IMS_Blog

I was going to start the year off with a Happy New Year, here’s what I did in my holidays post (that is coming) but I just sat and worked this out, and it seems an age since I did a purely football post, so hey.

I’ve been thinking about Demba Ba and Cheick Tiote’s absence at the Africa Cup of Nations. While Ba is obviously a huge miss the one thing a team needs when they might be struggling to score goals is not to be letting them in at the other end. Which brings us to Tiote. I’ve just sat down while waiting for dinner to cook and taken at our goals conceded record both with and without the man in midfield. By my reckoning (not double checked, based on nufc.com match reports, league only, assumes a match is 90 minutes), we’ve played 14 matches (barring 8 minutes when he was subbed off) with Tiote and 6 without. Without him we’ve conceded 13 goals, with him one less at 12. That equates to a goal against every 104 minutes while Cheick is on the pitch (i.e. less than one per game) compared with one every 42 minutes (i.e. one per half!) without him.

Of course like all such analysis there a many things neglected (strength of opposition faced, form and availability of the rest of the team, etc) but I still think it goes to show how important he is defensively. We need to keep tight for those harder to come by goals to count!