Fouls by RFC Players in a season

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strap
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Fouls by RFC Players in a season

by strap » 12 Dec 2017 21:51

Just been dabbling with the database and came up with this rather surprising stat from last season.

The top 5 RFC players committing fouls in League games last season were ...

5th place - Gareth McCleary with 32 - bit surprising
4th place - Chris Gunter with 33 - yeah a defender, although not one perhaps reknown for his tackling
3rd place - Joey van den Berg with 41 - absolutely no surprises there except perhaps he should have been higher
2nd place - Liam Moore with 48 - bit of a surprise as I thought he was pretty cultured, but not a patch on the top man ....

1st place - Yann Kermorgant with 63 fouls committed in 2016/17 league games.

That strikes me as being really weird - or is it a reflection on strikers not generally being used to tackling? Don't know, but though ot worth sharing. I suppose the correct stats would have been fouls per game or per mins on pitch. I'll look into that next.

Hope you are all keeping snug in this cold weather.

PS just checked on season 2017-18 to date - winner by a country mile is Joey van den Berg with 34 so far! Next best, (worst?), Liam Moore again on 20.

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Re: Fouls by RFC Players in a season

by strap » 12 Dec 2017 22:04

The corollary I suppose would be the RFC players most fouled in a season, so for 2016 these are:

5th place - John Swift - fouled 42 times
4th place - Yann Kermorgant - fouled 44 times
3rd place - Roy Beerens - fouled 51 times - really??
2nd place - Chris Gunter - fouled 56 times - really amazed me that, he must have worked out the way to go down very well, and another surprise at top spot ...

1st place - Danny Williams - fouled 63 times.

For 2017-18 so far, the top man fouled is Paul McShane (??) being fouled 27 times. The 2nd place also goes to a central defender, Liam Moore with 23. Does this say something about our side? Gunter comes in 4th and van den Berg 5th, so why are our defenders being fouled rather than our striker - when we play one??

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Re: Fouls by RFC Players in a season

by CountryRoyal » 12 Dec 2017 22:32

Neither of those two (number 1s) surprise me.

Kerm will often give away a foul missing out in a 50/50 or going up and heading the ball after it's played into him. It's just the way it works. He also can be quite sneaky and likes to leave the odd the challenge in.

And for Williams. So much of his game revolved around running the ball out from defense on a counter attack, teams are stretched and the only way to bring him down was to foul him.

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Re: Fouls by RFC Players in a season

by SCIAG » 13 Dec 2017 07:00

Big lone strikers routinely lead these tables. They draw and commit a lot of fouls challenging for high balls and holding the ball up.

This season we haven't been able to use one striker regularly so it's not surprising to see no striker in the top five. Centre backs draw a lot of fouls for the same reasons as big strikers. I'm surprised McShane is being fouled more than Moore (who is playing more) but I suspect you'd find a similar situation at most clubs.

The most successful teams can get their wingers fouled more often, but usually they just don't see enough of the ball. Wingers get to dribble only a handful of times a match, but there can be dozens of long balls up to a striker.

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