Exploring Marveaux's Creativity

In our most recent podcast, we examined Sylvain Marveaux's play by pointing out that he has created the second-most chances in the Premier League. Impressive stuff, considering Marveaux didn't even play against Manchester City. (Not that it would have added much to his stats if he did.) But to fully understand his contribution to the team, we need to dig deeper than the raw number of chances created. We also need to understand what creation means.

Any time a player sets up a shot, and would have gotten an assist if the shot went in the net, he is credited with creating a chance. Chances can be created through set pieces as well as open play. That's quite important in Marveaux's case, as he has been Newcastle's main source of set pieces the last two weeks.

Thanks to the charts at Squawka, we can see the location of Marveaux's created chances the last two matches. He created seven chances against West Ham, a truly staggering figure if maintained over a whole season. To put it in perspective, Marveaux led Newcastle last season by creating a chance once every 29 minutes, or about 3 per match. However, four of the chances against West Ham were via set pieces (three off corners, one through a free kick), and the other three resulted in shots from far outside the penalty area. In other words, he didn't produce a surefire goal-scoring opportunity in open play. Against Fulham, Marveaux created three chances: one via a corner, and two because of passes into the box.

What does it all mean? For starters, it demonstrates why I was frustrated with Newcastle's approach to the West Ham match, even if my co-bloggers were not as down about it. Playing a front two of the static Shola Ameobi and out-of-form Papiss Cissé means very little useful movement for Marveaux to play more incisive passes. Even when Newcastle dominates possession, it will still fall flat in the final third without good runs from its forwards. That, along with some typical selfishness from Hatem Ben Arfa, led to a fairly dour offensive display.

But at the end of the Fulham match, we saw what Yoan Gouffran and Loïc Rémy bring to Newcastle's front line - a fluidity that was sorely missing without them. Ironically, it took Marveaux being substituted for it to happen. But if he gets an opportunity to play behind Gouffran, Rémy, and any of the club's other forwards, expect the number of quality chances to go way up. Let's hope Alan Pardew sees it the same way as he thinks about how to attack Aston Villa on Saturday.

Comments

[Paul]

Pardew won't give a thought to how to attack villa. He will think about how to stop them hurting is and put out a team he thinks will achieve 0-0 and try and nick a goal. Like he does every game. Negative, boring tactics that backfire as often as succeed. The man needs to completely change his mindset to satisfy Newcastle supporters- the opposition should be the ones trying to stop us! Rant over.