Details

The (Red) Devil's In The Details

Here's a really slick summation of (some of) the areas of decline at Manchester United under David Moyes.  I'm not going to comment on Moyes' job or his firing or anything here...the Mancunians hearing it enough from other sources and frankly, the whys and wherefores of that club hold no interest.  For the younger player, simply, this data show how attention to details in training isn't just coach-speak...it's the difference between the millions of Champions League dollars and being just another team.

It's the data that are interesting (from Ed Valentine at The Economics of Sport):

...in the last three Premier League seasons Manchester United averaged 27.1, 25.8 and 22.3 crosses per game while registering 6.2, 3.9 and 3.7 through-balls per game. The amount of crossing is up to 29.7 per game under the former Everton boss with through-balls down to 1.2 per game. This is due largely to their play pattern under Moyes as he is putting more attention to attacking down the flanks. About 30% of United’s attacking under Sir Alex in his final three seasons occurred down the centre of the park. Under Moyes, this figure has been lowered to 24%, which is currently the lowest percentage in the Premier League.

This season, Man U was serving somewhere from 2.6 to 7.4 more crosses per game than the past three seasons.  Similarly, they served 5 to 2.6 fewer through-balls per match across the same time frame.

They shifted the general location of their attacking play (the vertical third of the field in which a pass enters, or, is played forward within, the final - offensive - lateral third of the field) by 6 percent.

Now, there are many, many other factors for Man U being 30 plus points lower in the table this year versus last year (maybe they have to do with Moyes, maybe they don't...he's certainly not blameless) but in terms of scoring, to win the title and/or have a shot at the 4 Champions League places, a team needs to score, on average, 1.8 goals or more per game for the year.  2.34, according to Valentine, is the average for the past 5 years for the Prem title.

Point being, these are very fine margins.  While 1.8 is about 77% of 2.34, and that's a huge percentage difference, in absolute numbers it's still a very close call.  Especially on a game-by-game basis where you can only score 1, 2, or 3 goals (not 1.8 or 2.34).  6% here, 2.6 fewer through-balls there...one less shot, one less interception...little moments that go relatively unnoticed are often the pivotal moments upon which seasons turn.

Most spectators (indeed most coaches) won't have a clue how many balls their team serves in from wide areas at the end of a match, or how many final third passes were played in one zone versus another, or how many through balls the team played (which is crazy because most teams don't play many).

But in a game where the balance has to be struck so carefully where a shift in only two to five through balls per game can result in Man U sitting 7th (their worst EPL finish in club history)...well, not paying attention to that balance could be costly.

Furthermore, finding the balance is a matter of mathematical acumen...but tailoring it to a given match/opponent and organizing a team to successfully operate within those parameters is the art, the glue that holds what we know together with what we can do.   And as Gareth Bale showed here...what we can do often falls pretty well outside what we know; it's doubtful Ancelotti planned the Real Madrid counter attack game plan around this exact sort of play, in which Bale was later shown to have hit 26 miles an hour as he attacked the goal (skip to the 1.10 mark):