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Premier League action comes to DW Stadium in match week 16 when Wigan clash with Chelsea, on Saturday, December 17, 2011.

Wigan scored a commendable come-from-behind 2-1 win away at West Brom in match week 15. West Brom took the lead on 33 minutes through Reid; Moses helped the visitors equalise four minutes later, and Jordi Gomez scored the match winner for the Latics, 12 minutes after the interval. Team manager Martinez expressed delight at the strength of character shown by his wards in their second successive away victory. Reid’s brilliantly taken free kick put the hosts ahead and four minutes later Moses gave himself a 21st birthday present by latching on to Diame’s centred ball from the left wing for a direct finish. Moses also had a hand in Wigan’s winning goal when the winger was fouled by Reid inside the Albion area to concede a penalty.

Chelsea handed Man City their first loss of the season at Stamford Bridge, in match week 15. Balotelli gave City the early lead and the visitors should have consolidated their lead during their absolute dominance in the first half; in the end, Mancini’s wards were left ruing the several missed opportunities, after first Raul Meireles struck to neutralise the lead and then Lampard converted a second half penalty seven minutes before the end of regulation time to secure full points for the hosts. Chelsea hung on grimly in the face of City’s marauding attacks in the first half-hour but could not prevent Balotelli from capitalising on Chelsea’s porous defence.

Head to head, since 2005, Wigan and Chelsea have met in 12 league games, with Chelsea winning on 10 occasions and Wigan on 1, with the remaining game ending in a stalemate. The last time these teams met was in April 2011; that match played at Stamford Bridge ended 1-0 in the hosts’ favour.

Wigan have won 3 and lost 7 of their last 10 league matches, while Chelsea have won 7 and lost 3 of their last 10 games.

Currently in 18th place on the league table, Wigan have hosted 7 home games, this season, winning 1, drawing 2 and losing the remaining 4; the Blues who are 3rd placed have had 4 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses, in their 7 away games.

With their win against Man City, Chelsea have smelt blood, and Wigan will have to be at the top of their game to be able to salvage any points from the match.

Wigan’s starting eleven against West Brom: Ali Al Habsi, Ronnie Stam, Gary Caldwell, Antolin Alcaraz, Maynor Figueroa, Victor Moses, Mohamed Diame, Jordi Gomez, James McCarthy, David Jones, Conor Sammon

Chelsea’s starting eleven against Manchester City: Petr Cech, Jose Bosingwa, Branislav Ivanovic, John Terry, Ashley Cole, AN Ramires, Oriol Romeu, Raul Meireles, Daniel Sturridge, Didier Drogba, Juan Mata

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The formal name of the club is West Ham United Football Club, and they are known by several nicknames, the most popular of which is ‘The Hammers’. Other nicknames are ‘The Irons’ and ‘The Academy of Football’.

Founded in 1895, the squad were then known as Thames Ironworks. The Hammers train at the Boleyn ground, at their home venue, Upton park. The stadium has a capacity of just over 35,000.

The owners are David Sullivan and David Gold, both shareholders, alongwith companies called CB Holding Ltd, and Minority Investors.

West Ham are managed by Avram Grant, who came in recently after the previou manager, Gianfranco Zola, was dismissed.

The hammers have featured in all but three seasons of the Premier League. They have enjoyed greater success in the FA cup, winning it thrice, the last one in 1980.

They finished the last Premiership season in 17th position, while their highest was 5th in 1998-99.

The current campaign has got off to a horrific start for West Ham, losing all three matches played so far. They had an abject showing in their opening match against Aston Villa, losing 3-0. Therafter they lost 3-1 to Bolton and 3-0 to Manchester United.

Early Season Preview:

Early in the summer, Sullivan and Gold made known their transfer targets, and the list made impressive reading: Joe Cole, David Beckham, Ruud Van Nistelroy and Theirry Henry were all named. But that was the end of the story as none of them has signed to play for West Ham. If nothing else, the team bosses would have managed to enthuse home fans to reserve their seats at Upton Park.

The team that lost 3-0 to Manchester United comprised: Green, Gabbidon, Upson, Spector, Faubert, Ilunga, Dyer, Parker, Boa Morte, Noble, Cole, Stech, Da Costa, Barrera, Kovac, Stanislas, McCarthy, and Piquionne.

The club owners have great expectations from Scott Parker this season.

Thomas Hitzlsperger is one of the world’s most explosive strikers, but apart from his power, his game leaves something to be desired. That said, Hitzlsperger could be in the news for a sensational strike or two.

