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All Michael Cox posts on WhoScored.com Articles RSS

Team Focus: Fiorentina Building Toward a Title Challenge Next Season

by Michael Cox at Friday, Mar 8 2013 12:27
Team Focus: Fiorentina Building Toward a Title Challenge Next Season Pre-match warm-ups often reveal a great deal about a side’s playing style; if you’d lived under a rock for the past five years and were unsure about Barcelona’s strategy, for example, a small taster of one of their ‘rondo’ sessions would explain everything concisely.Fio...
Categories: Team Focus

Team Focus: Queens Park Rangers

by Michael Cox at Friday, Nov 23 2012 09:50
Team Focus: Queens Park Rangers Good news for Mark Hughes this week – he was not, after all, the first Premier League manager to lose his job this season. His former Chelsea teammate Roberto Di Matteo was instead 2012/13’s first coaching casualty, but although that has deflected the media spotlight away from Hughes, he...
Categories: Team Focus

Team Focus: The Secret to Everton's Success

by Michael Cox at Friday, Oct 12 2012 10:50
Team Focus: The Secret to Everton's Success There’s a very surprising side leading the ‘shots per game’ statistic across Europe’s five major leagues so far this season. Most of the contenders are guessable – there’s Manchester City and Real Madrid, both league winners last season and more direct than their ...
Categories: Team Focus

Zonal Marking Euro 2012 Focus: Ones to Watch

by Michael Cox at Tuesday, May 29 2012 17:43
Zonal Marking Euro 2012 Focus: Ones to Watch The major contenders for Euro 2012 have named starting XIs full of tried and tested options – but a few youngsters are looking to make their mark on the competition. Here, we profile five of the most promising players under the age of 21.Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, EnglandThe Arsenal youngster se...
Categories: Player Focus

Zonal Marking Team Focus: Wigan

by Michael Cox at Thursday, May 3 2012 15:56
Zonal Marking Team Focus: Wigan Wigan’s late ‘great escape’ is becoming such a regular feature of each Premier League season, that it’s difficult to work out how much Roberto Martinez’s change in formation has been a key factor in their recent run.But the facts speak for themselves – Wigan playe...
Categories: Team Focus

Zonal Marking Team Focus: Borussia Dortmund

by Michael Cox at Friday, Apr 20 2012 12:29
Zonal Marking Team Focus: Borussia Dortmund With a win this weekend, Borussia Dortmund will clinch their second consecutive title. Of course, victory over fourth-placed Borussia Monchengladbach should not be taken for granted. But then, Dortmund are now unbeaten in 25 games, an extremely impressive record in a league that is arguably more com...
Categories: Team Focus

Zonal Marking Team Focus: PSG

by Michael Cox at Friday, Mar 30 2012 12:21
Zonal Marking Team Focus: PSG Look at the statistics from PSG’s season in relation to other Ligue 1 clubs, and it’s difficult to see exactly where they excel. They have the third-highest average possession, the fourth-highest pass completion rate, the third-most shots, and the fourth-most shots on target. All good fi...
Categories: Team Focus

Zonal Marking Team Focus: Stoke

by Michael Cox at Friday, Mar 9 2012 15:42
Zonal Marking Team Focus: Stoke You don’t really need statistics to demonstrate that Stoke are a unique team in the Premier League. While the top sides all favour a possession-based game, and even a newly-promoted club like Swansea pride themselves on keeping the ball, Stoke are fiercely committed to their own style. “...
Categories: Team Focus

Zonal Marking Team Focus: Athletic Bilbao

by Michael Cox at Thursday, Feb 23 2012 14:55
Zonal Marking Team Focus: Athletic Bilbao Marcelo Bielsa’s arrival at Athletic Bilbao was the most exciting managerial appointment of last summer. A notoriously eccentric yet highly intelligent figure, his work with Argentina and Chile had elevated him into the enviable position of being both the neutral’s favourite, and a highl...
Categories: Team Focus

Zonal Marking: Team Analysis - AC Milan

by Michael Cox at Friday, Feb 10 2012 14:35
Zonal Marking: Team Analysis - AC Milan Milan might not have been the best football team during the middle of the last decade, but they were probably the most sophisticated. Think back to the successful sides of 2004-06 – Greece, Porto, Liverpool (and at a stretch, Italy). They were all great stories, but extremely functional, large...
Categories: Team Focus