Author: Richard Bennett

WBA v WHU: The Numbers Game

The numbers are in and they just don’t add up.

NumbersA few numbers from the game at the Hawthorns:

“0” or zero = The number of points we’ve picked up in our last three games. It is also the number of our drawn games in the league this season (last season we drew 14 – no team in the Premier League drew more games than us)

1 = our position in the running order on Match of the Day, though not for the reasons we would like. It is also the number of times WBA have previously beaten us 4-2 in a league game (on 19 April 1965 – Ronnie Boyce and Geoff Hurst scored our goals in front of 13,713 at the Hawthorns). It is also the number of league games we have won this season. It is also the number of times in the whole of last season where there were exactly six goals in a league game we played in.

2 = The number of times in the past week where there were exactly six goals in a league game we played in.

3 = the position Slaven Bilic occupies in the betting for Premier League managers to lose their jobs.

195 = the number of days since WBA last won a league game at the Hawthorns.

581 = the number of days since WBA last scored four goals in any competition (it was in the FA Cup on Valentines Day 2015 v us!)

5 = the number of league goals scored by Michail Antonio this season. All five goals have been headers.

11 = the number of headed goals scored by Michail Antonio since the beginning of last season – more than any other Premier League player

20 = the number of total goals scored in our five matches this season (more than any other club). Incidentally, 116 = the number of total goals scored in West Ham Premier League games last season (more than any other club). So we’ve started this season as we were last season, the favourite of the “neutral spectator” (whoever he is!), but not a team for the “purists”)

40 = the number of times in history we have beaten WBA. After this weekend it is also the number of times WBA have beaten us.

18 = our position in the league table following this weekend’s games.

12 = the number of times in our last 15 league matches where we have conceded at least two goals.

53 = the number of goals we will score this season if we continue at the same rate (last season we scored 65).

99 = the number of goals we will concede this season if we continue at the same rate (last season we conceded 51)

152 = the total goals that will be scored in games involving West Ham if we continue at this rate (last season 116 which was the highest in the Premier League)

West Ham figures first in the following section:

71%-29% – our dominance in possession of the ball in the game
23-8 – our dominance in shots
5-6 – slight advantage to WBA in shots on target – very important if you want to score goals!
613-253 total passes; 552-185 completed passes; 90%-73% pass success – so once again we had far more of the ball, and were better at finding a team mate with it, but what these figures don’t tell us is the area of the field where the passes were made! In fact our pass success percentage was only bettered by one side in the whole Premier League on Saturday, Arsenal at Hull. So it is really nonsense as an indicator for success in the game.
14-12 tackles; 86%-75% percentage of tackles won.
5-9 corners; 13-25 crosses – the crosses were the complete opposite of last week against Watford but we still managed to lose the game.
9-10 fouls conceded – we committed one fewer than our opponents.

The really important statistic is that at one stage we were 4-0 down and lost the game 4-2.

Four of our next six matches are at home against Southampton, Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Stoke. On paper not the most difficult of fixtures, facing four teams who are currently in the bottom half of the table like ourselves. Two away games in the period are at Palace and Everton.

If we really are to kick-start the season then I’d like to see at least 13 points from those six games, making 16 from 11 games. This would probably just move us into the top half of the table. Win all six and we would be on 21 points after 11 games, 1 point ahead of the same period last year. Not very likely on current form! 8 points from the six games would put us on 11 from 11, averaging just one point a game which is relegation form.

Bearing in mind that the next four games after this batch of six are against Tottenham, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool (three of them away from home), then a poor return from the highlighted six games would almost certainly leave us in a relegation dogfight, not what was expected after last season.

WBA 4 v 2 WHU

Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?

