New Signing: Diafra Sakho

Diafra Sakho

DOB: 24/12/1989

Age: 24

Position: Striker

Previous Club: FC Metz
Previous Division: Ligue 2

Transfer Date: 14/08/2014

Reported Fee: £2.5m

Analysis
Apologies for the tardiness of this analysis - I've been away, and match previews and analysis took my attention immediately after my return.

Last week, Diafra Sakho became West Ham United's seventh summer signing. The Senegal international joins his compatriots Mohamed Diamé and Cheikhou Kouyaté in the West Ham squad following a successful few years with FC Metz in France.

As championed by the official West Ham site, Sakho's goals over the last couple of seasons have helped to fire Metz back to the top division of French football, and his overall haul of 47 goals in 124 games for the side that once provided us with Sebastian Schemmel has persuaded Sam Allardyce and his bosses to bring the striker to East London.

Unfortunately for us, Sakho has been playing in the lower leagues in France for the past couple of seasons. This means there is very little statistical information about the forward's game, and aren't able to take a detailed look at his performances and what he can bring to our side.

What we do know, is that Sakho has been clinical in recent times.

Last season, Diafra bagged an impressive 20 goals in 37 league appearances. This record places him as the joint highest scorer of all West Ham's available strikers in league football last year.

On top of this, the striker also racked up 4 assists for his team mates, meaning he has the third best minutes per goal involvement record of his new colleagues, losing out to only Enner Valencia's record at FC Pachuca.

Once Sakho has made a few appearances in the Premier League, I'll revisit the striker position and take a look at who should be leading the line for West Ham. Until then, I'm afraid this is all we have available.

So, for now, all I can do is wish Diafra Sakho the best, and welcome him to West Ham United!

New Signing: Enner Valencia

Enner Valencia

DOB: 04/11/1989

Age: 24

Position: Forward

Previous Club: CF Pachuca

Previous Division: Liga MX Clausura

Transfer Date: 17/07/2014

Reported Fee: Anywhere from £7.9m to £15m

Analysis
Well, there's your big money move.

In the tradition of the past two summer transfer windows, West Ham United have once against strengthened the squad with a big money signing (Matt Jarvis 2012, Andy Carroll 2013). The difference this time, is that most people hadn't heard of Ecuadorian striker Enner Valencia before his excellent performance for his country in the World Cup.

The rumour mill has been spinning about Valencia for some time now, with the likes of Atletico Madrid, AC Milan and Valencia all linked with him at various point, and by sources of various reliability. Over this time, it has emerged that this isn't a flash in the pan sort of signing based on 3 good performances, but that the Hammers have been tracking their new man over the course of the last six months.

But other than his World Cup cameo, what do West Ham fans know about the newcomer?

Comparison

So what does Valencia offer us that his new teammates don't?

Well, the obvious difference is that Valencia has been in top goalscoring form in the last year. The forward bagged himself 18 goals in 23 league appearances, and a further 3 in 3 at the World Cup. In comparison, Carlton Cole, Andy Carroll, Ricardo Vâz Te and Modibo Maïga managed 11 league goals between them.

Clearly, there is a difference in standard between the Mexican and English premiere divisions, but signing a striker in form can never be a bad thing.

Aside from scoring significantly more goals than his new colleagues, Valencia also attempted far more shots. Andy Carroll was West Ham's most prolific shooter last season, with an attempted 4.21 attempts on goal per 90 minutes, with a shot accuracy of 33%.

Valencia, on the other hand, attempted a whipping 6.27 shots per 90 minutes, with a shooting accuracy of 52%.

An area in which Valencia is less capable than his new team mates is aerially.

Although he did manage to bag himself four headed goals last season, the Ecuadorian managed an aerial duel success rate of just 33%, less than all but Ricardo Vâz Te's effort of 30%. What this suggests, is that Valencia is not a like-for-like competitor with Andy Carroll.

Last season, when the line was led by Modibo Maïga, West Ham failed to adequately adjust our style to incorporate a different type of forward, and served Maïga with the type of long balls and isolation that Carroll is equipped to deal with.

If Valencia is to be a success at West Ham, it seems clear that there must be a varied approach in utilising the new man.

