Pass completion is more important than goals (weeks 1-3)

In an age of Sergio Agüeros, Diego Forláns, transfer deadlines and Monday Night Football, it's easy to lose sight of what the game is really about: completing the shit out of a whole bunch of passes. So here - published no fewer than three games into the season, you'll note - is what the Premier League table really looks like. Yes, you better believe this will be a weekly feature.

Passes attempted

Passes completed

Pass difference

Pass completion %

Swansea

1809

1467

342

81.09

Man. City

1663

1348

315

81.05

Man. United

1640

1329

311

81.03

Chelsea

1782

1444

338

81.03

Arsenal

1592

1273

319

79.96

Wigan

1218

953

265

78.24

Liverpool

1653

1281

372

77.50

Tottenham

934

717

217

76.77

Fulham

1446

1071

375

74.07

West Brom

1228

907

221

73.86

Wolves

1334

965

369

72.34

Aston Villa

1292

920

372

71.21

Everton

938

667

271

71.11

QPR

1250

864

386

69.12

Newcastle

1132

781

351

68.99

Bolton

1265

871

394

68.85

Norwich

1062

730

332

68.74

Sunderland

1054

706

348

66.98

Blackburn

1159

774

385

66.78

Stoke

1056

698

358

66.10



Clearly, congratulations are in order for Swansea City, who have stayed loyal to the true heart of football. Look at United and Chelsea there, separated only by pass difference. And isn't it great to see plucky Wigan Athletic challenging for a place in next season's Pass Completion Champions League?

Data collected from Guardian Chalkboards, but any error is probably mine.

The Armband

With apologies to Edgar Allan Poe, and all his hellish sub-clauses of death.

It had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Sweat was its Avatar and its seal – the stifling horror of sweat. There were sharp barks, and sudden disorientation, and profuse sweating at the pores, with dissolution. The constricting pressure on the upper arm and the torment on the face of the victim were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the disease, were the incidents of an hour and a half.

But the manager Fabio was dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence twenty-three hale and light-hearted men, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his walled enclosures. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. With such precautions the manager might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The manager had provided all the appliances of pleasure and success. There were videogames, there were plastic cones, there was structure, there was seclusion. All these (and the Armband) were within.

The tastes of the manager were peculiar. He had a fine eye for strategy and detail. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with pragmatic lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see him to be sure that he was not.

But to and fro among the twenty-three men there stalked a multitude of dreams. And these – the dreams – writhed in and about, taking shape from the seclusion and causing the wild chants of the crowd to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there sounds the shrill whistle that stands in the centre of the field. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the whistle. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the whistle die away – they have endured but an instant – and a light, half-subdued jeer floats after them as they depart.

And thus it happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who jeered. There were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of an Armbanded figure. And the rumour of this presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disconcert and surprise – then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust.

The whole company seemed now deeply to feel that in the bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and broad, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the Armband. His vesture was dabbled in sweat – and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with passion and pride.

When the eyes of the manager Fabio fell upon this beefy image (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the players), he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment, with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.

‘Who dares?’ he demanded hoarsely of the players who stood near him – ‘who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and un-Armband him – that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise from the battlements, or else drop for the Slovenia game!’

At first, as he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder, who, at the moment, was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the manager. But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the Armband had inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the manager’s person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres of the room to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Armband. It had come like a thief in the night. And the life of the stoppage-time clock went out. And the lenses on the tripods flared. And Darkness and Decay and the Armband held illimitable dominion over all.

Spotter's Badges: August-September

Of course, all of it will quite obviously not happen.

Samir Nasri is reported to be undergoing a medical at Manchester City. Two points

Samir Nasri actually plays football – actually plays football - for Manchester City. Thirty points

Neil Warnock uses the phrase “great bunch of lads” after a defeat of three or more goals. Five points

Harry Redknapp makes a deadline-day bid for the Spanish autonomous province of Andalusia. Six points

Transfer deadline day concludes with several mid-sized transfers hurriedly concluded and several mid-sized transfers left hurriedly unconcluded. The yellow Sky Sports News ticker leaps off the bottom of the screen and throttles Jim White. Four hundred and fifty points

Television audiences miss a goal in Brazil’s friendly against Ghana as the camera is busy leering at a bikini-clad woman in the crowd. Ten points

Phil Brown’s autobiography, Bloody Hell I Am Great At What I Do, is serialised in a Sunday newspaper. Seventy points

A bead of sweat forms on Steve Kean’s brow. One point

Michael Owen attends a game at Old Trafford dressed in a waistcoat and top hat. Five points

Owen Coyle says “There’s no doubt about that” in a post-match interview. One point

Transfer offers from Premier League managers are met with a stony silence from clubs across Europe. A crisis meeting of Premier League executives lurches into its third day before an intern suggests that it may be because nobody else in Europe has used a fax machine since 1991. Seven hundred points

Owen Coyle says “There’s no question about that” in a post-match interview. One point

Somebody whose job is manifestly not to score goals is criticised for not scoring enough goals. Two points

John Gregory finally cashes in his air miles and flies to the moon in business class. Sixty points

Gaël Clichy falls over and/or plays everybody onside and/or or faces the wrong way while defending a corner. One point

On Match of the Day 2, Lee Dixon begins a sentence with “as a full-back”. Four points

Jamie Carragher makes a full-blooded, last-ditch, balls-out-of-the-bath tackle to deny a near-certain goal. The commentator notes “How many times have we seen Jamie Carragher save Liverpool with inspirational moments like that?” Three points

The commentator also notes that Jamie Carragher may not have had to make a full-blooded, last-ditch, balls-out-of-the-bath tackle had he not been hopelessly out of position in the first place. A million points

Owen Coyle refers to the English top-flight as the “Barclays Premier League” three or more times in a press conference. Two points

Joleon Lescott’s autobiography, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Become Fabulously Wealthy, is serialised on gold leaf in a Sunday newspaper. Ninety-four thousand points a week

The same Sunday newspaper reports, on regular paper, that John Gregory is in advanced talks to become manager of the moon’s national team. Between mouthfuls of succulent moon-cheese, Sepp Blatter controversially declares the earth’s satellite a full FIFA member. Fifteen points

A Thomas Hitzlsperger volley tears asunder the very fabric of space and time. A great cosmic rift yawns wide like the maw of history. Civilizations are born, empires crumble, the sweeping majesty of space is, for the briefest moment, reflected in the eye of every being on the planet. Wolfsburg win 2-1. Seven points