Apart from Hitzlsperger, the Hammers have also signed New Zealander Winston Reid and Mexican winger Pablo Barrera, on the back of good showings, at the World Cup, by the respective players.

Portsmouth’s Tal Ben-Haim and Frederic Piquionne have also been snared by Avram Grant from his former club.

West Ham have released striker Guillermo Franco.

The squad are relegation favourites, although they have a great manager in Grant, and some genuine talent that should have them for mid-table.

Hammers’ early results belie such optimism, though.

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The former footballer of 42 years old, Coach Jose Angel Ziganda, was dismissed by the Osasuna team of the Spanish League this past October 13th due to the results the team has been having at the beginning of this season.

The team is relegated to the 16th position of the 20 teams in the league, with only 4 points on the first six games of the season. The team had 4 tied games with Villarreal, Mallorca, Deportivo and Numancia, and had 2 losses against Valencia and Racing. With these results and the close the team ended to relegation last season, the franchise of Osasuna decided that it was time for coach Ziganda to leave the club.

The news of his release took Jose Ziganda and his assistant coach Andoni Goikoetxea by surprise, but they do accept that the results were not the best for the club. The fact that surprise them the most was that Ziganda became the first coach in 11 and half years to be fired by the club, because in the past, the franchise did not seemed to be focusing on the results. But now the expectations of the franchise are higher as they want to get out of the last positions of the table and be a more remarkable team in the league.

Ziganda expressed that he is leaving the club a little heartrending because he wanted more time to improve the team results and get the best performances of every player, but he accepts that he didn’t managed to win and that the team needed points. »We are very sad but we have to accept it, the reasons are obvious, we have not managed to win and the team needed a change. We wanted more time, because I think that the team has been capable of winning all the games, but the club want results,» expressed Coach Ziganda.

Jose Angel Ziganda was in charge of Osasuna for two seasons, replacing the Mexican coach Jose Aguirre. In his first season 2006-07, Ziganda took the team to the 14th place of the league and leaded them into the 2007 semifinals of the UEFA Cup, which they lost against Sevilla 2-1. However, for the 2007-08 season, Ziganda left Osasuna at the 17th place and very close to relegation. Although the club directives meant to keep him for another year, giving him the chance to turn things around, but the results obtained so far were not different.

The club has acknowledged the press that Coach Jose Antonio Camacho will replace Ziganda; he already signed a contract with Osasuna until June 2009. Camacho was the coach of the Spanish national team between 1998 and 2002, guiding the team to the quarter-finals of both Euro 2000 and World Cup2002. He also coached the teams Espanyol, Rayo Vallecano, SL Benfica and was in charge of Real Madrid for two brief spells; 22 days in 1998 and four months in 2004. More recently, in 2008, Camacho was coaching Benfica again, but after some issues with the club, he decided to leave them. Now his expectations are placed on Osasuna, since he wants to take them out of the last positions of the table and convert them in a successful club in La Liga.

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Similar to the current season, the last season was also a case of the total domination of Real Madrid and Barcelona. The two teams are considered as the only real competitors for the league title in the La Liga which may be a tad bit too harsh as Valencia, Levante, and Villarreal are all excellent sides and can give a tough time to the two Spanish giants on any day. However, their performances are and have been largely overshadowed by the two giants of La Liga.

It is amusing to see that the more competitive battle in the La Liga is at the other end of the table. The majority of the teams in the league fight hard each season to avoid relegation and this is perhaps the reason that La Liga has gained the reputation of being a duopoly. You can take an idea of this from the fact that Osasuna – the team which finished at the 9th place last season – was not safe from relegation which means that the last 11 teams of the league were contesting to avoid relegation. It can be said that this has gone worse in the current season with the last 13 team currently being apart with only a difference of 9 points.

The last season started off with a lot of hype as Jose Mourinho had become the coach of Real Madrid who had been without a league title for two years. There were many speculations about the great one to lead his side to the league title and put a stop to the ever growing dominance of Barcelona. Jose Mourinho had earlier defeated Barcelona in the Champions League with Inter Milan and the fans of Real Madrid were hopeful that he will humiliate Barcelona again in all the contests against Barcelona.