Strengths
Valencia's main strength is what we bought him for: he scores goals.

In the Liga Mexican Clausura last season, Valencia bagged an impressive 18 goals for Pachuca, making him the division's top scorer by a country mile, as his nearest challenger netted just 9 (though he did get those in just 11 appearances).

Perhaps most interesting though, is the fact that 17 of Valencia's 18 goals came from within the box. It seems to be accepted that Valencia will play as one of the wide forwards for his new side, replacing either Stewart Downing or Matt Jarvis in the side. What the two English wingers lacked last season with the killer instinct to get into the box and score goals. Based on Valencia's predatory record, it seems safe to assume that this won't be an issue the Ecuadorian suffers from.

http://www.squawka.com/football-player-rankings

As mentioned above, it has been suggested that Valencia will play as one of the wide pair alongside a centre forward. This is a role he has played on numerous occasions throughout his career - a career in which he actually started out as a winger, only to be converted to a striker within the past few seasons.

The heat map below comes from Pachuca's game against Toluca in January.

During this game, Valencia officially lined up as a right winger, but, as you can plainly see, he popped up all over the park to contribute for his team.

http://liga-mx.squawka.com/pachuca-vs-toluca/

But Valencia can also shine as the main main, leading the line for his club and country regularly.

Arguably his best performance in the last season for Pachuca came in the 3-0 win over Monarcas Morelia, in which he bagged himself two goals and an assist (his only assist of the season).

The images below show his take ons, and then his goals from that game.

As you can see, Valencia is keen to take on his man and get into the box, completed 6 of 9 take ons, 4 of which were attempted within the penalty area, and another four coming just outside the box.

The second image also gives you a flavour of the type of goals Valencia scored throughout the campaign. Getting in and around the six yard box to finish off moves became something of a specialty for the Ecuadorian last season, and will hopefully be something he can bring to a West Ham side lacking in that finishing touch.

http://liga-mx.squawka.com/pachuca-vs-monarcas-morelia/

Weaknesses
Probably Valencia's biggest weakness is his discipline.

Last season, he picked up 7 yellow cards in 23 league appearances. This is a pretty poor record, that is only made worse by the fact that three of those were a result of talking himself into trouble.

For the sort of money that is rumoured to be tabled for Valencia, we could really do without the forward picking up too many suspensions.

Conclusion
I suppose the thing that currently counts most against Valencia, is his lack of experience outside of South America. Any big money move is a risk, but for a player who has never played in Europe, let alone the Premier League, there is a bit of a fear that everything could go belly up.

However, here is an undoubtedly talented footballer, who has all the ability and potential to be a fantastic signing for this football club. And if Valencia can produce even half of his goalscoring record from recent seasons for West Ham, he'll settle in very nicely.

Enner Valencia, welcome to (East) London.

New Signing: Mauro Zárate

Mauro Zárate

DOB: 18/03/1987

Age: 27

Position: Striker

Previous Club: Club Atlético Vélez Sársfield

Previous Division: Argentine Primera División

Transfer Date: 28/05/2014

Reported Fee: Free Transfer

Analysis

As with every new signing West Ham United make these days, Mauro Zárate is dividing opinion amongst supporters before he even steps foot onto the hallowed turf of the Boleyn Ground.

Depending on your point of view, Zárate is either a failure outside of his homeland, or exactly the type of player we need to take us to the mysterious 'next level' for which we always strive, yet never quite reach.

In truth, both schools of thought have an element of truth to them.

Zárate has never been as prolific outside of Argentina as he has been when playing for his first (and last) club Vélez Sársfield. The striker has managed to bag double figures four times in his playing career, but only once in his five seasons in Europe (2008/09 with SS Lazio). Though it should be remembered that goals are harder to come by in the Italian Serie A.

That said, Zárate has been a rather prolific scorer/creator over the past 7 seasons, since he surfaced in Europe after a (very) short spell in the Middle East. The graph below shows his minutes per goal / assist ratio since the 2007/08 season with Birmingham City.

Over that time, Zárate has managed to score or create a goal once every 148 minutes.

There is an old cliche in football that you're only as good as your last game.