Embed from Getty Images

I watched the events from the Hawthorns unfold via the excellent offering on Sky, Soccer Saturday with the talented Jeff Stelling hosting. Who would have thought that a group of ex-footballers watching TV screens interspersed with goal flashes from around the grounds would make for such entertaining viewing? It works mainly because of the skill of Stelling, whose research and ability to add humour to his very quick statistical recall, makes him for me the most impressive football pundit. Added to the chemistry of the four regular ex-players, Le Tissier, Merson, Thompson and Nicholas, then for me it is as interesting a way to follow football on a Saturday afternoon as I know without actually being at a game.

The BBC have tried it with Final Score, and if I didn’t subscribe to Sky Sports then it would be an OK alternative, as would Five Live on the radio, or the commercial station, Talk Sport. But Soccer Saturday is my choice. I interspersed this with watching my second favourite sport, the Channel 4 horse racing from Newbury and Ayr, which included the Ayr Gold Cup.

Le Tissier was assigned what he termed the “dubious pleasure” of the West Brom v West Ham game last Thursday, and admitted that he thought he’d drawn the short straw, not expecting many goals. He described the first half goals as the game unfolded as “comedy defending”. He was particularly scathing about Masuaku’s high clearance “into the clouds” which ended closer to our goal than when he kicked it, and his inexplicable hand ball giving away the penalty for the first goal. He thought Ogbonna was the chief culprit for the second Baggies goal when he should have put the ball into row Z, and the third goal was poor marking generally with Masuaku totally switched off.

Three down at half-time so I had a quick look at social media to brush up on my knowledge of Anglo-Saxon expletives from some of our cultured followers. Jeff Stelling stated what we have been saying for some time about the nonsense of possession statistics when he confirmed that we had 72% possession in the first half. We were three down in goals though! I went into “clutching at straws mode” and thought back to the week after my birthday in February 2011 when we were three down at half-time at the Hawthorns and fought back to draw the game. And of course the concept of comebacks wasn’t completely alien after last week against Watford, although of course the boot was on the other foot then.

The fourth goal was described as “Sunday morning” or “amateurish” as Albion broke away to score from our corner. To some extent I can understand how it happened as we were going for broke, but just one player staying deeper was all it would have probably taken to prevent the goal. At four down we gave it a go, although Albion decided to take it easy at this stage. A Payet free kick hit the angle of crossbar and upright and only just stayed out, then Antonio scored his fifth goal (remarkably all headers) of the season. Payet was brought down in the penalty area, and with Noble already substituted, Lanzini placed the resultant penalty kick low into the corner to reduce the deficit to 4-2. We didn’t make too many clear cut chances from there; just one more might have induced panic in the Baggies’ defence. Collins had a shot well saved by Foster but that was it.

Four defeats in five games means we have only three points, when I would have hoped for somewhere in the region of 7-9 to ensure we were keeping up with the life in the fast lane. At least I had an evening out to look forward to. We went to see the Illegal Eagles. No, not the Crystal Palace FC tribute team, but the excellent band, who were one of the best tribute acts I’ve ever seen, and would recommend them to anyone who likes the Eagles.

I came home just in time to see us have top billing on Match of the Day for a change, but not for the reasons I would hope for. Matt Le Tissier had painted the picture well in the afternoon, and the game was just as he had described. I can’t tell you why we are defending so poorly and many fans think we are already gone.

But those of you who are old enough may remember 1985-86. That season we had just four points after five games, three of which were at home, and sat seventeenth in the table. Two further draws meant just six points from seven games. Of course we finished in third place, eight points clear of fourth, and only narrowly missed out on being champions. But to do that we went on a run of 12 wins, 6 draws and no defeats prior to Christmas. Then we had another run in the second half of the season where we won 11 games out of 13. I don’t believe we are good enough to emulate those days, but we’re also not as bad as some might say.

I Wouldn’t Bet On It 8 – Ouch!

Fingers burned last week but today’s betting slip still has West Ham’s name pencilled in on it.

Fancy A BetLast week we studied the form and decided that the odds were generous on a West Ham victory against Watford. So we lumped on. As a lifelong fan I should perhaps have known better. With 35 minutes of the game over we looked on course to at least double our stake of 24 points and be showing a healthy profit. If you had looked on the betting exchanges at around 3.35pm you could have virtually named your odds on a Watford victory and there would have been plenty of opportunity to get in excess of 100-1 in-play.

