Pictured: The Hammersmith End observing a typical pass from Fulham’s back five against Southampton.
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Just looking at pass completion rates for the game. I’m still fuming. Here are some standout figures:
Schwarzer: 33%. Mmm. Can’t trust him with the ball. Nothing knew but he was still dismal. 32/40 were long balls, just 7 found a target (note that long balls also include clearances).
Hangeland: 71%. Not great, especially if we want to keep and recycle possession, but not the worst. 13 though were long balls, although four were on target, mainly in the first half when he found Kacaniklic with some sweeping passes.
Senderos: 74%. Actually our most accurate, and short, passer in our defence. 0 of 4 long balls found their target. He also made 27 passes to Hangeland’s 41.
Riether: 69%. Really poor considering full backs see so much possession. 2/6 long balls.
Riise: 54%. 54. Almost half of his passes were inaccurate. That is dreadful. His distribution was really, really bad today. And of 39 of his passes, 11 were long balls, and 1 of those found the target.
Really this shows just how much we struggled to get the ball moving. Usually you can expect it to be 80+% bar Schwarzer. And a way, way too big a percentage of long balls.
So, keep calm and pass Dimi the ball. Or really just anyone, so long as it’s on the floor!
(Our centre mids did ok in this regard, 85% average and 49 passes each, but you’d like to see that number closer to 80 in good games when we pass it quickly and also it doesn’t say just how poor their passing was in terms of substance. Also, in his 22 minutes Frei passed just twice – although both were accurate – and Ruiz passed 30 times in his second half cameo which is equivalent to 60 over the course of 90 minutes which is a fifth more than anyone else.)
LRCN
I have long thought passing stats are of little real value. For example it takes no note of how many times Hangeland and Senderos passed the to each other across the back line etc. They may be more useful further up the pitch but “Our centre mids did ok in this regard” if anyone thinks our midfield “did OK” against Soton they are delusional.
i agree in a sense, although i also had a luxury of seeing where these passes went to and came from, but in this context i think they are ok because they were such a clear demonstration of the trend i was talking about – long balls out of defence! when we play well we, like i say, average around 80 – 90%