Monday, 10 March 2014

Football news, match reports and fixtures | theguardian.com

07:12

By: TBMU Admin On: 07:12   In:   No comments

Football news, match reports and fixtures | theguardian.com

Uwe Rösler's ruse keeps Wigan on front foot against Manchester City | Michael Cox

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 03:31 PM PDT

Latics played three centre-backs against City's two strikers and their attackers drifted wide to prevent home full-backs advancing

Before Wigan's excellent 2-1 victory at the Etihad Stadium, Uwe Rösler insisted he had not spent much time talking about their opponents. "This time, we just focused upon us," he said. It was something of a ruse: Wigan completely changed their usual strategy, reverting to the approach they used in the FA Cup final victory over Manchester City last season and nullifying Manuel Pellegrini's side superbly.

Wigan switched to a three-man defence, the approach Roberto Martínez employed so effectively at Wembley. City still use two strikers up front and therefore a three-man backline makes sense against them – two to track opponents, one to act as the spare man – yet many Premier League sides are too proud to change their approach so drastically. The security at the back allowed Wigan to press high up the pitch, closing down Yaya Touré particularly keenly, and they retained possession without fear of being caught two against two in defence when moves broke down.

Wigan's wing-backs shuffled back efficiently to defend the flanks but they had no one to defend directly against City's full-backs. Instead, Rösler told his attackers to drift wide and dissuade Gaël Clichy and Micah Richards from attacking, with Callum McManaman again causing Clichy problems with his tricky dribbling. Wigan's only problem was on the opposite side because City had not used an out-and-out winger in the FA Cup final, so Jesús Navas was something new – he seemed the most likely to cause problems by finding space between Wigan's left wing-back, Stephen Crainey, and surprise left-sided centre-back, Chris McCann.

Wigan's chances were sporadic, usually on the break, but they created more than City in the first 50 minutes. With City 2-0 down, Pellegrini's treble change brought renewed momentum to his side's attacking play, although the substitutions changed little in a pure tactical sense. Arguably, the most crucial substitution was Rösler's removal of a tired McManaman because his replacement, James McClean, failed to offer such an attacking threat. This allowed City to push their full-backs forward, Wigan defended much deeper and the striker Marc-Antoine Fortuné was isolated for long spells.

Although Wigan spent the last 20 minutes camped inside their own box, and rode their luck at times, they did not win this match by parking the bus. They won because they changed their shape to suit the unique demands of facing City and were disciplined, brave and positive with their pressing and passing. It was a thoroughly merited win.

Michael Cox

theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Tim Sherwood deplores spiritless Tottenham after Chelsea debacle

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 03:30 PM PDT

• Manager says players need to 'stand up and be counted'
• 'I need people in the dressing room to be hurting like I am'

For Tim Sherwood, it was the day when it all seemed to become too much. Never mind the second-half capitulation from his Tottenham Hotspur players, when they effectively supplied all four assists in the victory that sent Chelsea seven points clear at the top of the Premier League. It is the broader situation at the club that is making his temples pound.

The manager knows that the chairman, Daniel Levy, intends to replace him with Louis van Gaal, currently Holland's coach, after the World Cup finals and, were that not insulting enough, there has been no attempt at boardroom level to stop the whispering campaign. "The silence is deafening," Sherwood said.

A further round of musical chairs looms at White Hart Lane, with the technical director, Franco Baldini, also expected to leave. Baldini, who joined only last June, has come to be blamed for the poor performance of the seven summer signings.

They arrived at a cost of £110.5m and nobody oversees that level of spend without intense scrutiny. None of them started at Stamford Bridge, although it should be noted that Erik Lamela, Christian Eriksen, Vlad Chiriches and Étienne Capoue were injured. Paulinho was introduced after Younès Kaboul's red card, which came for the contact on Samuel Eto'o and which was also punished by Eden Hazard's penalty, and Roberto Soldado and Nacer Chadli were unused substitutes.

The Tottenham restructuring is underway, with Levy having re-signed the club's former chief scout, Ian Broomfield, from Queens Park Rangers. Broomfield, who had been pursued by Arsenal, originally left Tottenham to follow the former manager Harry Redknapp to Loftus Road. It is understood that Sherwood had no knowledge of Broomfield's appointment. The club say that Broomfield will work as a scout under Baldini.

Sherwood has said that he would not be prepared to return to his old job as the technical co-ordinator, in which he was responsible for the club's young players and he was asked whether he might consider staying on as the assistant manager. There is the desire at the club to retain him in the capacity.

"No, I never want to be a No2," Sherwood said. "I feel like I can do the No1 job. I'd be no good as a No2. I'm too opinionated.

"There is a place for a technical director … someone who sees the club from the bottom to the top on the training field. A lot of clubs need to have people like that, otherwise you get no continuity and you end up buying seven to 10 players every window, and your turnover of players is too great."

Levy's appointment of Baldini was meant to aid the continuity from one manager to the next and stop spending sprees, although Sherwood seemed to suggest that the role had to go deeper, to include youth levels. He has long championed promotion from the ranks and joined-up thinking which, he argues, would also save money on the market. Sherwood could be attracted by a wider technical remit at the club.

Sherwood was emotional on Saturday and he is not the type to bottle things up. Wisely or otherwise, his targets included the players, who caved in after Kaboul's sending-off and who Sherwood had to tellto go and acknowledge the travelling fans.

"Capitulations are happening too often to say that we are rock solid and blessed with so many characters," Sherwood said. "When things go against us, that's when we are going missing. More and more we need to stand up and be counted."

Sherwood became involved in an exchange of views with the Chelsea assistant first-team coach, Steve Holland, who he felt had been guilty of making "patronising" comments to him. "But, to be honest, I was in that kind of mood to blow up with anyone so no hard feelings," Sherwood added.

It was put to him that he might welcome the public backing of Levy, who did not attend this game. "It's up to Daniel," Sherwood said. "One thing I guarantee is that no one cares more than me. I want the team to do very well and it hurts me when they don't. I need people in that dressing room to be hurting like I am."

Chelsea march on and the victory was testament to their patience and ruthless edge. All it took was one slip and panicky back-pass from Jan Vertonghen to see Eto'o score and the home team press hard on the jugular. Tottenham complained about the penalty/red card one-two punch but José Mourinho bristled at the notion that Eto'o had bought the decision.

"You know the kings of the penalties … you know where they are and they're not here," Mourinho said. The Chelsea manager noted how Hazard had stayed on his feet in the fourth minute, having gone round Hugo Lloris, only to shoot wide when off balance. "Other players with other shirts would go for a penalty and a red card for the keeper," Mourinho said. "Hazard did it in a nice way. That's the way he is."

Mourinho is rather more cynical and his post-match message took in the assertion that Liverpool had to be spoken of as title contenders, particularly as they have been unencumbered by the demands of European football. "This is a big, big, big advantage," Mourinho said.

Sherwood saw only negatives.

Man of the match Samuel Eto'o (Chelsea)

David Hytner

theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Arsène Wenger hails Mesut Özil as Arsenal playmaker ends troubled run

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 03:30 PM PDT

• 'Özil outstanding from the first to the last minute,' said manager
• Arsenal glad to recover poise before Bayern Munich game

It was typical that, when Mesut Özil ambled to the touchline at full-time to lob his shirt into the crowd, the action was more a nonchalant swish of his arm than a pumped-up chuck. This maverick playmaker seems to do everything at his own subtle pace and with his own elusive style, whatever life throws at him.

