Welcome to The Radar, a Sky Sports column in which Nick Wright uses a blend of data and opinion to shed light on need-to-know stories from up and down the Premier League. This week:
🔴 Arteta and Sterling’s reunion
📈 Underrated Wood’s incredible numbers
❓ Ten Hag’s game model under scrutiny
Arteta to help unlock Sterling?
There is a scene in the Manchester City All or Nothing documentary, in the wake of a costly miss by Raheem Sterling during a 1-1 draw with Burnley in February 2018, which provides a window into Mikel Arteta’s work with the winger during his time as assistant there.
In a meeting room with Arteta at the club’s Etihad Campus, Guardiola is recounting his conversation with Sterling after the game. “He said, ‘I didn’t do what Mikel said to me,'” says the City boss. “‘Instead of attacking the ball, I just stuck my foot out.'”
Guardiola adds that Sterling was “devastated” by the error, blaming himself for the dropped points that followed. But he would finish the season, his third at City, as a Premier League title-winner, with a total of 18 goals second only to Sergio Aguero among City players.
Encouraging him to finish with greater conviction was a major focus of Arteta’s coaching at the time and it proved fruitful, with Sterling enjoying the most devastating period of his career.
Between Arteta’s arrival at the club in the summer of 2016 and his exit to Arsenal in December 2019, Sterling scored 51 Premier League goals and added 28 assists in 116 Premier League games, nearly doubling his previous rate of productivity.
As Arteta points out in that same scene from All or Nothing, though, the explosion in his output was not just down to finishing. “The goals he’s scoring, Pep, it’s not because he has improved one specific thing, it’s because he’s getting into the right place more often.”
He elaborates in Pep’s City: The Making of a Superteam, by Pol Ballus and Lu Martin. “We wanted him much closer to the penalty area,” says Arteta in the book. The idea, he adds, was that Sterling would become a player capable of “constantly generating goal threat”, and that, if he got more chances, he would convert enough of them to balance out the misses.
This repositioning of Sterling is evident in his numbers for touches in the opposition box over the course of his career. A player who averaged 5.66 of them per 90 minutes before working with Arteta came to average 9.56 per 90 minutes under him.
The subsequent dip, to 8.15 touches in the box per 90 minutes across the last three seasons, and 7.23 per 90 minutes across the last two at Chelsea specifically, is one of many reasons why Sterling’s scoring numbers did not hold up at Stamford Bridge.
At Arsenal, though, Arteta’s continued ability to get his forwards into scoring positions offers encouragement. Last season, Gabriel Jesus, Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka all ranked among the Premier League’s top eight players for touches in the opposition box per 90.
Sterling should get – and indeed provide – plenty of service too. With Arteta’s help at City, he developed a knack for scoring one-touch finishes from cut-backs and low crosses. Such passes into the box are now a major feature of Arsenal’s play under the Spaniard.
In fact, according to Opta, Arsenal made 25 per cent more pull-back passes than any other Premier League side last season, with 72. Saka and Martinelli, the players whose minutes Sterling will share, ranked first and second respectively with 22 and 17 apiece.
His signing, on loan with no obligation to buy, while paying under 50 per cent of his wages, is low-risk for Arsenal. And while he arrives at the Emirates Stadium with a point to prove, having lost his place in the England squad and struggled at Chelsea, Premier League tracking data shows few signs of physical decline.
In fact, last season Sterling averaged more sprints per 90 minutes than in either of the last two. He has clocked a higher top speed from one campaign to the next in each of the last three. His defensive work-rate may not match Saka or Martinelli’s but his explosiveness remains.
All of which suggests a return to the heights he scaled at City, under a coach, in Arteta, who played a crucial role in helping him get there, may not be as fanciful as it might seem.
Underrated Wood matching Salah output
Mohamed Salah will be the focus of attention when Liverpool face Nottingham Forest at Anfield on Saturday as he aims to continue an explosive start to the season under Arne Slot. But there is a player on Nuno Espirito Santo’s side matching his scoring feats.
