Part 41: Minilude: Depth Charts and Statistics.

Minilude: Depth Charts & Statistics.
April 1, 2016

As requested, our depth charts and statistics. If there's anything else of the players that you'd like to see, please let me know.



The team depth chart. A few first team players don't show up on here, namely Daniel Clarke, Conor O'Hanlon, and Chris Todd.



Al-Beloushi is our first team goalie, Higgs his backup. Al-Beloushi has not proven as good as I hoped, but is a perfectly fine keeper.



Reid, Martin, and Poole all get time at centerback, though recently Reid and Martin have been my first choice there. Todd is our fourth centerback, and plays most of his games with the U18 side. Reid has significantly improved since his rough start with the team, over the last 20 matches he's earned a 7.04 average rating, and never dipped below a 6.2 in any single game. He's finally playing as I expected him to. Martin has also improved as the season has gone on, putting up a 7.11 average rating since the new year.



Evans and Thomas split time at right back. Evans has not been that good since coming over on loan, earning a 6.62 rating which has lead to Thomas getting more playing time recently.



Ashton and Don-Duncan get about equal time at left back, with Thomas getting some time there as a backup. Thomas is most likely of the four fullbacks to be chosen as a substitute due to his ability to play both right and left back.



Kadhim gets most of the playing time as our defensive midfielder. I prefer to have him and Simpson on the field at the same time, and Simpson is more adept at playing in the central midfield. McGuinness is technically the backup here, but he's only seen one game at the position.



Center midfield is actually two positions. The first is our advanced playmaker role, where Justin Bailey is our primary choice. The second is our ball-winning midfielder role, which is where I prefer to play our captain, Stuart Simpson. Both Bailey and Simpson have been very good this season, clocking in around a 7.0 average rating. Daniel Clarke is Bailey's primary backup, with O'Hanlon as the third option. Clarke also sees some playing time in the BWM role, but McGuinness is Simpson's primary backup both at the position and as our captain. Cooper, Price, and Kadhim have all seen limited amounts of playing time in the midfield.



Paul Azille-Moore and Wilson Toms both got playing time at right winger, but they're gone now. Coulson has gotten the most time here, although he hasn't performed as well here as he has at striker. Liam Franks is off to a very good start, which has pushed Price into a backup role.



Aidan Cooper has gotten a significant majority of the minutes at left wing. He's improved some since I told him to stop shooting the ball, and that's what keeps him above Price on the depth chart. Franks and Bah can both play the position, but haven't needed to yet. Clarke's time there was as a substitution, he'll seldom play on the wing.



Due to injuries and ineffectiveness no one player has played a majority of time at striker. Coulson has been by far the most effective when playing the position, while Harrison's overall decent rating masks the two months he spent fallow. Bah has been downright poor, earning a 6.66 and a demotion to my third choice.

I've also picked out where our players stand in the league for some statistical categories:



None of our players rank that highly for number of games played. Simpson and Al-Beloushi are highest, tied for 34th. I like to have some squad rotation, it gives players a chance to show me what they can do and keeps them from getting bone tired and jaded down the stretch. That's especially the case for young players, who are more likely to get deeply fatigued as the season goes on.



Coulson is our top scorer, but given that he's out for at least two more matches there's a chance Harrison could pass him.



Justin Bailey is 11th in assists, quite respectable. And that's despite his missing six weeks with an injury.



Stuart Simpson is our only player with any sort of disciplinary issues. As a team we've earned the fewest yellow cards in the league.



Ben Evans earned all of his Man of the Match awards with his last team. Stuart Martin, on the other hand, has been our most awarded player.



Our play style does not lead to a high percentage of pass completions, but our midfield has three players who average over 80% a game.



Femi-Don Duncan is a tackling machine. I'm not quite sure why, his counterpart Ashton is only at about 4.4 a game. Stuart Simpson is also high on this leader board thanks to his role as our midfield destroyer.



Coulson is our only player to make the top 25 in dribbles per game, I'd like to see Harrison's name up here as well.



Our captain has run the equivalent of over 10 marathons this season. That's impressive.



A high work rate attribute score combined with a counter-attacking style of play leads to a lot of running around. Cooper's got pretty good stamina, which has allowed him to play so often.



Al-Beloushi hasn't been spectacular, but he is tied for 7th in shutouts.



Michael Coulson needs to learn how to spring the offside's trap better. As does Harrison, who's not on this list solely because he lacks playing time.



Our performance in this stat is even better than it looks- every player above our trio but one has attempted fewer than ten crosses in total. Our players have each tried at least thirty, and Simpson and Bailey's have tried over seventy. We're very good at completing our crosses from the midfield, which leads to good chances.



Tackling is not the name of our defense's game. Martin is tops on our team with 11, which leaves him tied for 73rd overall.



Our defense instead focuses on clearing the ball out, and not letting our opponents get good looks at the ball in dangerous areas. The defense forces them to take bad shots, because they can't manufacture good ones. It's worked pretty well, I'd say that right now we have one of the best defenses in the league.



Our defenders are also pretty good at keeping opponents from passing the ball into our penalty area, another reason why our defense has gone from brutal to quite good over the course of the year.



Lastly, Justin Bailey and Michael Coulson both make appearances in the top 50 for average rating. We don't have any players who are amongst the very best in the league but this is a damned sight better than early in the season when we didn't have a single player above a 6.76 average.



These are all the stats for the team. They include both cup and league play. If you just went crosseyed, don't worry and move on. Otherwise dig in. The stats glossary is below.

App: Appearances, Starting(Substitution)
PoM: Man of the Match awards
Gls: Goals
Ast: Assists
Off: Offsides
Shots: Shots
Sh T: % of Shots on Target
K Pas: Key Passes
Pas R: % of Passes Completed
Itc: Interceptions
K Tck: Key Tackles
Tck: Tackles per Game
Tck R: % of Tackles Successful
K Hdr: Key Headers
Hdr A: Headers Attempted
Hdr R: % of Headers Successful
Cr A: Crosses Attempted
Cr C/A: % of Crosses Completed
DrbPG: Number of Dribbles per Game
Mstks: Mistakes
Gl Mistakes: Mistakes Leading to Goal
Yel: Yellow Cards
Red: Red Cards
Av Rat: Average Rating