There was no emotional outpouring of relief or catharsis as he put a troubled spell behind him with a high-calibre performance. Arsène Wenger described his contribution as "absolutely outstanding from the first to the last minute" and there was a freshness about the way he took the initiative to help sway a compelling Cup tie against Everton. The combination of a clinically taken goal, a gossamer-touch assist and a work ethic that showed an uncharacteristic desire to track back gave Wenger particular satisfaction. It was reassuring to see his star turn tick all the boxes.

Wenger admitted afterwards that Özil needed time to recover from the crushing disappointment of missing a highly tense, high-profile penalty against Bayern Munich in the first leg of Arsenal's Champions League bout. "I think it affected him mentally too much," Wenger said. "It was not only physical, it was mental. He had the feeling he let the team down at a very important moment of the game. That affected his performance very much. Psychologically sometimes the wound is like a physical one. You can talk and talk and talk but it takes time. You just have to leave it to time. I think he is over it. He has a good opportunity to show on Tuesday night how good he is."

The German public will get another close look at him as Arsenal travel to the Allianz Arena to try to overturn a two-goal deficit. That may be a test of his renewed confidence, especially after the peculiar experience of being whistled by the home crowd as he played for his country last week. But Wenger is keen for Özil to think only about playing as well as possible and making his own – and therefore his team's – game even more productive.

Wenger has challenged him to score more goals. In steering Santi Cazorla's pass into the far corner of Joel Robles' net Özil showed the kind of instincts his manager hopes to make more prominent. "I would like him to find the right balance between being a provider and finisher," Wenger said. "At the moment the balance is a bit detrimental to the finishing. His strong side is providing. But he is pacy – much quicker than people think – and with that technical quality and that pace, if he gets into the right areas and with the service we have, he can score goals. He wants to score more goals, I am convinced of that."

Wenger was also pleased to see Özil's improved commitment to the "dirty work" side of the game, suggesting, "he was absolutely in a different physical shape" from the figure that drifted through his slump.

A twice-taken penalty from Mikel Arteta after Romelu Lukaku nudged in an equaliser gave Arsenal the edge. But it was not until Olivier Giroud and Tomas Rosicky began driving at some weary Everton legs that a handsome gap opened up. Late on they missed the security of Phil Jagielka's combination with Sylvain Distin, as Arsenal raided with finesse to make for a harsh scoreline from an Everton perspective. "Small margins were always going to dictate who would go through," Roberto Martínez said. "But the difference between us getting through and not was minimal and that allows you to work on making sure we can progress and grow." Ross Barkley's display was particularly thrilling, even if he felt some frustration in skimming a fine chance over. Barkley and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain both put in effervescent performances to push their cases for the World Cup.

Oxlade-Chamberlain is desperate for Arsenal to get the trophy monkey off their back and hopes a trip to Wembley in the semi-final can push them towards their goal. "It's the first time we've been there since I've been at Arsenal, so it's definitely a big thing for us," he said. "We want to be excited but approach it very professionally, calm and cool as we can. Hopefully we can get through and get to the final. Every step, every round you go through, you get that little bit closer and you get hungrier and hungrier for the end result."

They now turn their attention to an improbable mission at Bayern, who thrashed Wolfsburg 6-1 on Saturday to break a Bundesliga record with a 16th consecutive win. Arsenal are glad to have recovered some spirit and poise but it may not be quite enough to overwhelm the most confident club side in world football. With that in mind, a continued FA Cup run is even more meaningful.

Man of the match Mesut Özil (Arsenal)

Amy Lawrence

theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Real Madrid 3-0 Levante | La Liga match report

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 02:51 PM PDT

• Cristiano Ronaldo scores goal 24 in defeat of Levante
• Carlo Ancelotti's side four points clear of champions

Real Madrid took full advantage of Barcelona's shock defeat at Real Valladolid with a 3-0 home win over 10-man Levante on Sunday that put Carlo Ancelotti's in-form side three points clear at the top of La Liga.

Cristiano Ronaldo, the leading scorer in Spain this season, took his tally to 24 goals when he headed the opener from Angel Di Maria's corner in the 11th minute and Marcelo added a second from Ronaldo's assist four minutes after the break.

David Navarro was harshly shown a straight red card in the 64th minute for an innocuous-looking tackle on Ronaldo and his fellow Levante defender Nikos Karampelas put the ball into his own net nine minutes from time.

Ronaldo, who became Portugal's leading scorer with a double against Cameroon in Wednesday's 5-1 friendly victory, came close to a second in the 90th minute when he headed against the underside of the crossbar and Gareth Bale whistled a low shot just past the post in added time.

"I don't think it was a perfect game but we were close," the Brazil international Marcelo said in an interview with the Spanish television broadcaster Canal Plus. "We were a bit weaker in the first half than the second but the important thing was that we didn't concede any goals and in that respect we have improved a lot.

"We couldn't afford to stumble today and, of course, it's better when the others lose but we are focusing on ourselves."

Real, unbeaten in 29 matches in all competitions, have 67 points with 11 matches left and Atletico Madrid are three behind in second after they won 2-0 at Celta Vigo on Saturday.

The champions Barcelona, who play at Real in the La Liga "Clasico" in two weeks time, turned in one of their worst performances of the campaign on Saturday to lose 1-0 at Valladolid, who are battling relegation, and slipped to third on 63 points.


theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Wigan's Uwe Rösler dedicates repeat win over City to Ben Watson

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 01:36 PM PDT

• Manager feeds off Martínez recipe in 2-1 FA Cup win
• Manuel Pellegrini accuses Manchester City of complacency

A triumphant Uwe Rösler hailed his Wigan Athletic players and said they deserved the credit after they stunned Manchester City in the FA Cup again, winning 2-1 at the Etihad Stadium to set up a semi-final against Arsenal next month, while Manuel Pellegrini effectively accused his players of complacency.

Wigan beat City 1-0 in last year's final, yet few people gave them a chance of causing another upset, especially not at a stadium where City have scored goals for fun this season. City, having secured the Capital One Cup with last Sunday's 3-1 victory over Sunderland, were going for a domestic treble, only to be undone by their own lethargy and Wigan's refusal to let go of the trophy they won in such style last May. Wigan are seventh in the Championship but deserved their victory, which they earned with goals in either half from Jordi Gómez and James Perch.

"I think it's the worst first half we've had in the year because we didn't have the pace to play against a team that is in a good moment," said Pellegrini. "They won five games in a row so we knew before the match we are going to play a difficult team. Maybe we thought that was not going to be so difficult and when we reacted it was too late."

Rösler, who arrived from Brentford in December after Owen Coyle was sacked, was not fazed by facing City, whom he represented for four years as a player in the mid-90s. He dedicated the win to Ben Watson, who was the hero at Wembley last year but was absent on Sunday because of a broken leg.

Rösler, asked how he was feeling, said: "Drained. Happy. I am very happy for my players and staff and for Ben Watson, because he was a big incentive for us to do well for him."

Rösler said that he took inspiration from the way that Roberto Martínez, who was in charge of Wigan at the time, approached the final last year. "Last season was an unbelievable achievement from Roberto and his men to win the FA Cup and put Wigan on the map worldwide," Rösler said. "But to follow that up and reach the semi-final of the FA Cup is equally strong.

