49.45 – The Focus On Youth – Post 26

There has been an obvious drive since Dean Hoyle took over at Huddersfield Town to bring in younger players. It makes economic sense; they cost less, earn less, and can be sold on for more. Rickie Lambert may have wound up a Huddersfield player were the policy not so hardline at the time he left Bristol Rovers. Stan Ternent’s era was resounding for very much the opposite reason – his players like Lucketti and Unsworth would have earned a pretty penny, and contributed precious little. Dean Hoyle’s reign, then, has been like a breath of fresh air. Andy Booth retired, which took the average age down, and the new signings, Pilkington, Roberts, Clarke, have all been the youthful side of 30.

Going back to the article I was ‘discussing’ with Paolo Bandini, the Gazzetta had split the teams into minutes played by players born in 1989 or before (so not quite those that would be Under 21 Eligible) and found Udinese were representing the youth the best (in the whole of Europe), having had 6,751 minutes played by ‘young’ players at that time, and to good effect, too. This led me to wonder how Town would rank in this; obviously, using a total of minutes isn’t ideal – Town play 4140 minutes a season, Udinese only 3420 – so I went for a percentage approach, as evidenced in the post about loan players and products of the youth academy yesterday.

How, then, has Lee Clark operated his selection (and purchasing) in terms of this age differential? I decided to use 23 years old as my boundary; it is the age that would be the cut-off for Under-21 football, although I’ll run it year-on-year, rather than every other year, as Under-21s work. At the other end of the scale, I’ll take my ‘older player’ limit as being Over-30. I’d probably give this a little more thought if it wasn’t that the only goalkeepers Town have used under Lee Clark have been either well under 25 or well over 30; outfield players over 30 are certainly into the ‘experienced’ bracket. So, what do the numbers say?

They say some pretty amazing things. Not one player over the age of 30 represented Town last season – the oldest was Dean Heffernan at 29. The team that got to the playoffs was – by a massive majority – 23 or under, and it was an inexperience that showed. This season, some older heads have been brought in, and the experience column has shot up – around the same level as the 2003/04 team which was, as it looks as this year’s may have to be, successful in the playoffs. Ian Bennett has contributed a lot to this figure, as well as Kevin Kilbane and Damien Johnson; the loaning of the experience (or the relatively cheap wages that Bennett will be on) mean the transfer policy of buying youth holds up, though noises have been made both by Johnson and Kilbane of staying on after the end of the season – both of them have been steadying influences and, though Kilbane will be 34 next year, neither shows signs of being over-the-hill just yet.

What we can ask questions about is the purchase of Alan Lee. For the sake of one goal (at Arsenal, so it doesn’t even feature in my figures) the transfer policy was waived, and a fee was paid out for someone whose value would only diminish; and, all due respect to the Emile Heskey-like role Big Al has played for 1,324 minutes, it hasn’t been the most successful of moves and to date, Lee has failed to feature in the last three games, and played only 51 minutes in the last 11. That doesn’t mean that his experience wouldn’t come in handy in the play-offs, but it hasn’t yet.

Another feature of these numbers is that nobody is transcending the boundaries (Lee Peltier will probably be the first) – the ‘young’ players that were brought in remain young (particularly bearing in mind that outfield players don’t peak until 26-29-ish), and those that were brought in within the middle category are not yet into the experienced bracket – Peter Clarke is on the way there – so their value will also be maintained for a little while longer.

Lee Clark, then, has been pretty faithful to the policies he set out except in the case of Alan Lee; the increase in ‘experience’ this year (particularly relevant in the over-30 bracket) is manageable within that policy so long as they players remain loanees. I suspect that we’ll see the 2010/11 model (which is, let’s be fair, only a slightly more youth focused version of 2003/04) as the one that is carried forward – I think that’s probably the best level of balance for Town to progress on the pitch and financially.

1570 seconds – Arsene Wenger’s Red-Tinted Version Of The Truth – Post 11

“I hope [Cesc Fabregas] will not exchange shirts with players who try to kick him for 90 minutes and then say ‘Please can I get your shirt?”

