It seems odd to me, but over the last few weeks I've seen Aaron Ramsey come in for a lot of criticism, especially on the angst-spewing machine that is Twitter. The main bone of contention seems to be that he has become an automatic first XI pick for Arsene this year, despite the fact that he has not contributed enough to the team.

Group B

Sudan went into this tournament having failed to score an ACN goal since 1976. Bet you didn't know that at kick-off against Angola last Thursday. Bet you were sick of hearing it by full-time.

Sudan broke this goalscoring duck (36 years, you know) moments after Eurosport's Matt Jackson declared he didn't know where their next goal is coming from.

The modern football fan has access to statistics that would have seemed unthinkable only five or six years ago. Sites such as the marvellous whoscored.com offer the casual fan a site from which they can drag figures to prove or disprove their assertions on their side. Are we missing a lot of chances?

As there are three teams promoted and four teams relegated from League One, seventeen sides spent the entirety of 2011 in the third tier. Of these teams it was League One play-off finalists Huddersfield Town that ended the year with the best record. It was only everyone's favourite franchise MK Dons that won the same number of games during 2011.

Mirror: Theo wouldn't have got near 200 games if he'd played for United

If Theo Walcott plays against Leeds on Monday it will be his 200th game for Arsenal. Which is quite an astonishing statistic for a player widely excused when he drifts into the periphery of a game as "still learning.

Let's face it - we all love SZCZ. Since Jens was dropped in 2007 (in my opinion ill-advisedly) we've had to put up with some of the less convincing goalkeepers in Arsenal's history, namely Almunia, Fabianski and Mannone.

Dirk Kuyt is aiming to deliver the perfect Christmas present to Kopites on Monday and help maintain Liverpool's push for a top-four finish.
The Reds play host to Blackburn Rovers in the traditional Boxing Day fixture - and Kuyt is determined to provide some festive cheer to supporters.
"We all want to be happy and get the three points, especially on Boxing Day," the Dutchman told Liverpoolfc.

Fernando Torres has slammed critics constantly rip apart his patchy form for Chelsea by insisting that a European and World Cup winner deserves more respect.

Torres, who moved to the Blues at the beginning of the calendar year, has since scored only three times in 25 appearances a statistic that has been received particularly well at former club Liverpool.

Jonjo Shelvey made his first ever Barclays Premier League start for Liverpool at Villa Park and recorded some impressive figures. Here are a selection of interesting statistics from the game courtesy of Opta.
From 29 passes made the No.33 recorded an accuracy level of 82.8%, had the most shots during his 83 minute outing and also had an assist for the first goal which Craig Bellamy slotted home from a corner.

Luis Suarez scored his first goal in over two months against QPR on Saturday, just Liverpool's 18th strike in the league.
This has become a worrying statistic for Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish, as his side have begun to lose touch with the teams leading the Premier League.
Another concern is that Liverpool's immediate rivals Chelsea and Arsenal are both beginning to show some good form.

In the run up to Christmas the Scottish Football Blog is taking a daily look at the season so far for the 12 SPL clubs.
And what they might hope to find in their stockings.
Alphabetically at least Aberdeen are number one.
Woe seems to hang over Pittodrie like a particularly clingy North Sea haar at the moment.

Just a random thought here as this only came to my mind while I was working just now.
As you guys may have noticed of late there's not update on this blog.
One reason is that now it's "off-season" and I thought it's a time to recharge, while also reflect and re-evaluate the direction this blog is heading to.

Jordan Henderson is focused on returning Liverpool to Wembley after more than a decade away from the home of English football.
The Anfield club has not played at the national stadium since losing the 1996 FA Cup final to old rivals Manchester Unitedcourtesy of Eric Cantona's late goal.
Liverpool has won FA Cups, League Cups and Community Shields in their 15-year Wembley absence, but all of those successes came at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium.

