Leeds
team vs Watford 30th August 2014
GK
Silvestri
LB Warnock DC Pearce DC Bellusci RB Byram
LM Tonge CM Bianchi CM Austin RM
Murphy
ST
Antenucci ST Sharp
Subs Taylor, Cooper ,Wooton, Norris, Cook, Poleon, Smith
I remember the video for Frankie Goes to Hollywood's 'Two Tribes' where
look-a-like actors playing American president Ronald Reagan and then Russian
leader Konstantin Chernenko wrestle in a ring to a booming backtrack with the
victor taking world domination. At the height of the Cold War, the video
represented a deeply satirical outlook on world relations.
Today's game between Leeds and Watford, represented less a clash of world leaders, more a clash of the Italians. The 'ring' was Watford's Vicarage Road ground, the supporting acts were Watford F.C. and Leeds United but the puppetmasters behind the scenes, the men pulling the strings, were Leeds' Massimo Cellino and Watford's Giampaolo Pozzo. Pozzo collects football clubs like I collect McDonald's loyalty coffee stamps; he is currently the owner of four football clubs: Udinese (in Italy), Granada (in Spain), Watford (in England) and most recently FC Rapid Bucharest (in Romania).
Watford under Pozzo's guidance have taken a similar route to Leeds under
Cellino's stewardship, one where a steady stream of foreign players have joined
the club. Currently Watford have players such as Matej Vydra (on loan from
Udinese) and Gianni Munari (on loan from Parma) and boast players from nations
such as: Romania, Czech Republic, Hungary and Ecuador amongst their ranks.
Leeds themselves have largely plundered the Italian market to sign players such
as Giuseppe Bellusci (Catania), Mirko Antenucci (Ternera), Tommaso Bianchi
(Sassuolo) and newly-signed Casper Sloth (Aarhus Gymnastikforening - Denmark).
The game itself started off with Leeds abandoning the tarnished ‘4-4-2
Diamond’ formation and reverting back to the more traditional ‘4-4-2’
formation. Present in the Leeds’ starting XI were two recently-signed Italians:
Giuseppe Bellusci and Mirco Antenucci. In a manner belying tradition, Leeds
went a goal down on 20 minutes after a bout of lax defending allowed
Watford’s Fernando Forestieri a free header in the 20th minute and
he placed the resulting header past Marco Silvestre in the Leeds goal. Leeds
pressed hard and their midfield 4 were actually in the ascendency when, in the
32nd minute, a ball into the Watford box ended up with Gabriel Tamas
turning the ball past his own keeper for an own goal. At the half, it was all
square at 1-1 and a much improved Leeds performance in midfield was reflected
in the ‘passing graphic’ showing much more Leeds passing activity.
The second half started more like tug-of-war but the game turned on its
head on 57 minutes. Watford’s Forestieri ghosted past Leeds’ new signing
Giuseppe Bellusci who clinically hacked him down in the area. Bellusci was red
carded and Troy Deeney converted the follow-up penalty for a Watford 2-1 lead.
On 67 minutes Leeds’ situation worsened when Fernando Forestieri scored his
second goal of the game for a 3-1 Watford lead. A 30 yard free kick on 90
minutes from Daniel Töszé made it 4-1 to Watford before a late sending off for
Sam Byram rounded off a bad day for Leeds United.
 |
| Photo credit thisislocallondon.co.uk |
Table of
Marco Silvestre’s contribution
Saves
|
Saves per goal
|
Dist.
Acc. *(%)
|
Avg.
Dist (M)
|
Punch
|
Catch
|
Claim Success (%)
|
1
|
0.25
|
57
|
39
|
0
|
1
|
50%
|
Source
Squawka.com
Marco
Silvestre had a torrid day at the office in today’s game, conceding 4 goals: 2
coming from open play, 1 from the penalty spot and a screamer of a free kick.
During the course of the game he made 1 save (0.25 saves per goal) which he
caught on the full. His distribution accuracy dropped from his last game’s high
of 73% (vs Brighton 20.08.14) and he accurately found his intended 6 targets on
thrown passes with an average distribution length of 22 metres. One thing that
is worth noting about today’s distribution is the drop in distance of the two
main forms of distribution expected of a goalkeeper – goal kicks and kicks from
hand. Today’s game brought forward the following distances for ‘goal kicks’ (49
mtrs) and ‘kicks from hand’ (47 mtrs) which represent a downturn in distances
over the previous 3 games for ‘goal kicks’ (56 mtrs, 58 mtrs, 53 mtrs) and
‘kicks from hand’ (55mtrs, 63 mtrs, n/a). Does this suggest that Silvetre’s
kicking isn’t consistent? It is something that I will be keeping an eye on over
coming weeks.
Table of
Defenders’ contributions
Tackles
W (C*)
L (C*)
|
Aerial
Duels (%)
|
Int
(C*)
|
Blks
(C*)
|
Clr
(C*)
|
||
Stephen Warnock
|
1 (9)
|
3 (7)
|
60
|
3 (16)
|
0 (1)
|
6 (21)
|
Jason
Pearce
|
0 (1)
|
2 (4)
|
53.85
|
0 (5)
|
4 (6)
|
0 (20)
|
Giuseppe Bellusci
|
1 (1)
|
1 (1)
|
0
|
0 (0)
|
2 (2)
|
6 (6)
|
Sam Byram
|
0 (6)
|
3 (5)
|
55.56
|
2 (8)
|
0 (0)
|
7 (16)
|
Liam
Cooper
|
0 (3)
|
2 (3)
|
80
|
1 (5)
|
0 (2)
|
2 (15)
|
Totals
|
2
|
11
|
6
|
6
|
21
|
|
‘Aerial
Duels’ – cumulative over season
C* -
Cumulative totals
Source
Squawka.com
The
defensive unit’s performance against Brighton was ‘il bruto’ (the bad) in my
last match report that I called ‘il buono, il bruto il cattivo – The Good, the
bad, the ugly at LS11’. In this game, against Watford, they were simply ‘il
vergongnoso’ (the disgraceful) with two players, Giuseppe Bellusci (on his
debut) and Sam Byram, receiving what can only be classed as silly red cards;
Bellusci’s will carry a 1 match ban whilst it seems that Byram’s will be an
automatic 3 mach ban for violent conduct.
