Martyn Drabik's Blog (1 follower)

Introduction

Codster asked about another month, so I'm writing it now. September has been and gone, so let's see how the teams line up.

End of September 2015

September had a few interesting games, but the league was interrupted by international fixtures and cup games. My favourite league game is this one between Leicester and Swansea, where the only notable stats were from various version of Jamie Vardy:



The league itself is still throwing surprises. The top 4 consist of Aston Villa (18 points), Stoke, Newcastle (both 16 points) and Leicester (13 points).

West Ham continue their awful ways by losing all 7 opening games of the season, conceding 22 goals in the process. They are joined in the bottom 3 by Sunderland, the only other team without a win, and Swansea.



Alexis Sanchez tops the scoring charts with 5, with six players on 4 (including two Joleon Lescotts and two Christian Eriksens). The same Alexis Sanchez is top of the assists table with 5 also, with Jamie Vardy, Ryan Shawcross and Moussa Sissoko behind with 4 assists.

Being top of the goals and assists charts has meant that Alexis Sanchez is also top of the player of the match charts with 3 awards, joint with Christian Eriksen, Moussa Sissoko and Leighton Baines.

For the average rating, Christian Eriksen is top with 8.03, ahead of Sergio Aguero (7.98), Sergio Aguero (7.92) and Juan Mata (7.92).

Two rounds of the Capital One Cup passed in September. I was expecting really high scoring games, as this would be the first time that these teams faced opposition that were able to field players in every position. Sadly, that was not the case.

In the second round, there were no Premier League casualties.



However, the same cannot be said about the third round, with Liverpool, Stoke, Sunderland, West Brom, Man City, Bournemouth and Watford all losing out. Only two of those were against teams from lower leagues.



The fourth round will only have teams from the top two divisions.



In case you're wondering how the changes affected the England National Team, here was their line up in their qualifier against Estonia. Ibe, Ravel Morrison, Stuart Downing, Jake Livermore, Thorne, Chalobah, Jenkinson... many of which could only hope of getting a cap. Six versions of Leighton Baines make the squad, with 4 Berahinos. England still qualified.



What about Hartlepool?

Hartlepool had another tough month, losing 3 of 5 league games. They did however win the other two, AND progressed to the next round of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy



Questions?

My questions for next month:
- Will West Ham ever win a game?
- Who will be the first manager to lose their job?
- Will a Championship team win the Capital One Cup?
- Are Aston Villa going to get a blood rush from being so far up the table?

TUNE IN TOMORROW (OR SOON AFTER)

I'm loving the strangeness in this so far.

Cheers,

drabik