Match Day Thread +++++Saints v Man City 1st May 2016 4:30pm+++++

If he's an "interceptor" then he will average more interceptions than Schneiderlin. Check it and see . But again, there is a stat for you to test your hypothesis.

But as far as "getting up in the face of the opposition" have you considered that perhaps Schneiderlin's speed and intelligence are such that he leaves the opposition no time to react? Thus he is more successful in the tackle. And because he is more successful he therefore gets dribbled past less often? After all, you can't dribble past a player if he has taken the ball from you.

 

Opta has the distance covered stats and they don't make most of their stuff available. They make websites pay lots of money, and then those websites can have "exclusive" analyses. All you can usually get is like "REVEALED: PREMIERSHIP'S 15 HARDEST WORKING PLAYERS" slide shows. And Clasie is not in the top 15. Finding anyone's distance covered per game is hard enough, but for Clasie you would need distance covered per 90 which is even rarer.

But my guess is he doesn't run around that much. Mostly he sits in the middle third of the pitch, so that limits him. Moreover, Southampton as a whole don't cover very much distance. We are near the bottom. I think at one point we were actually the bottom.

The teams and players that cover the most distance are the high/counter/gegen pressing teams. We played that way under Pochettino, we don't really with Koeman.

 

Haha, Iheanacho is desperate to be a Saint after full time. Sign him up!!

 

*shakes head*

Still missed that one small point made. It's funny now

 

Basically Clasie is **** - the stats say so.

 

No, you're definitely not reading what I write! Try again!

 

Moreover, completely misread what I'd written. I wrote that SCHNEIDERLIN and Wanyama are interceptor/tacklers more than Clasie who is reader/hustler.

 

Thats interesting and at the same time tells you nothing. It could suggest that we ought to put more effort in; or, it could mean that we are just supremely well organised. I suspect that our overall distance has gone up a tad now that Long is a regular and Pelle not. I take your point about the pressing game though.

Stats are cheap journalism really, you can quote them to pretty much argue any case.

 

Didn't Koeman make some sort of comment, when he first joined us, along the lines that the players, under him, wouldn't run all over the place, but in the right direction?
I think at the time he was batting away a comment, from the media, about following on from Pochettino's high pressing style.

 

He talked about selectively pressing.

One of the criticisms of Pinocchio's Saints side was that they pressed like billy-ho and blew-up after 75-80 minutes, after which they were rather vulnerable. Koeman aimed to curb that tendency with intelligent pressing. Even Pinocchio's Spuds side don't press all the time now, so he's learned his own lesson.

 

The question was simply whether Clasie was getting tired because he was covering a lot of territory or if it was poor fitness.

Unfortunately, there is no direct number for how much distance he has covered available (though Opta knows). But judging from the few numbers that are available as well as our playing style, my feeling is that the amount of ground Clasie covers is probably not outrageously high compared to some other midfielders in the Premier League.

It doesn't mean our defense is bad or our team is lazy or undisciplined.

 

May not just be down to fitness....after all 100m runners are fit, but no amount of training will make them decent marathon runners. Everyone has a different peak in speed and stamina they can reach....that's why they go through those performance tests preseason...to have an idea of each players peak.

 

I'm not sure they call mine a peak

 

Maybe because he missed the early part of the season and saw somewhat irregular gametime for a bit he just isn't quite at peak condition. I think it's quite possible as well that he has had to adjust to Premier League football and the way we play and that causes some inefficiency to his play and he burns more energy.

But you could be right as well. Some players just aren't built for 90 minutes. The thing is, we have plenty of subs if he gets tired. Some part of this is due to managerial discretion. Like in the Man City game, he was on a yellow and we had Romeu at the ready, so why not just make that sub?

For me, it's something I think the team might want to monitor (and probably is). From a supporter's perspective/bar debate it's kind of an interesting question for discussion. But in the end, it's probably not a big deal.