"I studied Roberto's tactics. He put out a very brave gameplan. I saw the league game where City won in the last five minutes 1-0 and Roberto's team played periods to perfection.

"We tried to replicate part of it but bringing our own identity, pressing and counterattacking. I felt in the first half we surprised Manchester City because a lot of teams show Manchester City respect deservedly. Our only chance was to keep the ball in tight areas."

Rösler heard before kick-off that Wigan would play Arsenal if they won but he did not let that affect him. "I knew about the draw before the game but that didn't stop my players putting effort in," he said. "I never thought somebody would achieve that again. The players deserve all the credit. If you ask a young manager, who has a chance to climb up the ladder, a semi-final at Wembley against Arsenal – of course you take it."

Wigan were tenacious throughout. They took the lead through Gómez's penalty, doubled it through Perch and then held on after Samir Nasri's goal in the 68th minute, which Rösler felt should have been disallowed for offside. Despite a late City onslaught, Wigan's togetherness was emphasised by a wonderful saving challenge by Emmerson Boyce to deny Edin Dzeko an equaliser.

"That tackle was a match-winning, decisive moment for us," Rösler said. "That has shown the desire and willpower we have shown today. I can only take my hat off. Emmerson is a symbol of that, not only today, but since I worked in the club."

For Pellegrini, the defeat was hard to explain and he faces a difficult task to raise City's spirits before the second leg of their last-16 Champions League tie against Barcelona on Wednesday. City trail 2-0 from the first leg and will need a vast improvement if they are to overhaul that deficit at Camp Nou.

Pellegrini did attempt to put a positive spin on the defeat. "Winning always gives you confidence but maybe a game like this can bring a reaction to the team," he said.

Jacob Steinberg

theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Manchester City v Wigan - as it happened | Nick Miller

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 11:11 AM PDT

Minute-by-minute report: Wigan repeated their remarkable FA Cup final win by beating Manchester City 2-1 to make it through to face Arsenal in the semi-final

Nick Miller

Manchester City 1-2 Wigan

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 11:11 AM PDT

All the billions in the world and Manchester City still cannot rid themselves of the most persistent thorn in their side. Once again, against all the odds, against all available logic, Wigan Athletic have stunned City in the FA Cup. A Wembley semi-final against Arsenal is theirs and the trophy is still theirs. The holders are still standing. How do they do it? Wigan, bloody hell.

Last year it was the final and Ben Watson's crazy last-minute winner. That was the greatest day in their history, but this was just as remarkable. This time it was a quarter-final at Fortress Etihad where no one, probably not even Wigan, truly expected lightning to strike twice. Yet goals in either half from Jordi Gómez and James Perch inspired them and then, in the face of a relentless City onslaught, they simply would not budge, throwing heart, body and soul in the way of a ball which seemed destined for their net on several occasions. For their manager, Uwe Rösler, a former City striker, it is undoubtedly the greatest result of his career.

As for City, a domestic treble is off the cards and they must haul themselves off the floor quickly with the second leg of their last-16 Champions League tie against Barcelona on Wednesday. Although they believe they can overhaul their 2-0 deficit, they cannot afford to be as lethargic as this at Camp Nou, and the time is surely approaching when Manuel Pellegrini's faith in Martín Demichelis wavers. The Argentinian remains a danger to his own team, clumsily conceding the penalty which allowed Gómez to put Wigan ahead, and it was clear that City's audibly frustrated fans do not trust him.

City can have no excuses. The visit of a Championship side would not normally send a shiver down their spine but they knew that Wigan were underdogs who would snap at their heels and that they possessed a potent bite if they were not kept on a firm leash. It is 10 months since they lost to the Latics in last season's final, something that the visiting supporters were intent on reminding everyone. That said, they could not be too afraid of Wigan given that they beat them 5-0 in the third round of the Capital One Cup in September; yet City played with the sluggishness of a side that was still recovering from beating Sunderland in the final of that competition last Sunday.

Not to take anything away from Wigan. This was an emotional afternoon for Rösler, who replaced Owen Coyle in December. The German spent four years at City in the mid-90s, named one of his sons Colin after Colin Bell and was inducted into the club's Hall of Fame by supporters. Rösler's challenge was not only to drag every last drop of sweat out of a team that was playing their 52nd match of the season because of their Europa League commitments but also not to be overcome by the emotion of the occasion.

Judging by the fearless way Wigan went about their task, there was no danger of that happening. Rösler caught City by surprise by setting Wigan up in a 5-3-2 formation that allowed them to squeeze space and dominate Yaya Touré in midfield.

For a club of City's vast resources, it is staggering that they are forced to rely on a player who always looks to be on the verge of calamity and it was hardly a surprise that Demichelis was at fault when Wigan took the lead after 28 minutes. Rolled far too easily by Marc-Antoine Fortuné, Demichelis compounded his error by standing on the striker's foot. In the absence of the injured Watson, Gómez converted the penalty.

It was happening again, but surely Wigan could not have dreamt that they would double their lead a minute into the second half. Once again, City's defending was clownish. James McArthur drove into the area on the left and pulled a low cross towards the far post, where the horribly timid Gaël Clichy allowed Perch to bundle the ball past Costel Pantilimon.

City had been woeful, their anger at their own inertia summed up when Samir Nasri received a booking for dissent, and they did not have a shot on target until the 66th minute.

However, Pellegrini, who made six changes from the win over Sunderland, responded by making three substitutions after 53 minutes and Nasri restored hope when his belting shot from the edge of the area went through the bodies and into the bottom left corner after 67 minutes. The goal stood even though Joleon Lescott was offside and arguably blocking Scott Carson's view.

Nonetheless there were 23 minutes left for Wigan to hold on and soon Micah Richards was curling a shot inches wide. Then, with 10 minutes left, Emmerson Boyce extraordinarily turned James Milner's cross over his own bar with Edin Dzeko waiting to tap home. A minute later, Carson saved from Sergio Agüero. Then, as Carson stood still, Dzeko headed wide.

Surely Wigan could not hold on. Surely City would score a second, then a third. But that's what we thought last May.

Man of the match Emmerson Boyce (Wigan Athletic)

Jacob Steinberg

theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Caribbean nations prepare demand for slavery reparations

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 10:26 AM PDT

Academic who drafted plan for support from former slaving nations says 'Our aim is to open a dialogue with European states'

Ed Pilkington

José Mourinho: Samuel Eto'o's old man celebration was funny - video

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 09:32 AM PDT

Chelsea manager José Mourinho has seen the lighter side of Samuel Eto'o's old man impression during Saturday's 4-0 drubbing of Tottenham Hotspur

FA Cup semi-final draw pits Arsenal against Wigan Athletic

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 09:29 AM PDT

• Arsenal look to end nine year wait for a trophy
• League One Sheffield United face Hull at Wembley

Arsenal will face Wigan in the semi-finals of the FA Cup as they bid to end their nine-year wait for silverware while Hull will play Sheffield United in the other match at Wembley.

The Gunners most recent trophy came in 2005 when they defeated Manchester United on penalties at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium to lift the FA Cup and they booked their place in the last four after thrashing Everton 4-1 on Saturday.

Hull earned their place at Wembley with a 3-0 victory over Sunderland on Sunday to line up an all-Yorkshire clash against Sky Bet League One side Sheffield United.

