closed West Ham 0-1 Chelsea

[Jase 43,479]

13 hours ago, NikkiCFC said:

This is why he has zero open play assists this season.

Unless you mean the Premier League, Mount does have 2 assists from open play this season - against Rennes (a) and Barnsley (h).

[Supermonkey 38]

13 hours ago, DDA said:

How did Mason not see Ziyech at the end is beyond me but hey a win is a win. Well done boys. Madrid next.

Most of our attackers have their head down. Ziyech excluded 

[different level 1,056]

8 minutes ago, Jason said:

Not making excuses for Werner missing chances but he could have easily just spared himself of missing chances by not getting at the end of them and he hasn't. 

Can't see how that makes it any better. If anything it's much more frustrating and painful to watch. You'd probably say that if his movement is better and he keeps getting at end the end of chances his finishing should eventually improve and that's what I thought at first, but time is passing and Timo keeps fluffing them with confidence.

[Jase 43,479]

1 minute ago, different level said:

Can't see how that makes it any better. If anything it's much more frustrating and painful to watch. You'd probably say that if his movement is better and he keeps getting at end the end of chances his finishing should eventually improve and that's what I thought at first, but time is passing and Timo keeps fluffing them with confidence.

My point is Werner could have easily gone to hiding, like Torres and Morata did when they were in their bad moments, with all those missed chances but he hasn't.

Werner missing chances is nothing new. It happened in the Bundesliga as well. The only difference then is he tended to get a lot more chances and score to more than make up for the misses. Last season, for example, he scored 28 league goals but also missed 21 big chances. For context, Lewandowski has scored 36 league goals but has also missed 21 big chances this season and Haaland has scored 25 goals but also missed 19 big chances this campaign. 

I don't know if he'll ever become a clinical striker in the Premier League (one can hope) but this would be less of an issue if we have a clinical striker taking the main goalscoring role and Werner being second on that list. It's like Salah-Mane at Liverpool and Kane-Son at Spurs; Salah and Kane are the main scorer while Mane and Son are the secondary goal source at those clubs.

[NikkiCFC 7,582]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

Unless you mean the Premier League, Mount does have 2 assists from open play this season - against Rennes (a) and Barnsley (h).

Ofc I mean only PL. Believe me I remember every of his open play assists because they are so rare. Last season also just 2. Wolves and Burnley. 

I don't think people realise how big that stat is. Zero open play assists in the league. That is like Werner having zero league goals or Mendy having zero clean sheets. 

12 different players managed open play assists this season but Mount is not among them. Keep in mind position he plays and the fact that he is 1st in team in minutes played. By far actually. 

Mount 2546 minutes. 

Werner 2243

Kante 2021 (2 open play assists). 

Chilwell 1939 

James 1917

Azpi 1846 

Jorginho 1752 

Kovacic 1694 

Pulisic 1376 

Havertz 1342 

Abraham 1020 

CHO 999 

Ziyech 995 minutes played. 

All these players managed at least one open play assist. 

Considering his position and minutes played I think it would be weird if he is 2nd on the list or 3rd. But not only that he is not 2nd, 3rd... He is not at all on the list! 

 

Ederson and Johnstone! 2 GKs managed one open play assist this season! But not our attacking midfielder with most minutes in the squad. Shocking! 

If I continue to analyse his offensive game you may find more interesting stats... 

Only 8 players have more shots on goal in the league. Kane, Salah, Bruno, Bamford, Mane, Watkins, KDB and Firmino. So he is a bit wasteful there as well. There have been situations where instead of shooting he should maybe pass and make assist. 

We praise him for corners but he has 118 corners taken which resulted with 3 goals. Chilwell took 26 corners - 1 goal, James 24 corners - 1 goal and Ziyech 19 corners - 1 goal. So in terms of percentage they are all better at set pieces. 

6 goals is solid but 4 came against teams that will be relegated and one from penalty. 

By saying all this I totally expect him to win POTY because he is favourite player for 90% of our fans. 

Edited April 25, 2021 by NikkiCFC

[Laylabelle 9,296]

So glad Werner scored cause it is so frustrating to see him make these amazing runs..get in the right place and then somehow make a mess of it at the end! 

[Tomo 21,681]

3 hours ago, different level said:

Oh, don't get me wrong. Me saying I have a newfound appreciation for Torres (and Morata) was more of a hyberbole to express how frustrating Werner is. Torres was really that bad. Terrible movement, constantly getting caught offside, sulking and blaming the club for his misfortunes. I remember an interview where he said at some point he even stopped caring if we win or lose. He scored a few important goals, but that hardly changes the general outlook.

However even Torres at his absolute worst was more clinical than Werner is at this point and that's an extremely miserable and depressing thing to realise. Sure he didn't get at the end of many chances but his finishing was so much better than Werner's. Looking back he had that outrageous open goal miss against Man Utd at the beginning of 2011/2012, but that (and probably a few others that I can't remember) is pretty much it. With Werner you can get a decent compilation of missed chances and he hasn't even completed a full season with the club yet.

You're right Torres was actually pretty clinical but he had to be as you've alluded too, if he was genuinely a poor finisher like Werner/Morata he would have scored about 5 for us if that.

My issue with Torres is he had not one positive attribute to fall back on, even at his worst Werner gives us pace and pressing, Morata gave us good movement, honestly what did Torres give when he was playing relitevely 'well' let alone poorly? What positive did he give us?

Edited April 25, 2021 by Tomo

[chippy 342]

Azpi got a bit of flack from some fans during yesterdays game, yet the guys on MOTD thought he played pretty well. Funny how people can watch a match and have very different opinions on who did or did not play well.