But as we all know it didn’t happen so we lost 24 points, which became 25 when our accumulator failed miserably with just two correct predictions. So our balance now stands at 75.4 points.

Today I’m going to try a different type of football bet. There are so many bets that you can place on football matches these days, and you can have fun trying out some other variations. One that can keep you interested for much of a game is betting on there being at least x number of goals in the game. For the purposes of this week’s betting I’ve had a look at the odds of there being at least 3 goals in the game in each of the Premier League games this weekend.

If you had to guess which of our four main leagues has provided the most games percentage-wise where three or more goals have been scored which one would you go for? The Premier League is at the top – there have been three or more goals in the game in 21 of this season’s 40 games, putting it ahead of the other leagues (the Championship has had the least).

 

1

Odds

 

Chelsea v Liverpool

29

4/6

 

Hull v Arsenal

22

8/11

 

Leicester v Burnley

19

4/5

 

Man C v Bournemouth

23

1/2

*

WBA v WHU

19

5/4

*

Everton v Middlesbrough

17

Evens

 

Watford v Man U

25

5/6

*

Palace v Stoke

19

6/5

 

Southampton v Swansea

19

Evens

 

Spurs v Sunderland

17

4/6

 

1- total goals scored in the 8 games involving these clubs (4 each) this season

Odds – Paddy Power odds quoted for over 2.5 goals in the game (i.e. 3 or more)

The table above shows you can get even money or better on four of the ten games. Not surprisingly the bookmaker has done its homework and those four games are generally the ones where the teams have scored the least goals. The exception is the Tottenham game where I guess they are expecting more goals than has been scored so far by Spurs in particular.

The game that really took my eye was the one involving our trip to West Brom, which gives the most generous odds, meaning this is the game expected to produce the least goals. This is not surprising in that West Brom (managed by Pulis) have scored the least goals in the Premier League this season with 2 and have only conceded 3, meaning their four games have only had five goals scored in total. On the other hand there have been 14 goals in our games, although we have only scored five of them.

If you study the West Brom recent games, say the last ten of last season and the first four of this, then there have been three goals or more in just 3 of their 14 games! Conversely if you look at the equivalent for West Ham then there have been 3 or more goals in 13 of our last 14 games (the only exception being the home game v Bournemouth this season). If you look at West Brom v West Ham head to head in the twenty-first century, then 9 of the 18 league games played have had three or more goals in them.

It’s very easy to see why this game has been picked out as the one with the least chance of producing at least three goals, but there are factors (mainly West Ham ones) which indicate that this may be a good bet.

I am therefore staking 16 points on our game at West Brom to produce three or more goals (36). In addition I will stake four points on an accumulator for the games at West Brom, Watford, and Manchester City to each have three or more goals at accumulated odds of 6.19/1 (25.7).

The figures in brackets are the potential winnings. Our total stake is 20 points reducing our balance to 55.4. If the three selected games can each produce three or more goals then we would collect 61.7 points from our single bet plus the accumulator.

What are the chances?

Counting Sheep – 5 – The Letter F

Send yourself to sleep trying to remember your favourite F’in West Ham players.

Counting SheepWhen I can’t sleep at night then instead of counting sheep I pick a West Ham team of players that have surnames that all start with the same letter.

I’ve picked four so far, “B”, “C”, “D” and “Vowels”. Today I’ll see if I can remember enough players whose surnames begin with “F” to form my fifth team. I don’t think it will be that easy but there should be at least eleven that I can make into a fantasy team.

Here is my all-time West Ham “F” Team in a 4-4-2 formation:

Ferguson
Faubert
Ferdinand (A)
Ferdinand (R)
Foster
Fletcher
Foe
Futre
Feghouli
Ferdinand (L)
Fletcher

I was really struggling to put together a team there. The only “F”s I’ve left out are goalkeepers Forrest, Feuer and Finn, plus defenders Foxe and Faye. I couldn’t think of any more attacking players apart from Fashanu and Franco but they didn’t come close to making my team.

