This Week in Stats: 14 wins in a row for sensational City

Stoke were ideal opponents for Tottenham, West Ham kept Chelsea at bay and Manchester City put United in the shade at Old Trafford.

Tottenham have suffered a bad run of results lately. They couldn’t have hoped for more obliging opponents than Stoke this weekend. Mark Hughes’ team are probably too good to go down, but they’re a certainly a team going nowhere.

The Potters have played 35 league games in 2017, and have only taken 38 points from them. They were a touch unfortunate here to go behind to a Ryan Shawcross own goal, but it was largely one way traffic towards their goal throughout the contest.

Tottenham’s dominance resulted in them becoming the fifth home side this season to have at least 11 shots on target. The bad news for Stoke fans is they are the only team to be on the receiving end twice. It was also the eighth time a home team has had at least six clear-cut chances, with Stoke again providing the opposition in two of the matches.

As well as the own goal, Stoke were masters of their own downfall in other ways too. Immediately after conceding the second goal, goalkeeper Jack Butland was pressured by Harry Kane into conceding a corner which lead to the third goal. Then, despite having a corner of their own, Stoke allowed Spurs to slice through them on the counter and Christian Eriksen made it 5-0.

As for Tottenham, they benefited here as the finishing prowess which had deserted them recently returned in abundance. This column noted they registered 2.9 expected goals in their 2-1 defeat at Leicester, yet their tally was 2.8 when scoring five here. Soccer’s fascination with proving the old adage ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’ correct is in full flow with Spurs right now.

West Ham largely kept the champions at bay

If West Ham were to get anything from their match with Chelsea, it was imperative they scored first. The Blues have won all nine games when opening the scoring in the league this season. Similarly, the Hammers have taken just a point from the nine where the first goal went against them.

Marko Arnautovic scored in the sixth minute, which gave West Ham a precious lead to protect. And defend it, they did. That’s not to say Chelsea didn’t have chances, albeit none were clear-cut.

Antonio Conte’s men also had a lot of possession in the Hammers’ defensive third. For only the third time since the Italian took over, Chelsea completed at least 180 passes in the attacking third away from home.

It’s interesting to note that one of the other examples was also against a David Moyes team. Strangely, Chelsea’s attacking stats were almost identical in both matches.

The Hammers defended very well. Chelsea had 11 shots in the box, but the Irons blocked six of those. Angelo Ogbonna was particularly important, as he got his body in the way of three of them.

Of the remaining five attempts, the three in the centre of the box fell to Alvaro Morata. He didn’t test Adrian with any of them though. The former Real Madrid man had been running hot against his underlying stats, scoring nine from under seven expected goals. Top strikers are expected to do this, but it’s not easy to do week after week.

This defeat was the fourth of the campaign for the champions, who only lost five last season. Perhaps the dual strains of domestic and European soccer is starting to tell on Conte’s relatively small squad.

Next: The Hammers are alive! 3 things we learned

Can anyone stop Manchester City?

Manchester United are used to ceding possession in big games on the road under Jose Mourinho. But it also happens at Old Trafford when Manchester City travel across town. United had just 35 percent of the possession in the derby.

There’s nothing wrong with that in principle, and indeed it almost worked for them here. City may have won the shot count by 14 to eight, but the value of those shots were just 0.1 expected goals apart in total.

The visitors were deserved winners, and wasted several counter-attacking opportunities as the game drew to the close. They still had their goalkeeper, and arguably the referee, to thank for the victory though.

Ander Herrera went down in the box with 11 minutes to play, but was adjudged to have dived by the referee. Five minutes later, Ederson made a remarkable double save to keep City’s lead intact. The two clear-cut chances in that moment of the match represent 11 percent of the top quality chances City have allowed in their 2017-18 league campaign to date.

Not that the statistical anomalies were limited to that end of the pitch. Both City goals came from set pieces, when many thought beforehand that dead ball situations would provide United’s best route to goal. Mourinho’s men had previously only conceded one set piece goal all season.

The Red Devils, and all Mourinho teams, are not known for making (Opta-defined) defensive errors which lead to goals either. Romelu Lukaku’s dreadful attempted clearance which lead to the winner certainly fell into that category, and the Belgian is in something of a slump right now.

Can anybody stop Manchester City? They’ll obviously fail to win eventually, and with Tottenham up next, maybe sooner than we think.