Wilfried Bony on aerial duels

[luke45]

There's no doubt Bony is improving and looking sharper game by game, his hold up play was generally good again yesterday and he linked some good moves together on occasions, he just desperately needs a goal to re-ignite his confidence. In terms of aerial duels though I've been pretty disappointed with how few he has won so far.

Spurs (H) - 0 out of 4
Palace (A) - 2 out of 3
West Brom (H) - 4 out of 7
Man Utd (A) - 1 out of 6
Sunderland (H) - 4 out of 6
Hull (A) - 2 out of 6

That's 13 out of 32 of aerial duels he's won, which is roughly 40 percent.

Throughout his time at Swansea his aggression and ability to win aerial duels was one of his greatest strengths, we need him to get some of that aggression back and start dominating his opposing defenders a bit more. As the article below highlights, at his peak at Swansea he was winning approximately 52 percent of his aerial duels.

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/wilfried-bony-stats-focus-man-8431037

No better time to get off the mark than against his old club on October 31st I reckon!

[chesterfieldstokie]

Another shit stat appears on the Oatcake!!

[mattador78]

98.4% of all stats on the oatcake are shit 63.2% of all posters know this(allegedly)

[luke45]

Oct 23, 2016 17:53:46 GMT chesterfieldstokie said:

Another shit stat appears on the Oatcake!!

Obviously good enough for you to take the time to bump it back to the top of the board though! Cheers mate!

[chesterfieldstokie]

Oct 23, 2016 17:56:08 GMT luke45 said:

Oct 23, 2016 17:53:46 GMT chesterfieldstokie said:

Another shit stat appears on the Oatcake!!

Obviously good enough for you to take the time to bump it back to the top of the board though! Cheers mate!

It was already top as it is now another Stat 100% top when i commented!!

[terrorofturfmoor]

Can't ignore stats!!!

[Deleted]

Which puts the defenders he has faced on winning 60%.

Can any stattos dig out what percentage are Shawcross and Bruno on? I'd be expecting my centre halves to be winning far more than 60%.

[Linx]

Personally, I think it's a great stat, Luke. What concerns me slightly is that you might have been counting all these aerial duels every game. i'd say you were a bit of a Bony stalker, but that just sounds very rude...... .

[TexasPotter]

Bony is getting better because he was brickshithouse fit when he arrived. All he was doing was sitting on the bench at Man City. I have a feeling he'll open the account against the swans, it is in the stars.

[cozmick]

Its not the aerial duels we should be worrying about, it's his finishing.

[switch]

He is only 6' tall. Many many many players are much taller than he is; no amount of strength can prevent a 6'4" centre half climbing on your back and winning the ball in the air. Frankly i've always thought it was his groundwork that set him apart from the rest anyway, his hold up/link up play at times is quality.

[richardparker]

Will come good where it matters (i.e. in front of goal), very soon.

[cheeesfreeex]

Oct 23, 2016 19:11:24 GMT switch said:

He is only 6' tall. Many many many players are much taller than he is; no amount of strength can prevent a 6'4" centre half climbing on your back and winning the ball in the air. Frankly i've always thought it was his groundwork that set him apart from the rest anyway, his hold up/link up play at times is quality.

Exactly, he's confounded the stereotype I'd built in me mind of him.
He's more of a ball player passer than I thought.
I imagined him being far more of a battering ram.
He's got great awareness of what's around him and strong holding it up.
Headers are a bonus, but we still don't bother too much with crosses etc, so he'll suit us fine.

He's not quite 90 minute fit yet, hence he's getting caught a bit checking his options.
When his body catches up with his mind he'll be minter.
Think he's made a massive difference already.

[ElworthPotter]

You've got to remember ariel duels are more difficult for a striker to win than a defender. Say you've got a long ball up the pitch and the defender needs to meet it and head it back where it comes from. That's much easier than the striker often running backwards and flicking it on. With that said, I'd say 40% isn't bad at all for a lone striker

[numpty40]

He's a bit of a passenger to be honest.
Arnie and Shaq have been superb the last few games and along with Allen carry our biggest threat.
Our expensive centre forward has been pretty shit to be truthful.
After the Sunderland game I saw signs Bony could finally get his act together at Hull, but he took another step back in my opinion.
You have to play him against Swans because it's his previous club etc but if he draws a blank in that game he definitely shouldn't be starting the next game.

[Deleted]

Oct 23, 2016 19:51:28 GMT richardparker said:

Will come good where it matters (i.e. in front of goal), very soon.

If he scores no goals and we win every game 2-0, quite frankly my dear, I couldn't give a damn.

[The Drunken Communist]

To look at these stats another way...

In 50% of our matches; Bony has won the aerial duel battle.

...And if we take out the game against title chasing, unbeaten Spurs, and the away game at The Shit - Both games where more often than not all teams come away with fuck all. It means Bony has absolutley dominated the aerial duels in 3 out of 4 matches.

Who says you can't twist statistics to suit your arguement

[stokiejoe]

80 % of statistics are made up, only the other 40% are true.

[capto]

I was disappointed with him at first, thought he'd be hungry for action but didn't see that - but I've sensed it's coming back over the last couple of gamrs; think if he'd been sharp he would have scored two yesterday ; so hopefully lay that to bed next weekend!

[Gods]

How would that compare to Benteke? The Palace man looks unstoppable in the air, seems able to leap and just hang there.

