Get Yourself A Bargain
Everyone loves a deal, so here’s a rundown of the best bang-for-your-buck strikers of the Premier League season so far (you must have been signed this summer and scored four goals or more to qualify for this special offer):
1. Diafra Sakho (West Ham): 6 goals at $1.25m or £0.8m each
2. Mohamed Diame (Hull City): 4 goals at $1.4m or £0.9m each
3. Graziano Pelle (Southampton): 6 goals at $2.35m or £1.5m each
4. Leonardo Ulloa* (Leicester City): 5 goals at $2.5m or £1.6m each
5. Diego Costa (Chelsea): 11 goals at $4.5m or £2.9m each
*Bargain hunters should note that, while Ulloa looks good value for his goal haul to-date, since firing home in each of his first five Premier League games, he hasn’t found the back of the net in over 500 minutes of football.
The Great Brendan Rodgers Giveaway
This season in the Great Brendan Rodgers Giveaway, you can get 37.5% off Liverpool’s goal tally compared to last year, and a whopping 42% off their Premier League points tally.
Of course, we’re comparing the Merseysiders to their best season in some considerable time: when considered within the context of recent history, the year so far doesn’t look quite so desperate for the Reds. Over the last five years, including last season’s heady haul, Liverpool’s average number of goals scored after 12 games is 17; this season, without Daniel Sturridge for the lion’s share of their matches, they’ve hit just two fewer. Slightly worse is Liverpool’s current points haul compared to the 5-year average, which is four less.
So while the numbers are certainly down on the 5-year average, they aren’t catastrophic. The problem for Rodgers is one of expectations. Having come so close to a first league title in 25 years last season, and having spent $183m or £117m (though only $55m or £35m net) this summer on nine new signings, Liverpool and Rodgers seriously upped the ante.
As the Northern Irishman said before playing Tottenham Hotspur last year: “I don’t think we are under pressure. Probably not as much as a team that spent £100m and must have been hoping to challenge for the league this season.”
Well said, Brendan.
12 weeks in and the league is incredibly tight, but while Liverpool are still only five points off the Champions League positions, they’re also only four points above the relegation zone. This weekend’s visit from Stoke is now a genuinely must-win game for Brendan Rodgers and his charges.
16 Times MORE Bertrand!
Chelsea have a bad habit of snapping up promising youngsters and letting them rot in the reserves or perpetually loaning them out season after season. Left Back Ryan Bertrand falls squarely in the latter category and, having played only 60 minutes for Chelsea last season (he subsequently went on loan to Aston Villa in January), he’s played every single minute of Southampton’s 2014-15 Premier League campaign so far, along with Nathaniel Clyne, Fraser Forster and Jose Fonte. Southampton have also made the fewest number of substitutions of any team this term, and it’s for reasons such as these that so many question The Saints’ ability to go marching on until the end of the season.
On Sunday, they face a serious test to their Champions League ambitions with the visit of Manchester City. No team has had more shots on target this season than City, but equally no team has allowed fewer shots on target than Southampton.
Somethings gotta give.
Goals SLASHED by over 10%!
Despite Southampton’s 8-0 shellacking of Sunderland, Chelsea’s 5-3 goal-fest against Everton and some frankly laughable defending from QPR and Liverpool, the first quarter of the 2014-15 season has delivered 10% fewer goals than last year.
And that isn’t a stat which is likely to be overturned by Aston Villa’s visit to Burnley. The Villains and The Clarets are averaging a meagre 0.5 and 0.66 goals per game respectively.
Disposable Goods
The lifespan of a Premier League manager is not dissimilar to that of an iPhone 6 dropped down the toilet, so when one comes up against a former team it’s not an especially big deal.
However, when Alan Pardew’s 5th place Newcastle United travel to Sam Allardyce’s 6th place West Ham United this weekend, each man will come up against a previous employer. Pardew and Allardyce are currently the second and third longest-serving managers in the Premier League, yet at the start of the season both men were joint second favorites to be the first manager sacked. Football really is a fickle, fickle game.
Despite their strong start, the Hammers are currently on a three-game winless streak, which history suggests is unlikely to change this weekend: Newcastle have lost only once in their last eight visits to Upton Park.
