Newcastle 2 vs 1 Chelsea
Here is our visualisation that shows the smoothed positions of players around the time as indicated.
As we don't have access to detailed tracking data we have tried to be as smart as we can with the "on-the-ball" data collected by Opta; we think we've made a decent attempt at trying to understand the flow of the game and the general positional trends of the players within the game. We know it's not perfect, but we'd need full tracking data to ensure that we have the exact positions of every player correct at all times. In the absence of full tracking data, hopefully people will find these visualisations helpful.
I don't have much time this morning (which has been the case for the last month or so) so I am only pointing out a couple of very noticeable features from my watching of the PPT below.
- In the early stages, Newcastle were quite agressive with Ameobi and Dummet playing high up the left wing. Was this deliberate to keep Ivanovic in check?
- Newcastle had a decent spell of possession half way through the first half, with Sissoko especially involved during this time
- I was surprised at the absolute lack of width displayed by Chelsea; it was virtually non-existent in the opening hour. At times Chelsea had 5 players in the central attacking part of the pitch; Willian, Hazard, Oscar, Diego Costa and Fabregas
Anyway, let me in the comments know what else you see, and you can click the image below to open in a larger window.