If that is true, Zárate can only really be judged on his last season. Although the quality of Argentina's top division is not quite the same as the Premier League, the striker managed a very impressive 20 goals in 35 appearances - at a rate of one goal every 135 minutes.

Compare this to his new West Ham team mates.

Club record signing Andy Carroll managed a goal every 568 minutes last season - more than triple the rate of top scoring striker Carlton Cole (179). As you can see below, Zárate's rate puts him in second place to only Ricardo Vâz Te, though the Portuguese struggled for fitness and minutes, so his figure is warped somewhat.

Unfortunately, no major stats sites collate information on the Argentinian leagues, so an in depth analysis of Zárate will have to wait. But what we do know is that the Argentine scores and creates goals when he's given time on the pitch.

At the very least, this free signing will boost competition at the business end of the pitch. At best, we could have a real talent on our hands.

I guess we wait and see which camp is correct.

West Ham United 2 - 3 Everton

21/09/2013

15:00

Boleyn Ground

West Ham United vs Everton

 Goalscorers: 

1-0 Ravel Morrison 31'

1-1 Leighton Baines 62'

2-1 Mark Noble 76'

2-2 Leighton Baines 83'

2-3 Romelu Lukaku 85'

 Analysis 

If I had to use one word to sum up Saturday's result and performance, it'd be: Typical.

It's typical of West Ham in recent years to get themselves into a decent position and blow it. It's typical of our players to make some poor decisions. It's typical of an opposition to take full advantage of our mistakes and punish them. And it's typical of an opposition player to score on his debut.

Were there positives? Yes. Mark Noble had a very good game until he was sent off. Ravel Morrison continues to impress without setting the world alight. Mladen Petric seemed to impress more in half an hour than Modibo Maiga has managed in more than six hours so far this season.

Despite the positives, the overriding feeling is one of dismay - and that is what I'm going to focus on to start.

I may as well begin with the real turning point in the game - Mark Noble's red card.

As I mentioned above, Noble was having a good game until he saw red. 28 of 35 passes were accurate, three chances created, four successful tackles, and a typically calm and clinical penalty kick made it seem that Noble would be the match winner.

But some poor decision making cost Noble, and West Ham, greatly. In his younger years, Noble could regularly be seen making clumsy challenges in unecessary positions, but it seemed that he'd stamped that out of his game.

However, on Saturday that characteristic reared it's head once more. There seems to be a bit of a split opinion on whether or not Noble got the ball with his final foul of the game, but from what I've seen, I don't think he did.

But it's not just that foul that cost Noble. People have said that his first booking was a bit soft. Maybe it was. But Noble it was the first foul Noble had made in 13 minutes, and the referree had little choice.

The image below shows Noble's fouls in the game. What stands out to me, is that three of them are not in particularly dangerous positions. There is an argument that Noble didn't need to make any of the challenges that he got wrong.

http://epl.squawka.com/west-ham-united-vs-everton

Up until Noble's sending off, everything seemed to be going well on the surface. But the facts are that we only managed two shots on target in the game - one a penalty, and one a deflected effort for Ravel's opener.

We don't seem to be carving open the opportunities that we were last season. People will point to the absense of Andy Carroll, but with the lack of creativity we are serving up, there appears to be little that even he could do with the scraps.

For me, Matt Jarvis was the main culprit once again. Jarvis is widely recognised as the main attacking outlet of our side, with his crossing touted as one of the real weapons in or arsenal.

This season, Jarvis has been accurate with just 7 of 36 crosses, and on Saturday he hit his target with 1 of his 6 attempts. For a player of Jarvis' ability, this is not good enough. I know he got an assist, but he really isn't creating enough dangerous opportunities for my liking.

The image below shows Jarvis' attempted crosses against Everton. (Red = Unsuccessful, Green = successful, Yellow = led directly to a shot).

As I mentioned in the intro, there were one or two positives. The main one was the promising cameo of Mladen Petric. The Croat was full of running, and he work that led to the penalty kick was something we haven't seen at all from Modibo Maiga this season.