But perhaps I’ve forgotten someone really good. Can you pick a team of “F”s to rival mine? Do you agree with my team?

And who would manage the “F”s? There’s only one candidate I believe, the first manager I remember and one who kindly arranged for the autographs of all the West Ham team for me in 1959 (I’ve still got them), and that’s Ted Fenton.

The Lawro Challenge – Week 5

Where we attempt to out-predict the BBC predictor.

Lawro Crystal BallLast weekend saw me extending my lead at the top of the Lawro prediction league to seven points. Both Geoff and Lawro each managed three correct results for a total of three points, whereas I had two correct results plus two matches where I also predicted the correct scores for a total of eight points.

I have to laugh when I see the BBC predictor competition and the opponents they line up to pit their prediction wits against Lawro. Lawro actually had previously won all three legs so far this season out-predicting such expert pundits as Athletico Mince, Laura Trott, and Blossoms! But this week he managed to lose to the former WWE star and Hollywood actor Dave Bautista. Dave actually admitted when making his predictions that he hadn’t even heard of some of our Premier League teams, and predicted 5-0 in the Manchester derby! He still managed to beat Lawro though. Priceless.

But only 4 weeks out of the 38 have been completed, therefore there are still 340 matches to predict. Let’s see how we get on this week.

 

Rich

Geoff

Lawro

Total after 3 weeks

28

22

26

Score in week 4

8

3

3

Total after 4 weeks

36

25

29

 

 

 

 

Predictions – Week 5

 

 

 

 

Rich

Geoff

Lawro

Chelsea v Liverpool

2-1

2-2

0-2

Hull v Arsenal

1-2

0-3

0-2

Leicester v Burnley

2-0

3-0

2-0

Man C v Bournemouth

3-0

2-0

3-0

WBA v WHU

2-2

1-2

1-1

Everton v Middlesbrough

2-0

2-1

2-0

Watford v Man U

1-2

1-1

1-2

Palace v Stoke

1-0

2-0

1-1

Southampton v Swansea

2-1

1-1

2-0

Spurs v Sunderland

4-0

3-0

2-0

WBA v WHU Preview

Assessing the Hammer’s bouncebackability (© Iain Dowie) for Saturday’s away trip to the Hawthorns.

Embed from Getty Images

As we approach the fifth game of the 2016-17 Premier League campaign I was hoping to be writing this preview with at least six points in the bag. Although no games are that easy, we have faced two of our easier opponents in our first two home league games, and for the fourth season in a row we’ve failed to take maximum points from our opening fixtures. The curse of defeat in the second home game struck again for the fourth season running.  In fact we’ve only won both of our first two home league games twice in this century! If you read social media then of course you will know that it is all the fault of the move to the new stadium. But I seem to recall that when we faced Leicester and Bournemouth at home last season we were playing at “fortress” Upton Park, as we were in the opening games of all those other seasons!

Three points from four games leaves us in 17th place and nine points adrift of the top. It is still early days, of course, and the table can change quite rapidly at this stage. However, another defeat at the Hawthorns would be bad news. We are now approaching a full squad fitness-wise, and we need to show that we have what it takes to bounce back and begin to make a realistic challenge in the top half of the table.

Even after four games, the top seven of Manchester City, Chelsea, Everton, Manchester United, Tottenham, Liverpool, and Arsenal could well be the top seven at the end of the season, albeit not necessarily in that order. We are four points away from the tail end of that group, so if we are to emulate last season’s seventh place finish we can’t afford to fall too far behind. Had we beaten Watford, as we should have done, then the gap would have only been one point.

