A look at our defense

How have our defensive partnerships fared in the 25 PL games played thus far? Just as with the Chicharito post, this is another attempt to use simple stats to measure performance.

As of Feb 6th, 2011, we’ve played 25 league games and amassed a record of 15W 9D 1L. We have conceded 24 goals making it an average of 0.96 gcpg (goals conceded per game). Not great, but not awful either. Thankfully, we’ve mustered up 55 goals for an average of 2.2 goals scored per game. However, our average is skewed slightly by big wins such as the 7-1 victory against Blackburn and the 5-0 win over Birmingham. If you remove those 2 games from consideration, our goals scored per game drops to a mere 1.72 goals scored per game. Not exactly the stats of a goal scoring machine, which then places even more of an emphasis on our defense to stay tight at the back.

25 league games played (15W 9D 1L) / 0.96gcp

Evans/Vidic – 7 games (3W 3D 1L) 11 goals conceded/1.57gcpg Win percentage = 42%
Ferdinand/Vidic – 15 games (9W 6D) 10 goals conceded/0.67gcpg Win percentage = 60%
Smalling/Vidic – 3 games (3W) 3 goals conceded/1gcpg Win percentage = 100%

As is obvious from the above, Ferdinand and Vidic are our best option at the back. Stats were clearly not needed to arrive at that conclusion. The Evans/Vidic combination looks to be the weakest one, at least on paper, with an average of 1.57gcpg. Their record of 3W 3D 1L (and a win percentage of 42%) reads like that of a midtable team. Another way to look at it is the fact that the duo have conceded 44% of the league goals scored against us in only 28% of the games we’ve played. The Rio/Vidic combo on the other hand have played twice as many games and conceded 1 less goal in total.

Smalling/Vidic have a 100% record over 3 games, but it’s impossible to say how good that record would be over 15 games. Would it better than the Rio/Vidic combo? Once again, we won’t know, but Vidic/Smalling have also partnered twice in the Champions League and we won both those games as well. If you’re superstitious, then we should be playing Vidic/Smalling for every game from here on out.

If you isolate the individuals and look at their records in the games they’ve started (irrespective of who they’ve partnered), the trend stays relatively similar.

Vidic – 25 games (15W 9D 1L) 24 goals conceded/0.96gcpg 54 out of a possible 75 points (72%)
Ferdinand – 15 games (9W 6D) 10 goals conceded/0.67gcpg 33 out of a possible 45 points (73%)
Smalling – 3 games (3W) 3 goals conceded/1gcpg 9 out of a possible 9 points (100%)
Evans – 7 games (3W 3D 1L) 11 goals conceded/1.57gcpg 12 out of a possible 21 points (57%)

In this, Ferdinand appears to have a slight edge over Vidic in terms of goals conceded per game, but their percentage of possible points won are almost identical. Evans on the other hand can’t catch a break as this isolation further reinforces the belief that he is the weak link in our defense this year.

This is by no means an attempt to call out the firing squad on Jonny Evans. As has been mentioned before, we need to remain patient with him even if every fiber of our being is saying otherwise. We’ve given up on too many bright youngsters who have shown potential and they in turn, have gone on to become superstars (Rossi and Pique would top that list). Of course there’s also the others who we’ve released or sold and they have gone on to become very good PL players, but not necessarily up the standard expected at United. With that said, we find ourselves in a tough spot with Evans since he’s proven himself in prior seasons and is just experiencing an unbelievably rough patch of form this season.

If you need a reminder of his contribution in the past, refer to the previous post. It’ll hopefully aid in alleviating some of the frustration. For now anyway…

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Category: Man Utd Ramblings, Manchester United