Bony is basically a short (by modern standards), wide bloke, built like a shit brick-house, it would be a job to get that bulk air born and keep it there, for that reason I never had great hopes for him for lots of headed goals. To be honest any goal at all would do right now!

[peterthornesboots]

Oct 23, 2016 17:52:47 GMT luke45 said:

There's no doubt Bony is improving and looking sharper game by game, his hold up play was generally good again yesterday and he linked some good moves together on occasions, he just desperately needs a goal to re-ignite his confidence. In terms of aerial duels though I've been pretty disappointed with how few he has won so far.

Spurs (H) - 0 out of 4
Palace (A) - 2 out of 3
West Brom (H) - 4 out of 7
Man Utd (A) - 1 out of 6
Sunderland (H) - 4 out of 6
Hull (A) - 2 out of 6

That's 13 out of 32 of aerial duels he's won, which is roughly 40 percent.

Throughout his time at Swansea his aggression and ability to win aerial duels was one of his greatest strengths, we need him to get some of that aggression back and start dominating his opposing defenders a bit more. As the article below highlights, at his peak at Swansea he was winning approximately 52 percent of his aerial duels.

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/wilfried-bony-stats-focus-man-8431037

No better time to get off the mark than against his old club on October 31st I reckon!

I'm not sure that his aerial ability is necessarily a strength of his.

What he is good at is receiving the ball into his feet / body and using his physique to hold off defenders and link up the play.

I don't really recall him scoring many goals with his head for Swansea?

[luke45]

Oct 23, 2016 22:33:18 GMT peterthornesboots said:

Oct 23, 2016 17:52:47 GMT luke45 said:

There's no doubt Bony is improving and looking sharper game by game, his hold up play was generally good again yesterday and he linked some good moves together on occasions, he just desperately needs a goal to re-ignite his confidence. In terms of aerial duels though I've been pretty disappointed with how few he has won so far.

Spurs (H) - 0 out of 4
Palace (A) - 2 out of 3
West Brom (H) - 4 out of 7
Man Utd (A) - 1 out of 6
Sunderland (H) - 4 out of 6
Hull (A) - 2 out of 6

That's 13 out of 32 of aerial duels he's won, which is roughly 40 percent.

Throughout his time at Swansea his aggression and ability to win aerial duels was one of his greatest strengths, we need him to get some of that aggression back and start dominating his opposing defenders a bit more. As the article below highlights, at his peak at Swansea he was winning approximately 52 percent of his aerial duels.

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/wilfried-bony-stats-focus-man-8431037

No better time to get off the mark than against his old club on October 31st I reckon!

I'm not sure that his aerial ability is necessarily a strength of his.

What he is good at is receiving the ball into his feet / body and using his physique to hold off defenders and link up the play.

I don't really recall him scoring many goals with his head for Swansea?

I agree there's far more to his game than being a physical presence and winning headers, you only have to look at the fact he's only contesting a long ball every 10-15 minutes to see that we haven't signed him just to be a target man. As I said in my original post and you have made reference to as well, his hold up play has been good and he has linked some decent moves together recently.

In terms of how many headers he scored for Swansea, I can't seem to find any articles to answer that. Here is a video of his goals in all comps for Swansea though and he's found the net eight times through headers in that, so about 1/4 of his total goals. You can see from the varied type of headers he has scored that he clearly possesses aerial ability in opposing penalty areas.

The amount of aerial duels he's won so far for us isn't disastrously bad, I just feel there's room for some improvement in that area. Winning 52 percent of his aerial duels at Swansea was an impressive return and hopefully we can get that little bit extra out of him in the next few months.

[Mendicant]

I blame those Morrisons sandwiches the club keeps shoving dine him. Doing him no good at all, the poor youth conner jump.

[geoffsalmons]

If you take out the spurs and man u games he's at 54.5%- aren't stats great!

All I know is he is definitely improving us as a team and I think the goals will come

[bristolpotter123]

The other important points regarding Bony are that he was very much a last minute purchase so not necessarily the best fit , he's a loan signing so even though he's on good wages he's a cheaper option as his or any other quality strikers wages would be similar but we currently have only paid out a relatively small sum to acquire him.

But more importantly he works better with our other players than anyone lese in the squad as the ball doesn't just bounce of him like Walters and Diouf and he doesn't give away as many free kicks as Crouch , so the continuity of our play when we break forward is better and gives Allen, Shaquiri and Arnautovic time to get involved further up the pitch.

[pez75]

Another interesting stat for Bony - GOALS = ZERO.

I keep giving him the benefit of doubt, but he just does not look interested or bothered IMO. He was awful agianst Hull. Gave away possession more than Whelan which takes some doing! Not sharp or alert. Had a great chance to get a shot off when Arnie played him in, but dithered. Then again Arnie crosed to him but his predatory instinct deserted him yet again.

I understand that Hughes (like many, including myself to a degree) thinks that once he nets he will be up & running, but it must be galling for Diouf, Crouch and co to see him plodding along not giving a shit every game.

Law of sod says he will score against Swansea, so that is his last chance salloon for me, and he should be dropped after that if there is no improvement.

[futch]

He needs to be a bit fitter, but they'll come. His headers in that video look brilliant. And is he here to win areal duels or get on the end of crosses?

[Deleted]

Just needs one goal and the rest will follow.

[RF10]

Watching that video makes it 100% clear he relies on service being provided.

[foster]

I expected more tbh. He's getting better but not scoring any goals isn't going to help him stay in the starting 11.

Then again, out other strikers are pretty crap so he'll keep his place regardless i expect.