Both teams prepared well for the highly anticipated contest for the title. Barcelona loaned out Ibrahimovic and signed the top scorer of the 2010 world cup, David Villa where as Real Madrid made two big signings – Sami Khedira and Mesut Ozil. It wasn’t a surprise that the first Clasico was highly anticipated affair with the Barcelona Tickets and Real Madrid Tickets in extreme demand. It can be safely said that the rivalry of Real Madrid and Barcelona can never be underestimated as the game turned out to be an absolute shocker. Barcelona came out with all guns blazing and humiliated Real Madrid to a 5-0 defeat and in the process, Guardiola took his revenge from Jose Mourinho from the earlier defeat in the Champions League.

This had a huge impact on Jose Mourinho as he radically changed the tactics of his team for the rest of the season. Barcelona went on to the win the league comfortably with a margin of three games and Real Madrid managed to regain their glory when they defeated Barcelona to win the Copa Del Ray.

The rest of the battle was amongst Valencia, Villarreal, Athletic Bilbao Sevilla, Atletico de Madrid & Espanyol in the quest of the acquiring a place in the Champions League. Valencia and Villarreal turned out to be the ultimate victors with the former qualifying directly and the latter to the playoff round.

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The backbone of ice hockey – skating, is definitely the most important skill any player can focus on mastering. You’ll watch pros on television and you’ll hear them classified in different ways; power forwards, play makers, natural scorers, defensive-defensemen and more. One thing that all of the most elite players have in common, is that they’re all at the top when it comes to skating ability.

Skating is the fundamental skill of hockey, the base of the pyramid. Without a strong foundation, the rest of the skills can’t be effective. Skating is often the difference maker between a good player and a great player, and there are many players with great shots, perfect passes or crushing hits that will never make it because their skating doesn’t make the grade.

When you practice, it’s important to balance your time and work on all of the skills necessary to be a great hockey player. If there is one area that you should actively put extra focus on though, it is without a doubt skating. You might not be the best shooter, the best passer or the best checker, but if you’re the best skater, you’ll always be a dominant force on the ice. This is something that far too many players ignore right from their youth hockey days. There isn’t enough focus put on pure skating ability, and if more players would dedicate themselves to mastering the fundamental movement that drives their sport, they’d see huge improvements in their overall game.

Remember, you might have a booming shot or a laser accurate pass, but if you can’t skate as well as the competition, you can’t be effective. Dominate at skating and you’ll dominate at hockey.

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Sports as we know it today has come a long way. There were times when watching sports on television was considered a massive step forward in terms of technology. Fast forward 60 years, watching sports on television has become the most basic thing. Today we watch sports on the go on our mobile phones or any device with a screen and internet connectivity. Proud of how far we’ve come, aren’t we? Hopefully I can change your opinion on that by the end of this article.

What is sports all about? Sports is a bunch of people getting together to play a game with pre defined rules and a referee to ensure that these rules are adhered to during the passage of play. I am a sport lover and play sports all time. My love for tennis and soccer in particular cannot be defined. My issue when it came to technology and advanced analytics was with the game of soccer in particular. Soccer is such a beautiful game. The strategies that the coaching staff come up with and the way it is executed on field by the players, it actually is a thing of beauty. I was a soccer player myself (just an average one at that) and have been part of various teams. I know firsthand how strategies are built, how much thought goes into one single run of play.

Enter -> Advanced Analytics

Most of you would’ve seen the movie Moneyball. The movie was based on the book Michael Lewis wrote in 2003. It talks about how a jock turned luminary uses advanced statistics to gain a competitive edge over his better funded opponents. This book brought about a revolution is sports. Fans and boards of soccer clubs didn’t want to settle for subpar statistics or analytics anymore. What Moneyball did is, it took an old cliché – «sports are businesses» and made us move on to the next logical question – «how do we do things smarter?»

Now let’s talk about advanced analytics. Advanced analytics in today’s world plays a massive role in every business sector. Advanced analytics has been a boon for us. Moving from descriptive analytics to prescriptive analytics, we actually have come a long way. In various businesses, where the requirement is demanding, advanced analytics are of utmost importance.

When we look at soccer, its a game that does not require too much machine intelligence, it is a game that needs the human element. When you bring in analytics and technology and try to reduce the human element in the sports, it simply just crushes the spirit of the game.

