Written by Matt Stevenson
Here is the xG from the Southampton game. The game started poorly for AFCB, with Southampton having a good chance (1 in 6) in the third minute from Cornet which was blocked by Senesi and the Cherries struggling to string passes together. The game was scrappy until we went 1-0 through Evanilson and his first AFCB goal. It was an excellent goal too. Southampton switched off, Tavernier played a delightfully chipped quick free kick and Evanilson met it with a stretched volley to guide it past Ramsdale. The game settled down without many chances until we quickly went 3-0 up. The first followed a pull back from Semenyo to Cook who shot (1 in 10) but the ball hit Ouattara and went in the corner – this was rated 2 in 5, but he knew little about it. After the bad luck he has had with disallowed goals, this redressed the balance a little. Six minutes later, Semenyo danced through some poor Southampton defenders to shoot across the keeper into the far left corner. The xG at half time, was AFCB 0.92 Southampton 0.21, with the visitors having no shots after the 7th minute. The second half started again with Southampton pressure and they scored in the 51st minute through Harwood Bellis (1 in 7) after Semenyo was dispossessed in our right-back area following a free kick. We were now just one goal for Southampton to set up a tense finish and a lucky strike to secure the draw, yet any attempted onslaught did not happen. Once we had reached the hour mark, AFCB were largely dominant and had the four best chances through Evanilson (1 in 8) and from Kluivert, Semenyo and Sinisterra (all about 1 in 12). The final xG was AFCB 1.37 Southampton 0.60 so it was an even second half, although as we saw against Liverpool teams tend to slack off when they have a healthy lead. Understat also had AFCB in front, at 1.44 vs 0.70. These values were not overly different from the Chelsea game which we lost 1-0.
Man of the match against Southampton
Semenyo
O. Dango
Cook
Evanilson
Senesi
Christie
Tavernier
Someone else
There were 3 changes to the team who lost at Liverpool. Senesi came in for Huijsen, Smith came in for Araujo and Ouattara replaced Kluivert. The shape was as expected, with Kerkez (3) playing the most advanced of the defensive line, level with Cook (4) and Christie (10). The wide men, Semenyo (24) and in particular Ouattara (11) both played high, in advance of Evanilson (9) and Tavernier (16) who had been switched into a central attacking midfielder role. The first change was on 61 minutes (at 3-1) with Outtara being replaced by Kluivert (19) with I think Tavernier playing on the left. 15 minutes later it was a double change with Scott (8) and Unal (26) replacing Tavernier and Evanilson. From the TV I couldn’t really see how this formation was set up and where Scott was playing although the average position shows left of central midfield. In the dying minutes, Sinisterra came on for Semenyo and appeared to be on the right instead of his normal left (see average position) although he did have a shot from the left winger position.
Senesi attempted the most passes with 60, Cook attempted the most in the opposition’s half (21) with Semenyo attempted the most in the final third with 14. We averaged 81% pass completion. Semenyo completed the highest percentage of passes of the starting 11, with 94%. Ouattara only had 50% completion rate.
AFCB players were tackled 23 times, and Semenyo was tackled 3 times.
AFCB had 27 touches in the opposition’s penalty area with Ouattara having 7. 11 of our players had touches in Southampton’s box. Southampton had 17 touches in our penalty area.
We had 14 attempts (1 big) noting that chances can be provided after saves, deflections or a defensive error and not created. We hit the target 6 times. Southampton had 9 attempts, 1 big, and hit the target 3 times. Semenyo had 4 attempts, with the big chance falling to Evanilson.
AFCB won 21 of 28 tackles. Senesi won 5 from 8. Cook (4), Zabarnyi (3) and Ouattara (2) won every one of their tackles.
The foul count was AFCB 19, Southampton 11. Christie and Semenyo made joint-most fouls (4). Christie was fouled three times.
According to Opta, AFCB made no errors leading to a chance
Your say…
adam0102
Like you, I would have said that Semenyo’s error in not clearing led to the goal. For stats purposes, was it too far disconnected, or just not seen as an error?
Matt Stevenson responded…
The errors stat is really not too useful as it hardly ever records any errors. For us this season it is 2 errors leading to goals (by Neto at Forest and by Kepa vs Liverpool) and 1 leading to a no-goal, which was Christie shanking a clearance skyward.
So anything not a real error is ignored. – To join the conversation, click here.