In beating Charlton 2-0, the Blades became the first club from the third tier to reach the semi-finals of the competition since Wycombe in 2001.

Sheffield United manager Nigel Clough was a losing finalist at Wembley in the 1991 FA Cup final as a player with Nottingham Forest and he will be aiming to take his side all the way to the final, with a Yorkshire team guaranteed a place thanks to Sunday's draw.

Draw

Wigan v Arsenal

Hull City v Sheffield United


theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Hull 3-0 Sunderland

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 09:16 AM PDT

There were times when David Meyler barely allowed himself to imagine playing professional football again, let alone appearing at Wembley. After enduring two career-saving knee reconstructions Meyler deserves a moment or two in the sun and no Sunderland supporter would begrudge their former midfielder an FA Cup winners' medal.

The Irishman, impressive throughout, scored the second goal – and, in homage to his brush with Alan Pardew last week, celebrated by "head-butting" the corner flag. It was an unseasonably balmy afternoon that left Steve Bruce looking forward to Hull's first semi-final appearance since 1930 as well as celebrating a revenge-spiced third victory of the season over former employers who sacked him two and a half years ago.

"I can't see many fans who were around for the last semi in 1930 making it to Wembley again," said Bruce, whose side have a winnable tie against another of his old teams, Sheffield United. "The FA Cup has, for me, lost a bit of its magic but, when you get to this stage, it becomes exciting."

Having seen Meyler come through two long-haul post-surgery rehabilitations Bruce could not disguise his delight for the player. "David had two horrible knee injuries at Sunderland," he said. "But his determination has made him a firm favourite here… and the way he conducted himself last week was exemplary."

Sunderland's manager, Gus Poyet, looked less happy but hardly heartbroken. Coming a week after their Capital One Cup final defeat by Manchester City and at a time when they remain in acute relegation peril this was the right time for a disappointing Sunderland to bow out of knockout football for a while.

With the visiting manager stating that Saturday's home Premier League game with Crystal Palace is "bigger" than last week's Wembley trip it was no surprise that Poyet rested several key players. "We were not good enough in everything today," he said. "But from now on collecting points is all that matters. Palace is the biggest game of the season."

Although an early Maynor Figueroa cross-shot rebounded off the bar, Hull initially struggled to make clearcut chances. If Bruce's cause was hardly helped by the booking for a high, studs- up tackle on Lee Cattermole that meant the influential Tom Huddlestone needed to watch his step, Sunderland failed, quite dismally, to convert possession into scoring opportunities.

After surviving an early fright when Matty Fryatt headed Ahmed Elmohamdy's cross wide, Poyet's team were weakened by Cattermole's booking, the midfield anchor seeing yellow after a clumsy challengeon a former team-mate.

Meyler may not have been bothered about Pardew's head-butt last week but he was rightly cross with Cattermole. So, too, were several Hull players, while Bruce berated the visiting bench.

It all served to place an electrical charge beneath Hull. Galvanised by righteous indignation they raised their game as Sunderland's creative block intensified.

Poyet's team conceded a penalty following Sebastian Larsson's trip on Sone Aluko but Aluko's ensuing low kick was so weak Oscar Ustari made a decent but reasonably comfortable save. Ustari then did well to repel Liam Rosenior's 30-yard shot as the tie drifted towards half-time.

With the impasse extending past the hour and an unwanted replay beckoning, Sunderland liberated Fabio Borini and Adam Johnson from the bench but, within a minute, Hull were ahead.

Huddlestone's beautifully weighted free-kick from beside the corner flag served as a reminder that this supreme technician should surely not be excluded from England's World Cup squad, before being met by the defensively outstanding Curtis Davies whose excellent header easily evaded Ustari's grasp.

Then came Meyler's moment. The substitute George Boyd initiated a swift counter-attack and Meyler gleefully dispossessed Cattermole before cutting in from the right and beating Ustari with a left-foot shot. Pardew may or may not have been amused by his celebratory encounter with the corner flag.

The early spring sunshine was starting to fade but sufficient time remained for Fryatt to intercept Cattermole's slapdash attempted back-pass before slipping the ball beyond the Argentinian keeper and ensuring the final whistle was greeted by a pitch invasion of the most joyous variety.

Man of the match David Meyler (Hull City)

Louise Taylor

theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Hull v Sunderland: FA Cup – as it happened | Toby Moses

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 09:04 AM PDT

Minute-by-minute report: Will Sunderland beat Hull to continue their good form in cup competitions? Join Toby Moses NOW to find out

Toby Moses

Luke Shaw shows England credentials in Southampton win at Crystal Palace

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 08:24 AM PDT

• Jay Rodriguez's first-half goal secures points at Selhurst Park
• Palace manager, Tony Pulis, says his side 'must stay focused'

Roy Hodgson has told Luke Shaw to ignore comparisons with Chelsea's Ashley Cole as the pair compete for a World Cup berth at left-back behind Leighton Baines of Everton, the England manager's first-choice for the position.

The 18-year-old Southampton defender has forced his way into the reckoning for Brazil after making his England debut Denmark. And Shaw produced another mature performance in Saturday's win at Crystal Palace, after which he said Hodgson had spoken to him about the Cole comparisons.

"I try to ignore that sort of stuff, the media attention, as obviously it is going to happen," Shaw said. "I spoke with Roy about it and he said that 'there is nothing you can do about it, this stuff is going to happen'. I am going to keep pushing myself and see what happens at the end of the season.

"I am not thinking about Brazil at all. I've still got nine other games left and I will focus on them and see what happens at the end of the season."

It was another England World Cup hopeful, Jay Rodriguez, who secured Southampton's victory, taking them to 42 points. For Palace, defeat left them two points above the relegation zone with no margin for error when they play Sunderland on Saturday at the Stadium of Light.

"The most important thing is that you stay really focused," said the Palace manager, Tony Pulis. "The lads are very, very disappointed because they've worked very hard and got nothing out of it, but that's the Premier League for you.

"They've got to understand there is quality in every team you play and you have to really be on your mettle - you've got to concentrate for 90 minutes to get those results."


theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Blackburn Rovers 1-2 Burnley | Championship match report

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 07:48 AM PDT

Danny Ings is enjoying a memorable season that hit new heights with Burnley's first winning goal in an east Lancashire derby for 35 years. The striker, capped by England's under-21s for the first time, has now scored 25 times to lead a Burnley promotion challenge that will have gained ever further momentum from a long overdue victory which leaves Sean Dyche's side eight points clear in the second automatic promotion place.

Ings and his captain, Jason Shackell, will now have their names written alongside Brian Hall and Tony Morley in Burnley's history books after securing a repeat of the win Hall and Morley masterminded at Ewood Park in April, 1979.

The wait appeared set to go on when Jordan Rhodes ended his own drought with a first goal since New Year's Day midway through the first half to put Blackburn in front. The Scotland international fired home on the turn and, had he scored and not hit the foot of a post ten minutes into the second half, Rovers may have extended the record.

But Burnley rallied and the introduction of the substitute Ross Wallace paid massive dividends. His free-kick was headed in by Shackell with 18 minutes to go as the Burnley captain scored only his third goal for the club – and second in this fixture following a goal in last season's 1-1 draw in the corresponding fixture.