However, what stood out to me was the difference in how we used the two strikers. All season, we've been playing toward Maiga as if he were Andy carroll (which he clearly is not!), hitting him from range, putting the ball up for him to battle with defenders for, and asking him to hold up the ball.

I know Petric wasn't on the field for a massive amount of time, but the approach was definitely different.

Firstly, Maiga was involved in 11 headed duels, winning 5. Petric wasn't involved in a single aerial duel. None of his passes were made with his head either, showing that he wasn't served up anything in the air.

The other thing that struck me was that Jussi Jaaskelainen regularly searches out Maiga with long balls forward, but attempted none toward Petric. The images below show the passes received by Maiga (first image) and Petric (second image). Although Petric received far fewer, you can see that the range of passes is far smaller, with only one coming from the defence (Winston Reid).

I wrote in my new signing spotlight of Petric that he needed the ball into feet to be effective. Let's hope that this is an approach that the side will adopt.

To be honest, I just want to put this game behind me, as I'm sure we all do.

We have a big week coming up. A win against Cardiff in the Capital One Cup will be the perfect tonic for a couple of humbling results in recent weeks, whilst a visit to the North East to face Hull City next Saturday presents as a very winnable away game.

This time next week, let's hope I'm writing about a very good three points off the back of a great cup win.

Onwards and upwards.

 General Play 

4-2-3-1 Formation 4-2-3-1

(-34) Jussi Jääskeläinen - Tim Howard (-13)

(13) Joey O'Brien - Seamus Coleman (-5)

(-15) James Collins - Phil Jagielka (19)

(31) Winston Reid - Sylvain Distin (13)

(-35) Rǎzvan Raţ - Leighton Baines (109)

(27) Mark Noble - Leon Osman (4)

(3) Ravel Morrison - Gareth Barry (19)

(29) Mohamed Diamé - Kevin Mirallas (16)

(19) Kevin Nolan - Ross Barkley (1)

(7) Matt Jarvis - Steven Naismith (-4)

(-9) Modibo Maïga - Nikica Jelavic (-11)

(-8) Mladen Petrić - James McCarthy (-10)

(-11) Ricardo Vâz Te - Romelu Lukaku (38)

(-1) Matthew Taylor - Bryan Oviedo (5)

Best Performance

(31) Winston Reid - Leighton Baines (109)

Worst Performance

(-35) Rǎzvan Raţ - Tim Howard (-13)

41% Possession 59%

315 Passes Attempted 528

Rǎzvan Raţ 42 Most Attempted 88 Gareth Barry

72% Passing Accuracy 83%

57% In Opp. Half 76%

Mohamed Diamé 87% Best Accuracy 97% Leon Osman

67 Long Balls 67

Rǎzvan Raţ 13 Most Long Balls (excl. GK) Phil Jagielka 16

Most Frequent Pass Combination

O'Brien to Morrison 8 - 18 Barry to Barkley

 20 Aerial Duels Won 21 

 49% Success 51% 

Winston Reid 5 Most Won 4 Gareth Barry

Rǎzvan Raţ 59 Most Touches 101 Gareth Barry

 Offensive Play 

10 Attempts on Goal 10

2 On Target 4

5 Off Target 4

3 Blocked 2

6 From Outside the Box 5

Mohamed Diamé 4 Most Shots 3 Romelu Lukaku

6 Key Passes 6

Mark Noble 3 Most Key Passes 1 James McCarthy

15 Crosses 23

Matt Jarvis 6 Most Attempted 9 Kevin Mirallas

4 Successful Crosses 4

27% Success 17%

Mark Noble 2 Most Successful 2 Kevin Mirallas

 Defensive Play 

26 Tackles Attempted 17

22 Successful Tackles 17

85% Success 100%

Mohamed Diamé 7 Most Tackles 5 Leighton Baines

32 Clearances 44

James Collins 12 Most Clearances 11 Phil Jagielka

15 Interceptions 8

Winston Reid 4 Most Interceptions 2 Gareth Barry

2 Shot Blocks 3

James Collins 1 Most Shot Blocks 1 Gareth Barry

- 6yrd Blocks -

 - Most 6yrd Blocks - 

 Discipline 

 17 Fouls 12 

4 Most Fouls 3

3 Yellow Cards 1

West Ham United:  Ravel Morrison,  Mohamed Diamé,  Mark Noble 

Everton:  Ross Barkley   

1 Red Cards 0

West Ham United:  Mark Noble   

Everton:     