For most, Charlie Adam had his best game in a Liverpool shirt against Chelsea, and so before moving on completely from Sunday's match it only seems right to at the very least acknowledge that. And considering this blog's fondness for statistics—not to mention the role stats play in the approach of Fenway Sports Group and Damien Comolli—an obvious point of interest seems clear: Is there anything obvious in Adam's numbers from the weekend that help to separate Sunday from most of what came before?

At the risk of sounding a terribly stuck-up know-it-all it is rare I come across something in football where the statistics genuinely shock me. However, I read an article a few days ago that shed some light on an issue we all know is there but somehow we tend to look over.

Spanish football is beautiful.

The blogathon draws ever closer. Just 24 hours away. So I'm delighted to welcome Mel Young, co-founder and President of the Homeless World Cup, to explain why he's convinced that football can change the world.
First of all, I'd really like to thank Tom for organizing the Blogathon and allowing the Homeless World Cup to be one of the beneficiaries.

England face Sweden at Wembley tonight in what the FA would describe as another ‘vital' friendly. But look into the history of the two nations and one statistic jumps out: England cannot beat those Swedes! It was a friendly at Wembley on May 22, 1968, when we last recorded a win over them. Since then, [.

One of the summer's main talking points was "chances created," a fairly new statistic meant to replace assists. Assists take two to tango, reliant on the goal scorer actually scoring the goal. LiverpoolFC.tv clarifies the stat by renaming it "shot assists," a name I actually prefer, although I'll stick with Opta's nomenclature since I'm using FourFourTwo's StatsZone stats throughout this piece.

Rare but deserved goal

If every match goes this way, we would all live a very long happy life. However, football and Arsenal in particular are not generally that nice to us or our hearts. Today, Arsenal won without much difficulties and without being overworked. There's one or two moments but hardly constituted as too much of a worry compared to other matches in the past.

We're about to flip the calendar from October to November which means that we've already reached the 10 game mark of the season and it's time for the latest instalment of This Season vs Last Season.

The eagled-eyed among you, and/or followers on Twitter, may have already seen the chronological numbers on the new Season Rankr page.

Dalglish not ready to class Carroll and Suárez among Liverpool greats

• The more they play together the better they'll get, says Dalglish • Paul Scharner accuses Luis Suárez of diving for a penalty Kenny Dalglish was just finishing his press duties, satisfied that he had praised the way that Andy Carroll and Luis Suárez had linked up while at the same time avoiding the slip of the tongue that would make for a nice headline, when he was asked if the pair could develop into one of the best partnerships.

Liverpool lost ground on the top four as their leaky defence and a failure to capitalize on numerous opportunities cost them victory at Anfield.
Kenny Dalglish's side hit the woodwork three times among several other chances but had only Craig Bellamy's late first-half goal against his former club to show for their efforts.

One-Nil to the Arsenal. Thank you very much.

I would have been happy with a draw so a win, and that too in such a manner with a clean sheet to boot, has put me over the moon which is a lovely place, you should join me. Ah! I see many are already here and some others on their way. Wonderful.

Italian giants Inter Milan are going through a dry spell in the Serie A that has seen them pick up only 3 points from their last 5 league games. In fact, things are so bad for the Nerazzurri that yesterday's loss has left them only 1 point above the bottom 3.

This latest loss will only put more pressure to coach Claudio Ranieri who is looking to make a positive come back to coaching in the league after less than perfect stint with AS Roma .

Italian giants Inter Milan are going through a dry spell in the Serie A that has seen them pick up only 3 points from their last 5 league games. In fact, things are so bad for the Nerazzurri that yesterday's loss has left them only 1 point above the bottom 3.

This latest loss will only put more pressure to coach Claudio Ranieri who is looking to make a positive come back to coaching in the league after less than perfect stint with AS Roma .

Now that the group stages of the Euro 2012 qualification are over, I thought I'd take a look at the attendances. It's especially interesting this time around as many of the games have been played on Friday/Tuesday rather than the traditional (and I use that term very loosely) Saturday/Wednesday. For the record of the 240 qualification ties 26 were played on a Saturday, 4 were played on a Tuesday, 103 were played on a Friday and 106 were played on a Wednesday.