Burnley's hopes were dashed then by an injury-time leveller from David Dunn but this time they had the final word as the prolific Ings showed his predatory instincts again by driving the ball home after Wallace and Ashley Barnes had combined to tee him up.


theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Sheffield United 2-0 Charlton Athletic | FA Cup quarter-final match report

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 07:33 AM PDT

Nigel Clough concedes he will never emulate the achievements of his great managerial father, Brian, but he is within two victories of winning the one trophy that eluded him. Such thoughts might be fanciful, of course, given Sheffield United's status but in becoming the first third-tier team to reach an FA Cup semi-final since Wycombe inconvenienced Liverpool 13 years ago they have dared the red and white half of this city to dream.

The closest Old Big 'Ead came was in 1991 when his Nottingham Forest team lost to Tottenham Hotspur and an all-Yorkshire tie against Hull awaits for Clough junior. Two goals within two second-half minutes from Ryan Flynn and John Brayford sealed the last-four trip to Wembley next month, as a slow burner of a contest burst into flame.

The scoreline could have been even more emphatic but twice the on-loan Liverpool midfielder's celebrations were terminated by an offside flag. Afterwards, Clough said pride in his team outweighed any personal satisfaction. No wonder, given the standing ovation his players were given to renditions of the club anthem Greasy Chip Butty.

It was their ninth consecutive victory since sinking to second-bottom of League One on 1 February. A clear-the-air meeting that took place between the 3-0 defeat at Crewe Alexandra and United's extra-time elimination of Fulham – their second top-flight scalp following that of Aston Villa in the third round – transformed their season and Clough's determination to lead a team out at the national stadium for the first time was revealed when he made half a dozen changes for the midweek visit of Peterborough United.

"We had one crack, so we wanted to give ourselves every chance to achieve that. It's about the financial boost, everybody enjoying Wembley but we are not going there for the day out, you go to the seaside for a day out, not to Wembley," said Clough, who could have sounded more like his dad only had he laboured the point with a "young man".

Clough's youthful team failed to test the Charlton goalkeeper Ben Hamer during the opening period and his opposite number, Mark Howard, threatened to blot an exemplary record of only one goal conceded during the nine-match run when a bobbling shot from Marcus Tudgay squirmed from his grasp on the half-hour. But it was the only moment of concern for the majority of the 30,040 crowd, United's biggest for three years.

"I thought we were nervous for the first 20-odd minutes and it was important to get in 0-0 at half-time," Clough said. "The atmosphere saps you when you're not used to it and a lot of players were playing in this kind of game for the first time. Little Stefan Scougall has come down from Livingston where he was playing in front of 1500 people and this kind of occasion takes your energy and your breath away.

"When you make your debut, the first thing that hits you is the noise – the big boys, like John Terry, Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard have done it but when they were doing it for the first time they were a bit nervous as well."

There was a greater composure about the hosts after the break, although it took a squandered opportunity by the Championship's bottom club to set them on their way: Johnnie Jackson's quickly taken free-kick on the hour was helped over the advancing Howard by Tudgay but, with the net exposed, Callum Harriott slid his effort wide.

Moments later, Baxter, who switched to the left from a central position after the restart, dinked over the Charlton backline and the unmarked Flynn arrived at the far post to scruffily loop the ball in with his studs. Bramall Lane was still reverberating when Jamie Murphy's scoot down the left flank pulled the visiting defence out of shape and Brayford, borrowed from Cardiff City last month, took advantage of the overload down the right to leave Hamer wrong-footed with a shot that took a deflection off Richard Wood.

United – "the cup team of the season," according to the Charlton manager Chris Powell – held out comfortably to extend Clough's best winning sequence as a Football League manager and guarantee a minimum earn of £2m from their endeavours.

Man of the match Harry Maguire (Sheffield United)

Richard Gibson

theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Sheffield United v Charlton – live! | Nick Miller

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 07:00 AM PDT

Minute-by-minute report: Sheffield United's remarkable FA Cup run continued as they beat Charlton 2-0 to reach the semi-finals, with goals from Ryan Flynn and John Brayford

Nick Miller

Arsenal can still make the Champions League quarters says Arjen Robben - video

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 06:12 AM PDT

Bayern Munich winger Arjen Robben says Arsenal are by no means finished in the Champions League, despite needing to beat the German club away to earn a quarter final spot

Chad Barrett strikes late as Seattle Sounders sink Sporting Kansas City

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 05:30 AM PDT

Chad Barrett scores on debut as champions Kansas City stumble in Seattle while Columbus Crew dispatch DC United 3-0

A-League: what we learned this weekend

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 04:36 AM PDT

Joe Gorman: Sinking Mariners; the Jets' close shave; Sydney's rivalry; Besart Berisha's hunger; and football's monopoly ends

Joe Gorman

David Moyes lauds new attitude in Manchester United's win over West Bromwich Albion - video

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 04:32 AM PDT

Manchester United kept their thin hopes of a top four finish alive with a commanding 3-0 win away to West Bromwich Albion

Arsène Wenger praises Mesut Özil in Arsenal's 4-1 FA Cup win over Everton - video

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 03:49 AM PDT

A rejuvinated Mesut Özil earned the plaudits of manager Arsène Wenger after Arsenal strode to a 4-1 FA Cup quarter-final win over Everton

Beating Tottenham was easy work for Chelsea, says José Mourinho - video

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 03:24 AM PDT

Chelsea boss José Mourinho says his side made light work of Tottenham Hotspur in Saturday's 4-0 Premier League win

Tim Sherwood gutted by Tottenham's big loss to Chelsea - video

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 03:22 AM PDT

Tottenham Hotspur manager Tim Sherwood says his side lacked guts and pride in their 4-0 loss to Chelsea on Saturday

at Britain's top football clubs

Posted: 09 Mar 2014 01:29 AM PST

Manchester City has 11 people analysing players' data, but will a tech-driven statistical approach squeeze out intuition?

Why has David Moyes had such a horror show since taking over as Manchester United manager last summer? From our armchairs, the diagnosis has been relatively straightforward: taking over from a legend is inevitably a fool's errand; anyone replacing Sir Alex Ferguson was doomed before a ball was kicked. Moyes inherited a patchy squad with too few players at the peak of their powers. Or, if you want to be snarky, you might query Moyes's credentials: he never won a major trophy as a manager at Preston North End and Everton and has now brought a smaller-club mentality to United, arguably the most famous football organisation on the planet.

Moyes clearly has a different perspective on the crisis. While he is restricted to bringing in new players by two transfer "windows" – one over summer, the other during January – he can make changes to personnel behind the scenes whenever he likes. At the end of last year he overhauled United's back-room staff. The arrivals included Robbie Cooke, Everton's chief scout; Chelsea's European scout Mick Doherty, who also worked with Moyes at Everton; and John Murtough, formerly responsible for Everton's vaunted academy and latterly the Premier League's head of elite performance. His final "transfer" was James Smith, head of technical scouting at Everton.

None of these appointments made headlines, but Moyes believes they could be crucial in unearthing the future stars of Manchester United – within the club and outside – and turning round his fortunes at Old Trafford. There has been a revolution in football – though it is one that even the most committed fans will only be dimly aware of. Clubs are becoming smarter, more efficient. We've probably all seen the graphics and statistics that pop up in newspapers and on shows such as Match of the Day: it began with counting corners and shots on goal, but recently the analysis has become more whizz-bang; not least speed profiling and heat maps, which plot a player's movement around the pitch. But this is just a fraction of the data that can be collected during a match. Opta, a sports statistics company, records around 1,500 "events" from every fixture.

