Due to this taking a while to compile (I made all the images), i've only done the last 5 Home and Away Premier League games.
N.B. I've used a colour code to make the stats a bit easier to read.
Red = left wing
Yellow = middle of pitch
Green = right wing
Football and white = led to goal
Key Passes Home Games:
Our home form is nicely balanced, it slightly favours the left side but not by much. The distribution in the penalty area is also pretty even. What is interesting though is that very little of these key passes are aimed for the right side of the penalty area. They're all either aiming for the middle or the left side.
Key Passes Away Games:
Our away form however tells a different story, it favours the left and middle with only 15.1% coming from the right. We haven't even had a key pass on the right from inside the penalty area in those 5 games.
Final Key Pass Count for Home and Away Games:
Left : 49 - 43.0%
Middle : 38 - 33.3%
Right : 27 - 23.7%
Touches Per Game:
This image in particular I think demonstrates the problem we have. The majority of the games our right side is the lowest. Everton and Newcastle away stand out as being terrible in particular. Putting it into perspective we've had over double the amount of touches on the left as we have on the right in all 10 games combined.
Left : 175 - 48.1%
Middle : 103 - 28.3%
Right : 86 - 23.6%
Shots Per Game:
This is a little harder to evaluate as the picture is a tiny bit more messy. Only 12.2% come from shots on the right from inside the penalty area. That decreases to 10.5% when you calculate all shots. Naturally shots in the middle are the majority and yet we have over double the shots on the left than we do on the right. However, only 1 goal was scored from the left and 2 were scored from the right.
Left : 43 - 28.1%
Middle : 94 - 61.4%
Right : 16 - 10.5%
Conclusion:
In my opinion the attacking balance in our team is far too focused on the left side. Our Touches and Key Passes are both highest on the left side while our right side has a very low percentage. This could be a tactical choice Jose has decided "give the ball to Martial/Sanchez". But when 7.1% of total shots come from the right side at home, something seems off.
The issue seems to be personal. When you look at Key Passes for example, they seem to be coming from our fullbacks (Valencia/Young) or from our central midfield (Matic, Pogba). Lingard and Mata had very few key passes from that area of the pitch. If Valencia has a poor game or gets pushed back our right side stops functioning. As both Lingard and Mata drift inwards.
How do we fix this? What we need in my opinion is a player who will get the ball and drive into the penalty area. Martial was meant to be that player against Newcastle and yet he got 0 touches in that area, Lingard and Sanchez both got 1 touch. If Martial can replicate his form on the left to the right then he could well be our solution. Chong could also fill this role as judging by his recent performances that is very much his skillset but probably too early for him. Alternatively we could sign a right sided forward to do this role.
If we don't address this then we'll continue to drop points because our attacking play is simply becoming too predictable.
TLDR:
The above shows that our right sided players don't carry a consistent attacking threat and if our fullback has a poor game we have little to no penetration from that side. This is a flaw in either our tactics or personal not being good enough. We desperately need to rebuild our right side.
N.B. I've used a colour code to make the stats a bit easier to read.
Red = left wing
Yellow = middle of pitch
Green = right wing
Football and white = led to goal
Key Passes Home Games:
Our home form is nicely balanced, it slightly favours the left side but not by much. The distribution in the penalty area is also pretty even. What is interesting though is that very little of these key passes are aimed for the right side of the penalty area. They're all either aiming for the middle or the left side.
Key Passes Away Games:
Our away form however tells a different story, it favours the left and middle with only 15.1% coming from the right. We haven't even had a key pass on the right from inside the penalty area in those 5 games.
Final Key Pass Count for Home and Away Games:
Left : 49 - 43.0%
Middle : 38 - 33.3%
Right : 27 - 23.7%
Touches Per Game:
This image in particular I think demonstrates the problem we have. The majority of the games our right side is the lowest. Everton and Newcastle away stand out as being terrible in particular. Putting it into perspective we've had over double the amount of touches on the left as we have on the right in all 10 games combined.
Left : 175 - 48.1%
Middle : 103 - 28.3%
Right : 86 - 23.6%
Shots Per Game:
This is a little harder to evaluate as the picture is a tiny bit more messy. Only 12.2% come from shots on the right from inside the penalty area. That decreases to 10.5% when you calculate all shots. Naturally shots in the middle are the majority and yet we have over double the shots on the left than we do on the right. However, only 1 goal was scored from the left and 2 were scored from the right.
Left : 43 - 28.1%
Middle : 94 - 61.4%
Right : 16 - 10.5%
Conclusion:
In my opinion the attacking balance in our team is far too focused on the left side. Our Touches and Key Passes are both highest on the left side while our right side has a very low percentage. This could be a tactical choice Jose has decided "give the ball to Martial/Sanchez". But when 7.1% of total shots come from the right side at home, something seems off.
The issue seems to be personal. When you look at Key Passes for example, they seem to be coming from our fullbacks (Valencia/Young) or from our central midfield (Matic, Pogba). Lingard and Mata had very few key passes from that area of the pitch. If Valencia has a poor game or gets pushed back our right side stops functioning. As both Lingard and Mata drift inwards.
How do we fix this? What we need in my opinion is a player who will get the ball and drive into the penalty area. Martial was meant to be that player against Newcastle and yet he got 0 touches in that area, Lingard and Sanchez both got 1 touch. If Martial can replicate his form on the left to the right then he could well be our solution. Chong could also fill this role as judging by his recent performances that is very much his skillset but probably too early for him. Alternatively we could sign a right sided forward to do this role.
If we don't address this then we'll continue to drop points because our attacking play is simply becoming too predictable.
TLDR:
The above shows that our right sided players don't carry a consistent attacking threat and if our fullback has a poor game we have little to no penetration from that side. This is a flaw in either our tactics or personal not being good enough. We desperately need to rebuild our right side.