After Sunday’s defeat at the Emirates, Anthony Pilkington reacted angrily about Cesc’s refusal to swap shirts with him, and a little media-furore has kicked up around it. For me, I couldn’t care less whether he swapped shirts; I think Djourou’s a better player, and his is the shirt I’d try and get (though he didn’t play on Sunday, of course). It’s the dismissive and disrespectful tone of Arsene Wenger that grates, and his wholly inaccurate summation of what happened.

 

Firstly, and most importantly, Fabregas was not kicked for 90 minutes. He didn’t feature in the game until (according to the official Arsenal site’s commentary, its 69 minutes)

67 minutes 43 seconds into the game, which was ended after 93 minutes 53 seconds – 26 minutes and 10 seconds¹.

During this 26 minutes, 12 free kicks were awarded – that’s an average of 1 every 130.8 seconds; just over two minutes. That’s quite a high figure, but it was towards the end of quite a tight cup tie, and both teams were pressing forward. Arsenal committed 5 of these, and Huddersfield 7 (including the penalty from which Arsenal scored their winner). So, Arsenal, during this 26 minute period, were fouled once every 224.3 seconds – almost once every four minutes.

This 26 minute period alone contained half of the fouls Huddersfield committed during the game; that must support Mr Wenger, surely? Cesc played for around a quarter of the game, but 50% of the Arsenal free-kicks were in that quarter-game. Arsenal committed 12 fouls during the game, which balances favourably with Huddersfield’s 14, but there isn’t a vast difference. It wasn’t a dirty game, by any means.

Of the seven fouls committed on Arsenal players during the 26 minutes of Cesc’s involvement, the player who was fouled is as follows.

Fabregas (68:54, 83:48, 93:53)

Rosicky (69:49, 89:27)

Koscielny (90:12)

Bendner (85:53)

Fabregas, then, the player who was dictating the play, ‘pulling the strings’ as the Arsenal website would have it, was fouled 3 times in 26 minutes. Once every 523.3 seconds – once every 8.72 (every 8¾ minutes). Now, if I was pushing on to a tired team, trying to pull strings and guide my team through to the fifth round of the FA Cup, I’d expect to bumped, bashed and kicked every time I touched the ball, as my opposition tried to stop me by fair means and foul.

By contrast, Alan Lee was involved in lots of free-kickery during the whole 90 minute period (he also scored). Here’s a summary of his involvement.

FKs conceded    (00:19 – Koscielny, 57:24 – Koscielny,

FKs awarded      (39:26 – Squillaci, 73:39 – Koscielny, 76:41 – Gibbs, 82:30 – Koscielny).

So, Arsenal conceded four free-kicks for fouls on Alan Lee. That’s one ever 23.5 minutes give-or-take. Note the 50/50 split of fouls by and for Koscielny and Alan Lee. ‘True centre-forward duel’ is probably how that would be reported.

I’ve established, then, that Fabregas was fouled more often in his 26 minutes than any other player, but one foul every 8¾ minutes isn’t ‘kicking someone off the park’ in anyone’s book.

The other factor that Arsene Wenger mentions is to specify that one particular player has been kicking Fabregas off the park – the one who asked him for his shirt, one Anthony Pilkington. Pilkington’s contribution to the disciplinary record of the game is as follows.

FKs conceded    (30:09 – Gibbs)

FKs awarded      (90:12 – Koscielny)

I think we can tell from those figures that Anthony Pilkington wasn’t kicking Cesc Fabregas off the park. Pilkington’s booking was unsporting behaviour, not a foul, and any contact he had with Fabregas, and any Fabregas had with him, was judged to be legal.

Arsene Wenger, then, probably needs to modify his statement.

“I hope [Cesc Fabregas] will not exchange shirts with players who don’t foul him once during 26 minutes 10 seconds and then say ‘Please can I get your shirt?’ after being booked for the same reason as he has”.

¹I will round this figure down to 26 minutes for reference’s sake, but anything worked out statistically will use 26’10, or 1570 seconds.