Archive for August 2008
Victory leads goals galore
21 goals were last scored in round 18 of last season and that is still the highest number of goals scored in a single round. In that round home teams scored six goals with the away teams scoring 15.
This time it has been the opposite with the home teams scoring fifteen goals.
Round 1 now looks so far away when the four matches could only produce five goals. In round 2 there were 19 goals scored.
Melbourne Victory started the goalfest with a 5 nil demolition of current champions Newcastle Jets and Adelaide United followed with a 3-nil win over the Wellington Phoenix.
The back to back matches on Sunday produced 13 goals with Sydney winning 5-2 against Perth Glory and the Central Coast Mariners winning 4-2 against Queensland Roar.
In fact the Mariners were the only away team to win in round 3.
delicious
digg
Ten teams for fifth season
This is good good news for the A-League which will see the addition of two teams, one each from the Gold Coast and North Queensland.
Five matches a round will bring more variety per round and from a football tipping point of view it should make it more interesting and there is more chances of getting points compared to the current four matches.
The league could expand to 12 teams or 14 and 2010 could be a good year to do that especially with that year being a World Cup year.
EPL: Two rounds and two draws
In the first round Manchester United were held to a draw by Newcastle United and in the second round Hull maintained its unbeaten start to life in the premiership by securing a draw against Blackburn Rovers.
There were a total of 100 draws last season meaning an average of 2.6 draws per round. This year so far its just 10% average compared to last season's 26 percent but then again its only two rounds.
I think the number of draws will increase as the season goes on and teams settle for a draw rather than lose.
A round of penalties and goals
The highest number of goals scored in an A-League round so far is 21 and these were scored in round 18 of the 2007/8 season. A total of 19 goals have now been scored three times.
Also there was at least one penalty in each of the matches in round 2. Only two teams Sydney FC and Queensland Roar did not get a penalty with the other six teams all getting penalties.
Another interesting statistic is that all the penalties were converted. If this trend continues then the coaches may better keep practising penalties.
Now Melbourne Victory top the ladder with four points and at the bottom Perth Glory has now been replaced by Wellington Phoenix.
Adelaide starts with win
In a round where only five goals were scored, Adelaide's one goal was enough to give them three points and catapult them to the top of the A-League ladder.
The first round of the 2008/9 season nearly became only the second round when all matches are drawn but Perth Glory failed to square the scores and hence now prop the ladder.
This was the fifth lowest scoring regular season round with four other rounds having seen just four goals.
The lowest number of goals scored in an regular A-League season is 4 with the highest being 17.
One draw to start with
Its very unusual for the first round to have so many teams winning because a lot of the teams tend to be cautious but this year was different with the only draw coming from Old Trafford.
The opening round last season produced two draws.
The biggest winners were Chelsea with their 4 nil win over Portsmouth.
Of the nine wins seven were home wins with two being away wins with only Blackburn and Liverpool managing to win away.
Its interesting to see what will happen in the second round this coming weekend.
The fixture to look out for is the one between Portsmouth and Manchester United who will be meeting for the third
time in less than a month.
Now Full Time Analysis
Apart from the name change everything else will remain the same including the url which will remain the same.
I decided that it was better to give the blog its own identity and a name that reflects the kind of posts posted on this blog.
The posts on this blog will predominantly be analysis of goals and varied statistics and so the name Full Time Analysis seems close enough to what this blog is all about.
From time to time there will be TipsChallenge centric posts but the bulk of the posts will continue to be football centric.
Barcelona, Arsenal in qualifying round
As such this is the last qualifying round before the main draw that will map out the eight groups for the 2008/9 competition.
The TipsChallenge Champions league tipping competition will start with the group phase and continue all the way to the final to be held at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome on the 27th of May, 2009.
Barcelona, Arsenal, Juventus, Liverpool and Marseille are some of the teams in the third qualifying round and have reached the final before.