I doubt that West Brom get too many Midlands ‘neutral’ spectators turning up because of the quality of the entertainment on offer. As befits a Tony Pulis team, they don’t score or concede many goals. Unlike the London Stadium the home fans aren’t on their feet a lot! But Pulis’ non-relegation record (like Big Sam’s) keeps the owners happy, if not the spectators. There have been five goals in their four games this season, scoring two and conceding three. They haven’t won a home game yet, with a goalless draw against Middlesbrough and a defeat to an in-form Everton side. We need to make sure that their home record doesn’t improve at our expense.

I’ve no idea what Slaven Bilic has in mind for his team selection for this game, but based upon the performances against Watford then Adrian, Byram, Collins, Reid, Noble, Lanzini and Kouyate could all potentially be looking over their shoulders to see if others are going to step into their boots for this game. Wholesale changes would be an unnecessary knee-jerk reaction to the capitulation against Watford, but I would be surprised if there weren’t at least two or three players replaced to freshen things up.

Reece Oxford was deployed in a defensive midfield capacity for the opening game at Arsenal last season and was magnificent. I’d like to see him given another opportunity in this role. I’m sure he would fit in well in front of the back four, and could drop back to make three centre backs when necessary. Mark Noble has seemed lethargic in the opening games and Kouyate doesn’t seem to be at his best either.

But whatever team he decides upon I’d like to see us open up our away points account in this game. A repeat of last season’s 3-0 win would be great, albeit unlikely, but I’ll take us to reverse our early season form and come away with a 2-1 win.

The Language of Football – Number 4

50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (and even more emotions when we win a game!)

Language CloudPaul Simon sang in 1975 about 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. “Slip out the back, Jack”, “make a new plan Stan”, “you don’t need to be coy, Roy, just set yourself free”, “hop on the bus, Gus”, and “drop off the key, Lee” were his fifty ways. More like five to me!

In the Language of Football number 2 we looked at emotions when your lover has left, or when we lose a game. How many different emotions can you feel if your lover comes back? How many different feelings do you have when we win a game?

Here are some examples:

alive, blissful, buzzing, blessed, beatific, beside oneself with joy, brilliant, content, cheerful, cockahoop, carefree, delighted, delirious, encouraged, enraptured, entranced, elated, euphoric, ecstatic, exuberant, exultant, emotional,

felicitous, good, glad, gratified, high, happy (as a sandboy), (as Larry), (as a lark), (as a clam at high tide), in seventh heaven, joyful, jumping for joy, jubilant, like a child with a new toy, merry, over the moon, on cloud nine, on a high, overjoyed, on top of the world,

pleased (as Punch), rejoicing, rapturous, rhapsodic, relieved, sick, stimulated, tingling, tittilated, thrilled, timely, tickled pink, transported, triumphant, wrapped, walking on air, wicked,

There are more than 50 here. The list is not exhaustive. How many others can you come up with?

Counting Sheep – 4 – The Vowels

Trouble sleeping on the hottest September day since 1949?

Counting SheepIf you have seen my previous articles you will know that when I’ve had difficulty dropping off to sleep then instead of counting sheep I’ve been picking a West Ham team where all the surnames start with the same letter.

I’ve completed letters B, C and D, but decided that there weren’t enough players whose names begin with any of the individual vowels. So what I’ve done is combined all the vowels to select one team. This gave me enough options to pick a decent enough side.

So here is my all-time West Ham “Vowels” line-up in a 4-3-3 formation:

Adrian
O’Brien
Upson
Oxford
Ogbonna
Allen (P)
Obiang
Ince
Antonio
Allen (C)
Ashton

So who did I leave out? There was Ayew (because I haven’t seen him yet), Arbeloa (who has only just joined but it won’t take too much to oust O’Brien from the number 2 shirt), Almunia, Amalfitano, Armero, Omoyimni, Otalokowski, O’Neill, Ilic, Impey, Orr, Allen (M) – I couldn’t have three Allens in the team, Ilunga, Eustace, Unsworth, Ilan, Emenike, Etherington (who probably came closest to getting in) and Ayris. You’ll see what I’ve done there – I’ve even included Joey O’Brien in the team otherwise I might have had to put Antonio at right back! And I certainly wasn’t going to do that!