 Head to Heads 

Jussi Jääskeläinen vs Tim Howard

3 Goals Conceded 2

2 Saves 0

1 Crosses Claimed 1

18 Total Passes 21

7 Accurate Passes 12

39% Success 57%

15 Long Balls 14

83% % 67%

5 Throw Outs 11

0 Kick from Hand 1

0 Errors Leading to Shot 0

0 Errors Leading to Goal 0

Modibo Maïga 4 Most Passed To 12 Phil Jagielka

Rǎzvan Raţ vs Leighton Baines

1 Aerial Duels 3

1 Duels Won 2

100% Success 67%

  

0 Tackles Attempted 5

0 Tackles Completed 5

- Success 100%

  

6 Clearances 7

1 Interceptions 1

0 Blocks 0

0 6yrd Blocks 0

  

0 Errors Leading to Shot 0

0 Errors Leading to Goal 0

  

44 Passes Attempted 45

31 Successful 40

70% Success 89%

  

2 Crosses Attempted 7

1 Successful 1

50% Success 14%

  

1 Chances Created 1

  

0 Attempts on Goal 2

0 On Target 2

0 Goals 2

  

6 Most Passed To 9

Ravel Morrison vs Ross Barkley

33 Passes Attempted 61

27 Successful 50

82% Success 82%

  

1 Key Passes 1

0 Assists 0

  

1 Attempts on Goal 2

1 On Target 0

1 Goals 0

  

0 Tackles Attempted 1

0 Tackles Completed 1

#DIV/0!

  

0 Clearances 1

1 Interceptions 0

0 Blocks 0

0 6yrd Blocks 0

  

0 Errors Leading to Shot 0

0 Errors Leading to Goal 0

  

Mark Noble 5 Most Passed To 14 Gareth Barry

Modibo Maïga vs Romelu Lukaku

1 Attempts on Goal 3

0 On Target 1

0 Goals 1

  

0 Key Passes 0

0 Assists 0

  

18 Passes Attempted 26

10 Successful 20

56% Success 77%

  

11 Aerial Duels 4

5 Duels Won 2

45% Success 50%

  

Kevin Nolan 3 Most Passed To 9 Ross Barkley

West Ham United 2 - 0 Cardiff City

17/08/2013

15:00

Boleyn Ground

West Ham United vs Cardiff City

 Goalscorers: 

1-0 Joe Cole 13'

2-0 Kevin Nolan 76'

 Analysis 

After all the anticipation for the new season, West Ham didn't disappoint on Saturday afternoon.

Opening the season against a newly promoted side can be a bit of a tricky affair. The element of the unknown, combined with the excitement of the opposition after sealing promotion can be a dangerous combination.

So a comfortable 2-0 victory was about as perfect as it could have been. Two very good goals, a extremely solid defensive performance, an impressive showing from our centre forward, and an exciting cameo from a new signing meant we kicked off the season in positive fashion.

The performance of Modibo Maiga at centre forward seems as good a place as any to start.

Many have had their doubts that Maiga is capable of filling Andy Carroll's shoes during any spells of absense this season, indeed, the club have made it clear that another centre forward is still high on their shopping list.

However, Maiga showed on Saturday that he can fill in for Carroll when required. Not only did the Malian create three shooting opportunities for his team mates, but he led the line as a target man in a way many of us never expected. Maiga won 10 of his 21 aerial duels against Cardiff's defenders, and held up the ball very well.

His distribution may not have been perfect, but the intent was there, and there was a clear plan in mind with Maiga's passing game. We all know that Sam Allaryce favours the tactic of getting the ball out wide, and Maiga played a big part of this on Saturday. 9 of his attempted passes were to Joe Cole on the right flank, one of the highest pass combinations in the side.

But the side of his game that most impressed me was as target man. The image below shows the passes that Maiga received from his team mates on Saturday afternoon. As the chart shows, Modibo made himself available all across the front line, and was a general nuisance for the Cardiff City defenders.