All 20 clubs in the Premier League – and many in the lower divisions – now employ data analysts to make sense of this information. Manchester City has 11 of them. In 2012, Liverpool caused a stir by creating a new position, director of research, for Ian Graham, who has a PhD in theoretical physics. The analysts are involved in pre-match preparation and post-game debriefs; they help to identify transfer targets and devise strategies for nurturing young players through the ranks. These developments have inspired confusion and even suspicion from many supporters, summed up by a recent headline in the New Statesman: "How the spreadsheet-wielding geeks are taking over football."

We can't be blamed for being perplexed. Take the match last month between Arsenal and Bayern Munich, which Bayern won 2-0. The following morning, the Guardian plucked out two statistics: Toni Kroos, the German midfielder, completed more passes than the entire Arsenal midfield; meanwhile, Arsenal's Mesut Özil covered 11.69km, the third-highest distance on the pitch. What the stats didn't say, but was blindingly obvious to anyone watching, was that Kroos was sensational and Özil had a stinker.

These are simplistic examples, but they encapsulate a debate taking place at the highest levels of many football clubs. In one corner are the "quants" or quantitative analysts: they are admirers of the statistician and election-oracle Nate Silver; the Nobel prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman; and especially Billy Beane, the star of Moneyball, Michael Lewis's 2003 book about the data revolution in baseball. They believe that a football match can be translated into numbers and – much as a hedge-fund trader does with the stock market – those figures can be crunched and scanned for patterns. They don't think intuition should be removed from the game but they have found that statistics are dispassionate in a way that humans never are.

As Beane, general manager of the Oakland A's,has said: "The idea that I [should] trust my eyes more than the stats, I don't buy that because I've seen magicians pull rabbits out of hats and I know that the rabbit's not in there."

In the other corner are the traditionalists, which is to say the owners and managers of the overwhelming majority of professional football clubs. They are aware of Moneyball – at least the film starring Brad Pitt – but don't believe the lessons of a stop-start sport such as baseball can be applied to the fluid dynamics of a football match. Most managers once played the game themselves at a high level and it is this fact, they contend, that gives them a special insight into what happens on the pitch and which players they recruit. This approach is summed up by an anecdote about Harry Redknapp, reported in Wired magazine. When he was manager of Southampton, he turned to his analyst after a loss and said: "I'll tell you what, next week, why don't we get your computer to play against their computer and see who wins?"

It turns out that Redknapp was not too wide of the mark: how long will it be before we look at football not just as a contest between 22 players or a clash between two managers, but as a battle between the respective brains trusts assembled on the two benches?

A decent place to start the investigation is Everton FC. As Simon Kuper, the Financial Times columnist and co-author of Soccernomics has detailed, no club in the Premier League has so consistently overachieved during the past decade. Under Moyes, they finished eighth or higher every season from 2007 to 2013. They've managed this despite being more frugal with wages than all of their rivals and not splashing cash on big-name transfers. Instead they achieved success by developing brilliant home-grown talent – Wayne Rooney, Jack Rodwell and Ross Barkley among them – and melding these players with unheralded stalwarts such as Leighton Baines and Leon Osman, who just happen to be statistical outliers.

Baines, in fact, is something of an emblem for the data revolutionaries. For years, he was a solid, dependable left-back with an anachronistic mop-top, a perennial understudy to the flashier Ashley Cole in the England team. The stats, however, told a different story: in 2012, Opta identified Baines as the player who created the most chances in all of Europe's top leagues. His crosses, which were 38% accurate, led to a goal-scoring opportunity every 21.6 minutes, figures that shamed better-known playmakers such as Manchester City's David Silva and Arsenal's Santi Cazorla. Before long, Baines was first choice for the national team and a transfer target for Manchester United (of course, though perhaps he was simply playing better and the data per se had nothing to do with it).

With such an impressive record over the years, it's hardly surprising that Moyes wanted to recreate the structure at Manchester United. Everton, meanwhile, installed Wigan Athletic's Roberto Martínez as their new manager. Martínez had his own reputation for performing above expectations: Wigan had been favourites for relegation from the Premier League every year since they were promoted in 2005; the club consistently had the lowest turnover and attendances in the top flight; their training ground was a converted working-men's club. Somehow they survived – until last May anyway, though they had the consolation of defeating Manchester City to win the FA Cup.

Much of Wigan's resilience was put down to their progressive, young manager. Martínez was known for being obsessive about tactics. The Numbers Game, a recent book that examines the "datafication" of football, noted that he installed a 60-inch pen-touch TV screen at his home and hooked it up with player-tracking software from the performance analysts Prozone. He would watch matches, especially defeats, up to 10 times in order to make sense of what had happened. His response was often unusual and creative: while most teams favour the standard 4-4-2 formation, Wigan under Martínez would shuffle between 4-3-3 or 3-4-3 or 4-2-3-1. In short, he seemed like the perfect fit for a forward-thinking club like Everton.

I meet Martínez at Finch Farm, Everton's training ground on the outskirts of Liverpool. The facility is typically described as "state of the art", but it is still a place where a tea lady will come round to offer you a cuppa and probably a biscuit if you ask politely, too. Martínez is flanked by two of his scouting team, Kevin Reeves and Steve Brown, and we all sit in Reeves's office. There's an iMac on the desk but it is devoid of personal effects and whiffs of fresh paint – it turns out the room used to belong to James Smith, until he moved to Manchester United, and Reeves is just settling in. Reeves was once the most expensive player in Britain – "the first £1.25 million man" back in 1980, he proudly notes – and he has followed Martínez from Wigan.

They have just come in from training. How much data do they collect in preparation for matches? "Every step on a football pitch is measured now," says Martínez, in his unique Spanish-Lancastrian lilt. "We monitor each session with GPS and heart-rate profiles. From a physical point of view, the most significant stats are probably the number of sprints, the sprint distance and the amount of high-intensity efforts a player gets through. We look at these through the season and they give us a good indication of how fatigued a player is and the recovery he needs."

At Everton, each player is tracked in terms of four "corners": technical, tactical, physical and psychological. Data is crucial for assessing the first three categories. On a very basic level, a company such as Opta or Prozone provides multi-camera footage of a player's actions during a match and coaches critique his performance: perhaps they would like him to play more short passes, or – a signature of Martínez's teams – retain possession more assiduously. Detailed feedback will start in some clubs from the under-nines upwards. "You've got so many facilities to look at an individual's performances and you can single out one aspect of his play and measure it – that's significant," he says. "That's unbelievable." Meanwhile, a pair of analysts will be preparing dossiers on the Everton first team's forthcoming fixtures: watching half a dozen of their opponent's previous matches and combining these findings with existing data from Prozone. On the recruitment side, Reeves and Brown liaise with 10 scouts across Europe, who work exclusively for Everton, and keep an eye on the ProScout7 database, which has profiles on almost 130,000 players in more than 130 countries.

Martínez is just as bright and convivial as everyone tells you he is, but he can't hide his deep ambivalence towards, say, ball-retention percentages or the number of successful passes into the opposition's penalty box. Or, to put it another way: he thinks most statistics are useless. "There's a big danger of getting inundated with data and letting it affect your play," he says. "Remember: a player can have 10 shots and all of them are on target but he doesn't score a goal. Or he can have 10 shots and nine of them are off target, but then the last one goes in the top corner. So which stat do you prefer?"