I’ve probably overlooked someone really good. Can you pick a team of “Vowels” to rival mine? Would you change my team?

And who would manage the “Vowels” teams? Only one I could think of, the current England manager, Big Sam.

The Language of Football – Number 3

A game of two halves or the match of the day?

Language CloudDo you use the word game or match in football terms? Which do you prefer? There are no specific rules for describing a game of football, or a football match. You might use the term game of football but are unlikely to say a match of football. I would usually say “I’m going to the game today”, whereas my wife is more likely to ask “Are you going to the match today?”

Many synonyms have come about to describe a game or match using different terms, many to satisfy the needs of journalists trying to avoid repetition. Game or match are the two most common and can be interchanged, or used to describe most of the scenarios that will arise in this article. Sometimes the word game doesn’t describe a single game, but can refer to football in general terms. A game of football for example can refer to a specific game, the game of football to football as a whole. The beautiful game is a term used to describe football as a whole, it’s never the beautiful match.

Sometimes you may hear the term “he’s been in the game long enough”. This does not describe a specific match, but someone who has been involved in football for a long time. However, a defender given a torrid time by the opposing attacker would know that he’s been in a game; you are less likely to say been in a match. A team that have been totally outplayed may be described as never in the game, but you could use match here.

All kinds of adjectives are used to describe a game/match. Sometimes the word clash is used but only in certain circumstances. The term suggests a more physical game where the teams will be more hyped-up than usual. So, for example, if we are about to play Tottenham then it might be an eagerly-awaited clash, whereas if we are about to face, say, Bournemouth, the word clash is less likely to be used. A derby game is likely to be described as a clash, an old firm game between Rangers and Celtic and the El Clasico between Real Madrid and Barcelona will definitely be clashes. A clash will often be a heavyweight one, or a titanic one, a Clash of the Titans, or a top-of-the-table clash. A fixture clash however is where a team might reach, say, the semi-final of the cup, when there is already a league game scheduled for the day of the semi-final.

Another term used is a fixture. This is often preceded by adjectives such as long-awaited, top-of-the-table, relegation (sometimes called a six-pointer), plum, or mouth-watering. Relegation often precedes the word scrap which suggests the game might be a bit of a battle. Relegation also precedes the word battle to describe teams in the drop-zone playing against each other. Sometimes a game may be an almighty battle. It could be a ding-dong one. Although teams meeting in battle is another phrase for a game/match, a battle is more frequently used to describe players having individual battles all over the field, or midfield battles, or Andy Carroll being involved in an aerial battle with a tall, uncompromising defender. Aerial is another interesting adjective often used to describe an onslaught, a tussle, or a bombardment. Teams facing a side managed by Big Sam have often faced these, although he would of course deny it.

Sometimes a game/match is described as an affair. No, not a sexual liaison between married people who are not married to each other, but often a game that is not a lot of fun. So affairs are often dismal, drab, lifeless, dull, boring, ill-tempered, or physical.

Contest is another alternative and these are often absorbing, fascinating, or gripping. The phrase all over as a contest is often used when one side has a big lead and we may as well go home.

An encounter can also be absorbing, fascinating or gripping, and can additionally be thrilling, boring, or drab. A game can be an end-to-end one with flowing football, teams that are stretched, and gaps appearing in defences. These often provide chances at both ends which often lead to goals. Games with lots of goals at either end are specifically designed for the neutral spectator, but these games are not for the purists who, for one reason or another, like to see good defensive play, and abhor lots of mistakes leading to goals.

My final description of a game/match occurs if say, West Ham are drawn against Accrington Stanley in the Cup. This match can be described as a banana skin for us, although (to keep up the use of fruit) it is a plum draw for the minnows, Accrington Stanley.

West Ham v Watford in Numbers

Know all there is to know about the numbers game.