I've written in the past few weeks about some of the potential selection dilemmas that Big Sam would face when it came to the start of the Premier League season. One selection I didn't anticipate, wast Joey O'Brien continuing at left back, despite the recruitment of Razvan Rat.

O'Brien may not have been the starting left back I'd expected, but he put in a performance to completely justify his selection. Not only did he make two successful tackles and 6 effective clearances, but he also created a goalscoring opportunity  and took more touches of the ball than any of his teammates.

In fact, only Gary Medel of Cardiff managed more touches than O'Brien on Saturday (66 to 65).

The image below displays player influence during the game. The bigger the name, the more involved the player.

Another player who impressed me was Mark Noble.

For the most part, Noble played the game we've seen him develop in the past two or three seasons, sitting deep and dictating the play with his range of passing. But what really pleased me about his performance was his desire to get forward.

I'm sure we can all remember the impact Noble had in the final third of the pitch back in the days of the Curbishley inspired great escape, but we haven't really seen that side to Noble in a long while now.

Last season, Noble stayed deep and tended to allow Mohamed Diamé the freedom to push on. But on Saturday, he showed a real desire to move up the pitch and carry the ball forward. This meant his passing could really hurt the Cardiff defence, and indeed created Kevin Nolan's goal to sew up the points.

The image below shows all passes that Noble played during the game. As you can see, there are a number of passes in the West Ham half, as you'd expect, but there are also a significant amount of passes played within the final third.

(Green = Successful Pass; Yellow = Chance Created; Red = Unsuccessful Pass)

http://epl.squawka.com/west-ham-united-vs-cardiff-city/17-08-2013/english-barclays-premier-league/matches

Finally, I'd like to mention Matt Jarvis.

The Middlesbrough born winger had a bit of a mixed debut season in East London last year, becoming the primary attacking outlet for the side, but failing to register a direct assist all season.

Well, he had another mixed afternoon on Saturday. In the first half, Jarvis was a real thorn in Cardiff's side, delivering a number of testing balls into the box, and grabbing the assist that evaded him last season.

The following image shows Jarvis' attempted passes in the first half. As you can see, he got to the byline on a few occasions and cause real problems for the Cardiff defence.

However, in the second half his influence shrank - he managed just the one cross in the second half, and it was unsuccessful. With players like Stewart Downing waiting in the wings, Jarvis will need to increase his levels of consistency if he wants to continue out on the left flank.

The image below shows Jarvis' attempted passes in the second half. Obviously he only managed 26 minutes in the second half, but it seems clear why he only managed that amount, given his contribution!

The conclude, a fantastic start to the season.

We played some wonderful football (how good was Kevin Nolan's goal, by the way), we were never trouble defensively, and we basically picked up our home form where we left it in May.

If there was a downside, it'd be the fact that we failed to control possession at home against a newly promoted side - managing 47% of the possession. However, what that just goes to show is that it's not how much you have the ball that counts, it's what you do with it.

Posting this a day later than I'd planned to has meant that our next opposition Newcastle have just registered a 4-0 defeat, a red card, and have received a bid from Arsenal for their star midfielder. Let's hope their week continues to get worse until next Saturday!

 Teams

4-2-3-1 Formation 4-2-3-1

(59.46) Jussi Jääskeläinen - David Marshall (52.67)

(59.00) Guy Demel - Matthew Connolly (57.88)

(61.23) James Collins - Steven Caulker (61.31)

(61.44) Winston Reid - Ben Turner (58.90)

(60.54) Joey O'Brien - Declan John (57.34)

(61.57) Mark Noble - Gary Medel (62.57)

(61.84) Mohamed Diamé - Aron Gunnarsson (62.00)

(71.57) Joe Cole - Craig Bellamy (65.24)

(63) Kevin Nolan - Kim Bo-Kyung (62.40)

(57.08) Matt Jarvis - Peter Whittingham (64.54)

(59.70) Modibo Maïga - Fraizer Campbell (60.12)

(-) Stewart Downing - Rudy Gestede (-)

(-) Alou Diarra - Nicky Maynard (-)

(-) Ricardo Vâz Te - Jordan Mutch (-)