Martínez is not the first to make this point and, in one sense, he is making a distinction between "stats" and "metrics": statistics, on their own, are often meaningless, but through systematic analysis, they can become metrics, which might offer a more revealing measure of a player or a team's performance. Still, it is a surprise to hear Martínez taking this line. Aged 40, with a postgraduate diploma in business and marketing from Manchester University – attained while he was a player at Wigan – you might expect him to be a passionate advocate for analytics. The Numbers Game describes Martínez as a "hero" and its authors, Chris Anderson and David Sally, devote a chapter to his work as Wigan manager, which they approvingly call "Guerrilla Football".

The Everton manager is especially scathing of using data to identify transfer targets – the Moneyball dream of unearthing players whose utility might not always be immediately obvious. There is the famous story of Arsène Wenger signing Mathieu Flamini (the first time) partly due to a statistic that showed he ran 14km a match. Or Liverpool, under their then-director of football Damien Comolli, who spent heavily in 2011 to acquire Jordan Henderson and Stewart Downing, ostensibly because their "final-third regain" percentages – how often they recovered possession in the opponent's penalty box – were so high.

Martínez, and his chief scouts Reeves and Brown, find the suggestion that they would buy a player because of their numbers pretty funny. "You need to see a player and fall in love with a player," says Martínez. "When you see a player, you'll watch his warm-up, the way he speaks to the referee, the way he speaks to other team-mates after missing a chance, the way he celebrates a goal, the way his team-mates react when he scores. Data might help you narrow the margin of error, but the decision is still a feeling. It's a gut instinct."

It is the psychology of a player that Martínez believes is the most crucial aspect of whether a player flourishes or wanes. And it is here that statistics or metrics are most restricted and unreliable. Everton will always scan news reports on a prospective signing and speak to their contacts for character references – some clubs will trawl through a player's Twitter feed and Facebook page – but ultimately the final decision is always an informed gamble. How will a player respond to taking a penalty in the 93rd minute of a Merseyside derby in front of the Kop at Anfield? What happens when your new foreign superstar arrives and struggles to learn English and his wife wants to go home? "Football players are football players once a week," warns Martínez. "The rest of the time they are human beings and fathers and husbands – data doesn't give you that."

While no one contends that the use of data in football will ever be flawless, it certainly continues to become more astute and ambitious. The father of the movement is wing commander Charles Reep, an accountant in the RAF, who codified his first match in March 1950. He would eventually detail and analyse 2,200 games until the mid-1990s, spending around 80 hours on a single match, sometimes writing on rolls of wallpaper. Another pioneer was Valeriy Lobanovskyi, celebrated coach of Dynamo Kyiv and the USSR from the 1970s through to 2002, who spotted the potential of computers to change football when processors were still the size of the team bus. Known for his fastidious match preparations and scientific scouting, he said: "A team that commits errors in no more than 15% to 18% of its actions is unbeatable."

The work of Reep and Lobanovskyi inspired a man you might not expect: Sam Allardyce, now manager of West Ham United. As a player, Allardyce spent the 1983 season with the Tampa Bay Rowdies in Florida; he made only 11 appearances, but the team shared its training facilities with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers NFL squad and he was intrigued by their preparations and that sport's infatuation with statistics. When he became a manager in the early 1990s, he wondered if he might introduce a similar model, but first he had to wait for the technology to catch up with him.

Opta was the creation of a group of management consultants; their first clients in 1996 for their football statistics were Sky Sports and – take a bow – the Observer. Soon they were joined in the market by Prozone, a company that began life as a purveyor of massage armchairs. "Those black chairs you see in motorway service stations that you put £1 in," says Paul Boanas, Prozone's senior account manager. Early interest in Prozone came from another unlikely innovator, Steve McLaren, then a coach at Derby County. He liked the chairs, but the players got bored sitting in them for 15 minutes after every training session. He asked: "Couldn't they watch videos of the game while they're doing it?"

McLaren, who would move on to coach Manchester United and then manage England, and Allardyce, who by this time was manager of Bolton Wanderers, would become Prozone's earliest and most devoted customers. For Big Sam in particular, the new software was addictive: he hired a team of young sports-science graduates and used the video analysis to mould Bolton's style of play. They calculated that any team that ran further and faster than their opponents would win or draw 80% of their matches. Their players relentlessly practised throw-ins, corners and free-kicks – targeting "pomos" or positions of maximum opportunity – and scored around half their goals, far above the league average, from these set-pieces. Allardyce stitched together a team of misfits, old-timers and foreign mercenaries, led by Gary Speed. When he arrived on a free transfer in 2004, Speed was 35, but his stats – 12km a game, a pass-completion average of above 80% – suggested he could still be useful. He became a talisman for Bolton for the next four seasons.

Big Sam's Bolton defied logic: they finished in the top eight of the Premier League every season between 2003 and 2007, and twice qualified for the Uefa Cup. But "pomos" did not enter the lexicon of the data revolution and many of his ideas now seem outdated.

Allardyce remains committed to metrics, but his greatest contribution to the movement might just be the people he inspired. Bolton alumni now head the analytics departments of the most ambitious clubs in world football: Ed Sulley is head of performance analysis at Manchester City, while Gavin Fleig is City's head of technical scouting; Dave Fallows is head of recruitment at Liverpool. These men could be just as influential in shaping the future of their clubs as the managers, Manuel Pellegrini and Brendan Rodgers.

There is a clear shift of power taking place at some clubs, and the use of data analytics is at the heart of it. At a time when the average tenure of a Premier League manager is just over one year – seven have already been sacked this season – the idea of entrusting all elements of player recruitment and long-term strategy to the manager is anachronistic. That certainly seems to have been the conclusion of the owners at Manchester City and Liverpool, as well as a club such as West Bromwich Albion, which shares power between the manager and a director of football, or sporting and technical director as they now call the position.

"The perfect model in the club's eyes is to have everything set up and just drop in the manager and he's only allowed to bring two members of staff with him – that's what clubs would like," says Prozone's Boanas. "When the average lifespan of a manager is so short, they're going to think, 'Why would I plan for the future, when I might be gone in six months? Bollocks to that!' Instead of signing a young player, they're going to bring in a 31-year-old who's got a proven record, who they've worked with before. It's a very short-term view."

Chris Anderson, author of The Numbers Game and a political scientist at New York's Cornell University agrees. "Incentives are incredibly important," he says. "The right incentives in my mind are the ones that keep this club healthy beyond next Saturday and perhaps beyond this month and even beyond this season. The place where a manager has a long tenure – like David Moyes at Everton and Arsène Wenger at Arsenal – that person's incentives for themselves and for the club are reasonably closely aligned. But, the world we live in, sometimes that person isn't the manager." At a certain point, however, Allardyce's Bolton protégés, the men now driving the use of data analytics in British football, hit a wall: they were sports scientists, not mathematicians. This frustration waseloquently expressed by James Smith, then still at Everton, at the Elite Minds in Sports Analytics Summit held at Arsenal's Emirates stadium last November. It can be a lonely business being a quant in a football club, and the three-day seminar – with presentations by everyone from YouTube to the performance director of British Bobsleigh – fell somewhere between a show-and-tell and a self-help meeting.