 

NumbersGeoff Hopkins has written some excellent interesting articles about the use of statistics in football. I’ll add a few numbers of my own in an analysis of the Watford debacle. Like Geoff I’ve made use of the very good whoscored.com website, whilst also checking other statistical databases, newspapers, and the internet, as well as using my brain to recall other bits of data I’ve read or seen or thought of.

I’ll start with “0” or zero. This is the tolerance that the club say they will show to fans deemed to have offended in violence or standing issues within the stadium. This is also the number of times Watford have scored four goals away from home in a Premier League game.

56,974 – yesterday’s attendance at the start of the game. I wonder if the club have read a previous article of mine where I mentioned how co-incidental it is that our attendance is frequently x thousand, 977. Three fewer this time!

25,000 (estimated) – the number still in the stadium when the final whistle blew.

38 – the number of times Watford have found themselves two goals behind in a Premier League game, including this weekend.

37 – the number of times Watford have lost the game after falling two goals behind in a Premier League game.

33 – the number of minutes required to establish a two goal lead. This is also, roughly, the amount of playing time in minutes needed to turn a two goal lead into a two goal deficit.

4 – the number of Watford players that I read we were linked with in the last transfer window – Janmaat, Pereyra, Deeney and Ighalo were all on our “radar” according to one source or another. But like a lot of these rumours – probably just made-up stories to fill column inches. Nonetheless, Pereyra looked some player, and Deeney took his goal splendidly.

4 again – the number of league goals scored by Michail Antonio from inside the penalty area this season (I won’t call it a penalty box as a box is three–dimensional, and the area is not) – more than any other Premier League player

10 – the number of headed goals scored by Michail Antonio since the beginning of last season – more than any other Premier League player – not bad for a “winger” who has played often at right back! Keep him up front Slav! Trust the stats!

11,085 – the number of days since Watford last scored at least four goals away from home in the top division. On the same day (5 May 1986) we were losing 3-1 at Everton in the last game of the momentous season (1985-86) which saw us finish in third place.

“Any number you want to one” – the odds you could have got on a Watford victory if you had gone on the betting exchanges at around 3.35pm on Saturday afternoon.

1 – the number of times Watford have previously beaten us 4-2 at our ground in a league game (on 21 February 1984 – Bobby Barnes and Dave Swindlehurst scored our goals in front of 21,263 at Upton Park).

35,711 – the increase in the attendance between the two times Watford have beaten us 4-2 on our ground (the increase is greater than the “all-seating” Upton Park capacity – well you know what I mean)

West Ham figures first in the following section:

58%-42% – our dominance in possession of the ball in the game

19-13 – our dominance in shots

7-0 – our dominance in shots from set-pieces

12-13 – slight advantage to Watford in shots “in open play”

4-8 – now we’re getting to the more important stuff – Watford had twice as many shots on target as we did. You are very unlikely to score unless you have shots on target. Yes I know it is possible if you want to be pedantic – deflections and open goals.

441-322 total passes; 381-231 completed passes; 86%-72% pass success – so we had more of the ball, and were better at finding a team mate with it, but what these figures don’t tell us is the area of the field where the passes were made! I’d like to see the statistic of successful passes in the final third of the pitch – but we never see this one – it would be a better indicator. In fact our pass success percentage was not bettered by any side in the whole Premier League on Saturday. Hull equalled us on 86%, and Middlesbrough were next on 85%. Neither of those teams won either! So what does it prove?

12-25 tackles; 50%-92% percentage of tackles won – perhaps gives an indication of Watford defensively compared to ourselves?

4-4 corners; 25-13 crosses – our goals came directly from a corner and a cross.

10-15 fouls conceded – we committed fewer than our opponents.

The really important statistic is that we threw away a two goal lead and lost the game 4-2. David Sullivan said he wasn’t going to consider a new contract for Slaven Bilic until he’d proved himself in the second season. Now is the time for him to show us his management capabilities.