Best Performance

(71.57) Joe Cole - Craig Bellamy (65.24)

Worst Performance

(57.08) Matt Jarvis - David Marshall (52.67)

General Play

47% Possession 53%

331 Passes Attempted 422

Mark Noble 47 Most Attempted 60 Gary Medel

70% Passing Accuracy 75%

62% In Opp. Half 65%

Stewart Downing 100% Best Accuracy 93% Gary Medel

63 Long Balls 79

James Collins 14 Most Long Balls (excl. GK) 13 Ben Turner

Most Frequent Pass Combination

O'Brien to Maïga 11 - 12 John Whittingham

 27 Aerial Duels Won 23 

 54% Success 46% 

Modibo Maïga 10 Most Won 3 Sean Morrison

Joey O'Brien 65 Most Touches 66 Gary Medel

 Offensive Play 

18 Attempts on Goal 12

4 On Target 1

9 Off Target 7

5 Blocked 4

8 From Outside the Box 8

Joe Cole 5 Most Shots 5 Peter Whittingham

14 Key Passes 11

Matt Jarvis 3 Most Key Passes 4 Peter Whittingham

19 Crosses 16

Joe Cole 5 Most Attempted 7 Craig Bellamy

7 Successful Crosses 3

37% Success 19%

Joe Cole 2 Most Successful 2 Matthew Connolly

 Defensive Play 

11 Tackles Attempted 11

9 Successful Tackles 7

82% Success 64%

Mohamed Diamé 3 Most Successful 3 Aron Gunnarsson

48 Clearances 32

Winston Reid 13 Most Clearances 8 Ben Turner

5 Interceptions 5

Mark Noble 2 Most Interceptions 2 Aron Gunnarsson

4 Blocks 5

Kevin Nolan 2 Most Blocks 2 Steven Caulker

0 6yrd Blocks 0

 0 Most 6yrd Blocks 0 

 Discipline 

 10 Fouls 7 

4 Most Fouls 3

0 Yellow Cards 1

West Ham United:     

Cardiff City:  Matthew Connolly   

0 Red Cards 0

West Ham United:     

Cardiff City:     

 Head to Heads 

Jussi Jääskeläinen vs David Marshall

0 Goals Conceded 2

1 Saves 2

0 Crosses Claimed 2

9 Total Passes 27

5 Accurate Passes 9

56% Success 33%

5 Long Balls 20

56% % 74%

1 Throw Outs 6

2 Kick from Hand 2

0 Errors Leading to Shot 0

0 Errors Leading to Goal 0

Modibo Maïga 6 Most Passed To 6 Steven Caulker

Winston Reid vs Steven Caulker

8 Aerial Duels 8

4 Duels Won 4

50% Success 50%

  

1 Tackles Attempted 1

1 Tackles Completed 1

100% Success 100%

  

13 Clearances 6

1 Interceptions 0

0 Blocks 2

- 6yrd Blocks -

  

0 Errors Leading to Shot 0

0 Errors Leading to Goal 0

  

22 Passes Attempted 40

14 Successful 30

64% Success 75%

  

Joey O'Brien 4 Most Passed To  8 Matthew Connolly

Joe Cole vs Peter Whittingham

30 Passes Attempted 48

20 Successful 38

67% Success 79%

  

1 Key Passes 4

0 Assists 0

  

5 Attempts on Goal 5

2 On Target 0

1 Goals 0

  

1 Tackles Attempted 1

1 Tackles Completed 1

100% Success 100%

  

1 Clearances 2

0 Interceptions 0

0 Blocks 0

- 6yrd Blocks -

  

0 Errors Leading to Shot 0

0 Errors Leading to Goal 0

  

Guy Demel 7 Most Passed To 9 Gary Medel

Modibo Maïga vs Fraizer Campbell

1 Attempts on Goal 2

1 On Target 0

0 Goals 0

  

3 Key Passes 2

0 Assists 0

  

37 Passes Attempted 21

25 Successful 14

68% Success 67%

  

21 Aerial Duels 11

10 Duels Won 4

48% Success 36%

  

Joe Cole 9 Most Passed To 5 Kim Bo-Kyung