here.
| Home | Home | Away | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adelaide United FC | 70 | 41 | 111 |
| Central Coast Mariners | 61 | 48 | 109 |
| Melbourne Victory | 63 | 57 | 120 |
| New Zealand Knights | 19 | 9 | 28 |
| Newcastle Jets | 54 | 48 | 102 |
| Perth Glory | 46 | 46 | 92 |
| Queensland Roar | 41 | 50 | 91 |
| Sydney FC | 56 | 56 | 112 |
| Wellington Phoenix | 20 | 12 | 32 |
So Melbourne Victory has scored the highest number of goals so far at 120 and of the teams that started the league in 2006, Queensland Roar has scored the least with 91 goals.
Also only the Roar and Perth Glory are the only teams still to reach a century from the teams that entered league in season one.
There will another post after the grand final to check how many goals each team would have scored then.
Mariners stage amazing comeback
Adelaide were two up at half-time and then 3 up early in the second half but the Mariners managed to fight back and force a draw. At least Adelaide did not end up losing because that would have been painful for their fans after such a high early in the match.
Round 7 is finished and every team has played each other now and the ladder seems to suggest top five teams so far with the three teams somehow struggling.
All this can change in the second third if the struggling teams correct their mistakes and in the case of Perth Glory tighten their defence and also start to score goals.
A third of the season has now gone in the A-League and maybe its now time to look in more details into the first and second halves.
We have seen 86 goals scored in this first third and of these home teams scored the bulk of them with 51 goals.
Its not surprising that a lot of these goals have been scored in the second half where a total of 51 goals were scored.
A lot of matches go to half time at nil all and hence only 35 goals were scored in the second half.
Below are two tables that show team performance when considering just one half.
The first table is the first half table and this only considers the results from the first half only.
| Team | Played | Goal Diff | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adelaide United FC | 7 | 3 | 14 |
| Sydney FC | 7 | 6 | 13 |
| Melbourne Victory | 7 | 5 | 13 |
| Central Coast Mariners | 7 | 1 | 9 |
| Queensland Roar | 7 | 1 | 7 |
| Newcastle Jets | 7 | -2 | 6 |
| Wellington Phoenix | 7 | -2 | 5 |
| Perth Glory | 7 | -12 | 2 |
The second table is just for the second half.
| Team | Played | Goal Diff | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Melbourne Victory | 7 | 5 | 14 |
| Central Coast Mariners | 7 | 3 | 11 |
| Queensland Roar | 7 | 1 | 9 |
| Sydney FC | 7 | 0 | 8 |
| Perth Glory | 7 | -1 | 8 |
| Adelaide United FC | 7 | -1 | 7 |
| Newcastle Jets | 7 | -4 | 7 |
| Wellington Phoenix | 7 | -3 | 6 |
and now the real table:
| Team | Played | Goal Diff | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Melbourne Victory | 7 | 10 | 14 |
| Sydney FC | 7 | 6 | 12 |
| Adelaide United FC | 7 | 2 | 11 |
| Central Coast Mariners | 7 | 4 | 10 |
| Queensland Roar | 7 | 2 | 9 |
| Newcastle Jets | 7 | -6 | 7 |
| Wellington Phoenix | 7 | -5 | 6 |
| Perth Glory | 7 | -13 | 4 |
We will have a similar review after round 14 and also at the end of the season.
Hull's march continues
This time Hull beat ladder propping Tottenham who are themselves winless following their win last week against Arsenal.
The next match for Hull will be at home and against another London side West Ham and if they win that match then they will maintain third spot on the ladder.
On the other hand Spurs next match is away against another promoted side Stoke City and after that it will another home match against Bolton Wanderers.
Manchester City's big win over Portsmouth seems after away now after the team failed to win against Wigan last week and then Liverpool this week.
After leading 2 nil at half time, Liverpool came back to score three goals in the second half including one in injury time.
A draw for Man City would have been its first draw of the season. Four other teams are still to draw a match this season and these are Fulham, Middlesbrough, West Ham and Portsmouth.
CFR Cluj make a point
The Champions League debutants will now meet bottom placed Bordeaux and wins in both matches could secure them at least third place in that group if not qualification to the next stage.
Only three teams are to concede a goal so far - Chelsea, Manchester United and Villareal. Finally there were goals in Group G but it still remains the group with the lowest number of goals scored with just four goals scored so far.
Just four teams out of the thirty two have a hundred percent record so far with Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Liverpool all winning their first two matches.
In the group D Liverpool will next meet Atletico Madrid in back to back matches and by the end of them will have
lost their hundred percent record.
