Player Positional Tracker: Liverpool v Aston Villa

Liverpool 0 vs 1 Aston Villa

As usual, click on the gif to open in a larger window

Some things I noticed from this PPT:

1st Half:

• It took 25 minutes for Gerrard to retreat into his usual deep defensive spot, up until that time his dot continually appears in the Aston Villa half - this isn't the normal spot for the 2014 version of Stevie G

• No surprise that Aston Villa seen very little of the ball after they took the lead

• Lallana's dot was very small for virtually all of the first half; this suggests that he wasn't able to get himself involved from an attacking point of view.  It was only during the last 5 minutes of the half that his dot increases in size

• Cleverley played in a relatively advanced position.  Delph was consistently behind Villa's new signing, indeed Agbonlahor is even shown as being more defensively located at certain times in the half

2nd Half:

• Liverpool virtually played a 2-2-6 formation during the second half as they attempted to find the equaliser

• Lambert's extreme movements is due to the few actions (and therefore reference points for us to calculate) he had as a late sub.  The fewer the number of actions the less smoothing we can do to his recorded locations

• Balotelli wasn't able to get himself involved. His dot was continually the smallest out of Liverpool's 6 attacking players. Probably no surprise to see Super Mario being substituted off

Article by Colin Trainor