The starting
4 players (Warnock, Pearce, Bellusci and Byram) combined for a grand total of
-129 ‘performance score’ on the Squawka website; Sam Byram followed his last
game’s (Brighton) total of -45 with another low score of -76. Stephen Warnock
was the only player to receive a positive ‘performance score’ with 5 points and
it is he who has been Leeds’ most consistent and reliable defender over the 4
games so far. Again, the Leeds United defensive unit were relatively weak in
the tackle winning only 2 tackles and losing 11; his giving them a
less-than-acceptable18.2% tackle success rate against Watford.
Table of
Midfielders’ contributions – Passes During Game
Fwd
(C*)
|
Bwd
(C*)
|
Success %
|
Chances
(C*)
|
Assists
(C*)
|
|
Rodolph
Austin
|
54 (123)
|
16 (53)
|
83
|
0 (0)
|
0 (0)
|
Michael Tonge
|
25 (63)
|
24 (51)
|
86
|
0 (0)
|
0 (0)
|
Luke
Murphy
|
29 (78)
|
25 (63)
|
75
|
0 (4)
|
0 (0)
|
Tommaso Bianchi
|
41(89)
|
34 (60)
|
82
|
0 (0)
|
0 (0)
|
‘Passing
Success’ – cumulative over season
C* -
Cumulative totals
Source
Squawka.com
The change in emphasis under Coach Hockaday to a more 'pass oriented'
side is more than evident in the number of passes that both the Leeds United
team, in general, and the midfield, in particular, are making. Team-wise, Leeds
ranked 20th in the Championship at the end of the 2013/14 season in the
category of 'short passes' per game with an average of 292 short passes. Four
games into the 2014/15 season and Leeds sit ranked 8th in the same category
with an average of 366 short passes per game; 2014/15 total 'short passes' so
far in 4 game representing a 20.2% increase on short passes per game since last
season.
The increased output of passes, in the first four games of this season,
throughout the whole team can also be seen in the increased passing output in
certain aspects of Leeds' midfield. So far this year, Rodolph Austin has an
'average passes per game' (AvgP) of 62.8 (ranked 9th in Championship) against a
2013/14 season return of 37AvgP (ranked 77th); an increase of 41% over the
previous season total. Michael Tonge's current season AvgP total is 41.8
(ranked 81st) against a 2013/14 season return of 34.1 AvgP (ranked 113th); an
increase of 18.4% over the last season total. Luke Murphy has also shown
increased AvgP figures this season thus far with an AvgP of 36.5 (ranked 108th)
against a 2013/14 AvgP of 30.6 (ranked 151st); an increase of 16.1% over the
2013/14 total. The increased passing output is complemented by the figures
provided by one of Massimo Cellino's 'legiona stranieri' Thommaso Bianchi,
whose 2014/15 return of 51.3 AvgP is good enough to place him as 36th ranked
passer by AvgP after only 3 games. However, what is worrying Leeds fans is one
glaring and simple factor, the midfield seem incapable of turning this increased
output of passes into shots, chances or assists - no chances were created
yesterday and Leeds have a poor shot ratio of 0.32 (Leeds shots/(Leeds shots +
opposition shots). What this means, when boiled down and simplified, is that
during all games this season Leeds' opponents are having 68% of the shooting
chances. In a game where shots lead to goals and goals win games, Leeds are
sorely lacking in any of these capacities.
Source: Squawka.com – Leeds' shots (left) – Watford's shots (right)
Player
|
Chances Created
(C*)
|
Completed Passes
(C*)
|
Passing
Accuracy (%)
|
Shots
(C*)
|
Shot
Accuracy
(%)
|
Matt
Smith
|
0 (1)
|
2 (19)
|
59%
|
0 (2)
|
0%
|
Billy
Sharp
|
2 (3)
|
7 (24)
|
62%
|
0 (3)
|
33%
|
Dominic Poleon
|
0 (1)
|
4 (10)
|
67%
|
0 (1)
|
100%
|
Mirko
Antenucci
|
1 (1)
|
19 (19)
|
73%
|
1 (1)
|
0%
|
‘Passing Accuracy’
and ‘Shot Accuracy’ – cumulative over season
C* -
Cumulative totals
Source Squawka.com
Again, noting much can be said about what constitutes the Leeds United
front line attack. Leeds started thus game against Watford with Billy Sharp and
new signing Mirko Antenucci up top and leading the line. Billy Sharp created 2
chances with smart passes and Mirko Antenucci created 1 such chance; Antenucci
also had the game's only shot for Leeds. What was encouraging about Antenucci's
overall game was his willingness to pass the ball to team-mates as evidenced by
his 19 completed passes and 73% overall passing accuracy. Aside from that, it
was pretty much a nondescript day for the Leeds United strikeforce.
When two tribes came to war at The Vicarage, only one walked away the
victor. The other side limped away on the wrong end of an absolute hiding and
it's a long way back up the M1 to lick your wounds.
