League is that you need to have luck on your side, or
at least, you need to make your own luck. Louis van
Gaal openly admitted after his Manchester United side
won at St Mary’s last night that his team had been
lucky. They had only three shots and Wayne Rooney
cut an incredibly frustrated figure with a lack of
quality service coming his way. But this victory
showed that United look capable of breaking back into
the top four. Southampton, meanwhile, are starting to
make their impressive start to the season look like a
flash in the pan.
The defeat was their third in a row and they have now
fallen outside the top four for the first time since the
end of the transfer window. While they had remained
in the Premier League’s upper echelons, questions had
been raised about the sustainability of their
Champions League push, and it seems a few injuries
may have scuppered that push.
Ronald Koeman did exceptionally well to rebuild the
Southampton team after it was picked apart over the
summer and he deserves great credit for his side’s
start to the 2014-15 campaign. The problem was always
going to be how he managed his squad when the
fixture pile-up began. He had an extremely consistent
first 11 over the season’s initial months so December
was simply always going to be a struggle.
Southampton have used just 22 players this season,
one of the fewest in the Premier League. Seven of
those have played fewer than 50 minutes in total. So
just 15 players have featured for a significant amount
of time this season. Six of them have started every
game and four have played every single minute. Only
Chelsea have had as few players start every game and
no team has used as many ever-present players.
Despite the unquestionable quality in the Chelsea
squad, cracks are starting to show. For Saints, a whole
lot of luck would be needed to maintain a push for a
European spot with so few players utilised. An injury
to a key player was a seeming inevitability and while
they had wobbled with a draw at Aston Villa, Morgan
Schneiderlin going off against Manchester City pushed
them over the edge. They have won possession in the
attacking third of the pitch the fifth most times of all
Premier League teams this season (3.5 times per game)
but an average of 4.1 times per game over their first
eight matches has dropped to 3.0 per game in their
last seven. Fatigue in a stretched squad seems to be
setting in.
Another of the season’s surprise packages look better
set to make an unprecedented charge for the
Champions (or more likely Europa) League places. Sam
Allardyce has turned West Ham into one of the
league’s more fast-paced and exciting sides, with
summer signings Diafra Sakho, Cheikhou Kouyaté and
Alex Song proving brilliant pieces of business by the
manager.
This season, though, he has proved himself to be
versatile and able to adapt depending on the players
available to him. Only two of his players have
featured in all 15 games this season and 12 different
players have scored already. His team had the second
least possession in the Premier League last season
(44.2%) and averaged the second fewest passes per
game (325). They have shot up the rankings this
season, averaging 47.2% possession and 372 passes per
game, and there has been a noticeable difference on
the pitch, with a fluid brand of football previously
unseen at Upton Park during Allarydce’s reign now a
feature.
However, with the return of Andy Carroll, they have
played to his strengths and had some success. In the
three games in which he has completed 90 minutes
this season, Carroll has recorded the top three totals
for aerial duels won in a Premier League match in
2014-15, with 16 against Newcastle, and 15 against both
Everton and Swansea. Against Swansea on Sunday he
scored two headers and set up Sakho’s goal with a
flick-on from from an Adrian punt upfield. The
pragmatism Allardyce is showing is paying great
dividends.
Of the two clubs, it seems as though West Ham are
better placed to make their European pretensions a
reality. They have already survived an injury crisis –
at Everton when they were unlucky to lose with Song,
Kouyaté, Sakho and Enner Valencia all missing – and
fourth in the league as we approach Christmas, have
hinted that they have the depth to sustain their
impressive form. The Champions League might be
beyond them, but right now they look better prepared
than say, Everton, Liverpool or Tottenham, to make it
into Europ
e this season.
No comments:
Post a Comment