Chris Wood continues to fly under the radar. The Premier League scoring charts may show Salah ahead, by three goals to two this season, and by 18 goals to 14 last term. But take away penalties and they are level, with 16 goals each across the two campaigns.
Even more impressively, Wood has done it while playing only 2,044 minutes to Salah’s 2,798, giving him a non-penalty goal strike rate far superior to Salah and behind only Erling Haaland and Diogo Jota among all Premier League players in the same time-frame.
As a 32-year-old target man who has bounced around a dozen English clubs either on loan or permanently over the course of a nomadic career, Wood may seem an incongruous presence among the Premier League’s elite; more ‘Barclaysman’ than star man.
But his goals, in addition to being plentiful, have been vital to Forest. Without them, they would be 13 points worse off since the start of last season. It is a seismic contribution in the context of a relegation battle and puts Wood fifth in the division for points won by goals.
Among them was a hat-trick against Newcastle on Boxing Day to clinch a 3-1 win over his former club. The New Zealand international struggled at St James’ Park, scoring only four times in 35 Premier League games. But that spell was an anomaly.
Since swapping Leeds for Burnley in 2017, Wood has reached double figures for goals in five out of seven Premier League seasons, a feat only matched by Sadio Mane, Jamie Vardy and Sterling in the same period, and only bettered by Salah, Heung-Min Son and Harry Kane.
Wood started slowly at Forest under Steve Cooper, admittedly. Few supporters celebrated his £15m permanent arrival from Newcastle last year after an underwhelming period on loan.
Now, though, with the help of a manager eager to play to his penalty-box strengths, he is delivering again. He does it in his own way, with a minimum of fuss and little acclaim. But his record speaks for itself.
Ten Hag faces test of game model at Saints
There is rarely a quiet moment for Erik ten Hag at Manchester United. Rumblings around his future continued even during the international break, with The Guardian reporting he could be removed from his post if his game model does not begin to impress the club’s decision-makers.
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The report, written by Jamie Jackson, followed back-to-back defeats against Brighton and Liverpool which exhibited familiar levels of defensive openness. It states that Ten Hag has been challenged to show his United side can dominate games and opponents.
On the face of it, a trip to winless Southampton, in Saturday’s early kick-off, looks a good opportunity to show a capacity for dominance. But Russell Martin’s side have averaged 68 per cent possession across their first three games, putting them second only to Spurs.
United, by contrast, are down in seventh, with 53 per cent possession. Factor in last season and they sit even lower, just above Fulham in 10th place, with a 51 per cent average.
As noted by Adam Bate in The Debrief, Southampton’s losing start is a reminder that possession means little if you can’t make it count. In light of recent events though, they are an awkward foe for a manager being scrutinised on style as well as results.
Player Radar: Who else to keep an eye on
These are testing times for Newcastle but Sandro Tonali’s return from his betting ban is a positive. The midfielder played 90 minutes in both of Italy’s games during the international break, producing a brilliant flicked assist in their 3-1 win over France, and could start his first Premier League game in almost a year against Wolves on Super Sunday.
Live Radar: What’s on Sky this weekend?
Aston Villa and Everton face off in the first of two games live on Sky Sports Premier League and Main Event on Saturday, kicking off at 5.30pm before Bournemouth’s meeting with Chelsea, which kicks off at 8pm.
The North London derby comes on Super Sunday, with coverage of Tottenham’s clash with Arsenal starting at 1pm on Sky Sports Premier League and Main Event ahead of the 2pm kick-off time, with Wolves vs Newcastle kicking off at 4.30pm in the final game of the weekend.
Last week’s Radar
The Radar was talking up Ryan Gravenberch’s impact at No 6 for Liverpool before it was cool. The Dutchman was the focus of the last column, after which he earned widespread praise for his display in the role in the 3-0 win over Manchester United, with the Jonah Lomu-like Morgan Rogers also going under the microscope.
Source : Sky Sports