Just a week ago, it all seemed to finally be moving in the right direction. After a painful start to the season, including some terrible losses and a coaching change, Inter looked to be turning the corner. Claudio Ranieri arrived to take command and seemed to be bringing back the old Inter, winning his first two games.

In my state of drunk-with-happiness-following-our-amazing-3:1-win-over-Brighton I made a very bold statement to the researchers at BBC 5 Live's 606:
'Ipswich Town are now the best team in the League'

Clearly I was a little overexcited. But, you know, the more I think about it the more I'm convinced I'm right.

Soccer is a game of goals. Not necessarily pretty goals, not amazing feats of beating strong defense, just goals. Saturday night as the Seattle Sounders beat the New England Revolution 2:1 the goals made were all off of defensive errors. Diego Fagundez was unmarked on a corner leaving him with just Kasey Keller to beat.

Forty five minutes played, two-nil down. Where've we seen that one before? It is in fact the worrying statistic that now looms ominously over the Wolves' heads. In the last three games, we have found ourselves trailing by two goals ...
This is a content summary. Visit http://www.epltalk.com to read the entire article

Giving the captain a ride

It was another one of the those time during the final whistle where the points was more important than the performance. Too many times have we sat in this position thinking of dropped points and lost games but could still pride ourself with the wonderful attacking display which amounted to no points.

Stoke City Vs Liverpool FC | Defence v Attack

AnfieldIndex Liverpool FC Stats | Liverpool FC Blog | Liverpool FC Forum It was not a good day for Liverpool FC on Saturday, 10th September. A loss to Stoke at the Britannia Stadium for the second consecutive season does not make for good reading.

With lots of transfers happening across borders these days, it's hard to know exactly how the leagues compare. Numbers can help with that sort of thing, but of course, they have their limits. We know that some leagues are better than others, and we know that leagues differ in other ways like parity as well.

With August's Premier League schedule finished and an international break set to take centre stage for the next two weeks, for many Saturday's game against Bolton provided a useful comparison to last season's matching fixture. The upside is seeing just how far the club has come in a very short time.

Downing & Enrique | Effectiveness Vs BWFC

AnfieldIndex Liverpool FC Stats | Liverpool FC Blog | Liverpool FC Forum The left-wing has been an area of weakness for many years at Liverpool. But that problem looks to be resolved with Jose Enrique at left-back and Stewart Downing playing ahead of him in midfield.

Liverpool FC 3-1 Bolton Wanderers – How effective were Downing and Enrique?

AnfieldIndex Liverpool FC Stats | Liverpool FC Blog | Liverpool FC Forum The left-wing has been an area of weakness for many years at Liverpool. But that problem looks to be resolved with Jose Enrique at left-back and Stewart Downing playing ahead of him in midfield.

Their Words I'm not sure looking back on the whole Freddy Adu experience that we managed it as well as we could have. MLS commissioner Don Garber. Other Sources MLS weighs tie-game issue amid crazy numbers - from The Newark Star-Ledger's Frank Giase: But the really disturbing statistic this year is this: 11 of the 18 teams have more ties than wins.

So, how much stock are you taking from the statistic 'Ipswich Town have lost two out of three games'?
At the risk of stating the obvious, it's not a great start! And if you include the fact that Town have already been dumped out of the Mickey Mouse Cup, it looks even worse.

Although the fans will probably remember Referee Kevin Stott's no calls on penalty kicks, or Alvaro Fernandez's missed penalty kick, this game will go down as a wasted opportunity for Sounders to level the series with Chivas while they rebuild the roster. Sounders seemed to have control of the possession through the midfield with Osvaldo Alonso, Erik Friberg and Mauro Rosales for much of the game.

With statistics from last season suggesting the extent of Manchester United's aerial threat – scoring more headers than any other team – it's a shame they haven't moved for potential Barcelona-conqueror and Stoke City hurler Rory Delap in the summer window. But they've got the next best thing – a man who also compliments those in his team with a good head.