Relying on analytics heavily killed the Premier Leagues long ball game and brought in the pressing, continual passing tiki-taka. Each league for that matter had its own style of play. The Premier League had the brash and brazen style of football that was termed «The way real men play football». There were beautiful long balls, harsh tackles but all the players just sucked it up, walked it off and it was all up to the referee on the pitch to penalize the offender or not. There were arguments and fights, the passion from the fans was crazy, that was the football that screamed of passion, when players got in the face of other players not fearing punishment. The Eric Cantona’s, the Ivan Genaro Gattuso’s, the Jaap Stam’s of the football world went missing soon enough and the diving and the biting began. Then there was the tiki-taka style of football that was played in the Spanish La Liga, the silky style of play that caught everyone off guard. The legendary Pep Guardiola and his army at Barcelona were the masters of the tiki-taka. There was Real Madrid who were always a star studded line-up with excessive parts of their play relying on lightning quick counters which most often than not left the opponents stunned. There was Manchester United who had their own brand of football being managed by the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson. That United team was a team of sheer grit and character. Each of these leagues had their own beauty and the teams had their own style of play.

When you bring in excessive technology and analytics, there emerge sorry technologies like VAR (Video Assistant Referees).

There are 3 stages as to how the VAR works:

Step 1

Incident occurs

The referee informs the VAR, or the VAR recommends to the referee that a decision/incident should be reviewed.

Step 2

Review and advice by the VAR

The video footage is reviewed by the VAR, who advises the referee via headset what the video shows.

Step 3

Decision or action is taken

The referee decides to review the video footage on the side of the field of play before taking the appropriate action/decision, or the referee accepts the information from the VAR and takes the appropriate action/decision.

Now the referee can consult with VAR for basically any doubts he wants clarified. What does this do?

• Removes the human element from the game.

• Takes up excess time and brings too many stoppages within the game, a game that was previously free flowing and continuous.

This makes it similar to Formula 1 racing. The analytics which brought about the fuel weight management systems and the numerous pit stops took the continuity out of the race and viewership reduced with the increase in technology. A pretty similar trend might occur in football if this implementation becomes mandatory.

The Positive Side of Advanced Analytics in Soccer:

Analytics are not all that bad in football. Let’s take the case of when Simon Wilson joined Manchester City in 2006. Simon Wilson was a consultant for an analytics startup called Prozone initially. He joined City to start a department of analytics and hired the best data analysts under him. He wanted to change the way how data was used by football teams. He saw that, after a defeat there was no introspection as to why they had lost and what needed to be done next time. City were a mid table club at that time. In September 2008, when the club was acquired by the Abu Dhabi United Group for Development and Investment, a private-equity outfit owned by a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, the team suddenly found itself with the resources necessary to mount a challenge for the Premier League. Today, Wilson is Manchester City’s manager of strategic performance analysis. He has five departments under him, including the team of performance analysis, which is now led by a sports scientist named Ed Sulley.

After each match, the team’s performance data would be examined. The list is extensive. Line breaks (a rugby term), ball possession, pass success rates, ball win/loss time ratio were what used to be analyzed. «Instead of looking at a list of 50 variables we want to find five, say, that really matter for our style of play,» says Pedro Marques, a match analyst at Manchester City.

«With the right data-feeds, the algorithms will output the statistics that have a strong relationship with winning and losing.» Wilson recalls one particular period when Manchester City hadn’t scored from corners in over 22 games, so his team decided to analyze over 400 goals that were scored from corners. It was noticed that about 75 percent resulted from in-swinging corners, the type where the ball curves towards the goal. The next 12 games of the next season saw City score nine goals from corner.

Teams are investing heavily in analytics today and it is working in their favor. Look at where Manchester City are today, sitting atop the Premier League table and not being threatened at all. Look at Manchester United this season, their game has been such where their possession percentages are low but their goal conversions are high. The Manchester Derby on 7th April 2018 saw United have only 35% of the possession but they managed to trump City 3-2. Each team has their set of analysts who provide inputs as per the strength of the team.

Advanced analytics is like the coin Two Face in Batman has, «Heads you die, Tails you survive!»

It can reap crazy rewards from a team’s point of view but at the same time can disrupt the lovely game by bringing in unnecessary stoppages, replays and by taking the human element out of it. The numerous replays and the different angles, show the fans if the referee has made an error or not. Let the error happen, after all to err is human. Refereeing in soccer is not an exact science and it’s all real time. Let there be arguments about a decision, let the passion in the argument come through. Do you want to watch a football match like the El Classico or the Manchester Derby and sit with your bunch of friends and say «it was a very clean game, the best team won!» Hell NO! Don’t drive the passion out of soccer with technology and analytics. Let soccer be soccer and let technology stay away!

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