As regular visitors know will know by now, I’ve recently taken to dipping into the Saturday morning papers to take a glance over their teamsheet predictions.
With the Guardian publishing their “Squad Sheets” for tomorrow’s papers online this evening, and with comments filling up fast on the previous post, I thought it would be worthwhile to start my little preamble a little earlier on Saturday morning. Half an hour into Saturday morning in fact. Here’s how the Guardian are thinking…
The first thing that caught my eye was their United lineup. They have Fletcher keeping the right-back spot, with Anderson starting in midfield and no Ryan Giggs. I certainly agree that Giggs’ hamstring looks unlikely to be risked on a hard Craven Cottage pitch and with Ferguson talking up Anderson only this week, perhaps there is something in him starting this one.
Another notable prediction is that Ancelotti will rest Mikel and start with Belletti in the holding midfield role. That would obviously make the Brazilian a decent short-term bet for the trip to Upton Park. There could be something in this. We know that Ancelotti remarked the he was looking to rest Mikel and/or Ballack for the game. We also know that he will be keen to give Belletti a run-out in that position given that Mikel and Essien will both be away at the African Cup of Nations in January.
There’s no Aaron Ramsey in their Arsenal lineup. Instead its Denilson who comes into a midfield trio made of himself, Song and Diaby. That could easily be the case, although I feel that Wenger will opt for the craft of Ramsey over the industry of Denilson for a home game with Hull.
The Liverpool lineup has Torres up front, although marked, quite correctly, as a doubt. Interestingly they feel that Rafa will keep with Gerrard in a slightly deeper role alongside Mascherano with no place for Lucas in the side. Kuyt will be pushed up behind Torres again according to them.
Finally, just as things were getting close to full credibility, they predict that Dunn could make the Blackburn lineup against Spurs. Sadly, this isn’t the case according to the club. Dunn was ruled out on the official site on Friday evening.
Overall though, a pretty strong set of predictions from the first broadsheet of the day. Don’t forget you can get our take on the predicted lineups via the Team News page.
The Guardian also throw in their usual splattering of match stats and facts, some of which are worth considering. Here’s the highlights for you to mull over in between counting sheep…
Torres has scored just 14 of his 49 Premier League goals away from home.
Spurs have kept just two clean sheets in their last 27 away games.
It’s just one clean sheet in 20 away league games for Bolton.
Steven Pienaar has created 22 goalscoring chances for teammates this season. None of them have been taken. Wayne Rooney leads the way for that stat, creating 26 chances, again none of them have been scored. Rooney is without an assist for the season – it’s not for the want of trying.
Arsenal have won 10 of their last 12 home games by a margin of 2 goals or more.
West Ham are without a clean sheet in their last 11 home league games.
Darren Bent has scored 5 goals in his last 6 league starts against Man City.
It’s just one clean sheet in 17 Premier League games for Wolves at Molineux.
Stoke are averaging four shots on target per game. The lowest in the league.
Now sleep.