"At Everton at the moment we're still very much in a world of GCSE maths," Smith said. Cue an intake of breath in the room, and much frenzied tapping on laptops. "We look at averages, we look at benchmarking, we are in the world of bar charts. At the moment we are not doing more sophisticated regression analysis" – a statistical process used for predicting future outcomes – "but we know that is probably the way forward and that's where we hope to be before too long. But at the moment that tends to be the bigger clubs, the better-resourced clubs really."

Smith contrasts football unfavourably with American sports, notably baseball and NFL. "Typically the guy dealing with the data in an English football club at the moment is a sports science graduate – which I am," he said. "But very often in America you might have somebody who went to Harvard and did a law degree then did a computer science masters at MIT. One of the issues in English football is we don't spend enough on staff: quality or quantity. And that's partly because we spend so much money on transfer fees, player salaries, agents' fees that there's not enough left. It's crazy."

There are, in fact, some whip-smart mathematicians working in English football, but, because of the traditional approach of most clubs, they are more likely to be employed by a betting company or a data generator such as Prozone. In an attempt to address this disparity, a fascinating initiative was launched by Manchester City's Gavin Fleig in August 2012. Called MCFC Analytics, the club released a large archive of data collected by Opta from the 2011/12 season. It was an "open source" call to arms for bloggers, PhD academics, anyone with an inquisitive mind and an interest in football who wanted to mess around with numbers.

The inspiration for the experiment was baseball, specifically Bill James, a janitor whose after-hours statistical analysis revolutionised that sport. "I want our industry to find a Bill James," Fleig told Simon Kuper. "Bill James needs data, and whoever the Bill James of football is, he doesn't have data because it costs money."

MCFC Analytics ended after a year and it's hard to determine if it was a success or not. The interest was certainly there – more than 1,500 users accessed the information in the first 36 hours – but there was criticism of the "basic" dataset that was released. Dr Howard Hamilton, chief executive of an Atlanta-based consultancy firm Soccermetrics Research, who holds a PhD in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University, described it in a blog as "woefully inadequate".

"It wasn't our deepest dataset by any means, but it was relatively deep ," says John Coulson, head of professional football services at Opta. Nevertheless, Coulson can't see the experiment being repeated in the near future: "It was a one-off thing: 'Here's something to have a go at, get your teeth stuck in.' But it's not sustainable for us as a business to release all of that data every year."

Football clubs are intensely secretive about the specifics of their use of data, especially where they believe they might have a competitive advantage. So I ask Marcus du Sautoy, professor of mathematics at Oxford University and keen Arsenal fan, what impact a greater numerical literacy could have on the game. "Football is much more of a game of chess than people realise," he replies. "It isn't random what each team does from one game to the next. There are patterns. And the strength of mathematics is to change an activity into numbers and to spot patterns and predict things into the future. That's essentially what the hedge-fund guys are doing."

Du Sautoy believes we should look at the football pitch as a network, with channels connecting the 11 players – "It's like a mini-internet!" he exclaims. A successful team – Barcelona are the perfect example – has a special ability for keeping these connections open, but there's no reason why all teams could not analyse the dynamics in a more theoretical way. Du Sautoy also thinks that coaches would benefit from a greater willingness to think outside the box, so to speak. He uses the example of a free kick: why does the defending team always line up with a wall in front of the kicker? Perhaps that is the most effective way of blocking the ball, but they could test the hypothesis more methodically.

"Football is incredibly conservative," says du Sautoy. "Having people who come from a different mindset could actually give a team like Arsenal or Liverpool a real edge." Then, at least half-seriously, he ventures: "If Wenger wants a mathematician on the bench at Arsenal, I'd be very happy to come along."

It is easy to become carried away with the possibilities of data analytics. At the Elite Minds in Sports Analytics Summit, another speaker was Brian Prestidge, head of analytic development at Bolton Wanderers. He revealed that, since their goalkeeper had started studying the stats on the opposing team's penalty taker, he was actually saving fewer penalties (just 9% in the last two seasons). "We took away the human element, the player's instinct," said Prestidge. "But that's not to say there are no advantages in analysis."

If data is to have a greater influence in how football teams are run, it is likely to be at the instigation of the club owners – such as Liverpool's John W Henry, who made his fortune on the stock market and whose other team is the Moneyball-inspired Boston Red Sox – rather than the managers. Players, too, might also demand it: at the Elite Minds summit, Ben Smith, head of development performance systems at Chelsea, explained that young players – such as Eden Hazard – had grown up with data and constant feedback and now expect it after every match and training session; this contrasted with the older generation who can often be more entrenched.

Of course, a manager will never admit that a number-cruncher might do his job just as well – or, heretically, even better – than he can. "And if a manager is doing something sophisticated or analytical, he won't want to advertise that to the world," says Anderson."It makes them look less good and it makes them look geeky, too," says Anderson. "In this manly world of football, you don't want to be known as a pinhead. That's the worst of everything!"

Anderson recently floated the idea that a Premier League club could reduce its squad from 25 players to 24, and use the savings to employ a handful of maths graduates, who would doubtless earn less in a year than some players are paid for a week. No one seriously expects any club to take up the suggestion. At Finch Farm, I ask Martínez if he is envious of Manchester City's 11 analysts, working behind the scenes to plot their next opponent's downfall.

He shakes his head. "I don't start with 100 people and say, 'How are they going to help me win a football game?' Doesn't matter if you have 100 or 3,000 people. It can dilute the quality. We are in a position where we've got enough to do everything we want. I don't think we feel frustrated or we need to get more finances. No, I think we are very much efficient."

Football is a game of passion, and part of every fan would die if the game were reduced to a soulless set of calculations. But equally, any club or manager that denies the power of data are placing themselves at an enormous disadvantage. In one sense, this could be a positive development: football has historically been dominated by the teams with the fattest wallets; in the age of analytics, clubs should be rewarded for innovating and there is a greater motivation for cash-strapped teams to lead the way. Brains can trump financial brawn. Though, it should be noted that right now Manchester City are leading the field in both categories.

Sitting in the stands, fans will likely stay, at least partially, in the dark. When a substitute comes on and scores with his first touch, do you credit the genius of the manager or the calculations of his performance analysts? In the moment – particularly if you're a Manchester United fan – you'll probably be too ecstatic to care.

With the World Cup just three months away, England manager Roy Hodgson is putting the finishing touches to his squad. But what if he were to select his players by data alone? As you can see from the squads below, the Premier League players rated most productive over the last 18 months by match analyser Prozone are very different from those actually picked by Hodgson. Prepare to be surprised …

Steve McClaren
Tim Lewis

theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Wellington Phoenix 1-1 Perth Glory | A-League match report

Posted: 08 Mar 2014 10:44 PM PST

Wellington Phoenix's fluctuating A-League fortunes took another hit as they bumbled to a 1-1 draw with struggling Perth Glory

Written by TBMU Admin

We are Manchester United Fan located around the World which provides user friendly, effective and easy to browse info regarding our Team. Each support/info is free. Support us by clicking the ads located in this site. Thanks

0 comments :

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments ( Atom )
Click Picture Below for More Info

Popular Posts

Share

 





© 2013 TBMU . All rights resevered. Published by The Best Manchester United Admin Blogger

Back To Top