When you consider that of those 1688 passes, 979 have taken place in the defensive half of the field and on just two occasions in all the time Leon has had the ball at his feet, often under extreme pressure, only twice has he felt the need to “put his foot through it”, then you can see that not only are we talking about a footballer of extraordinary passing ability, we are also talking about one of intelligence, craft and above all, a player with a steely commitment to carry out the on field vision of his manager’s off field instructions, where possession of the football is paramount to everything that his team does.
In hindsight, I guess it’s no surprise that Fulham were put to the sword so comprehensively, and maybe they saw it coming themselves. Back in December at the Liberty, Fulham were beaten by a rampant Swansea 2 – 0. In that game, Swansea completed 490 of their passes out of 544 attempts, a success rate of 90%. In reply, Fulham mustered an 81% success rate of 331 passes being completed – almost 160 less than Swansea. With figures like that, yesterday’s domination by Swansea should really have come as no surprise to them, but even they must be shaking their heads in wonder at Swansea’s 700 attempted passes, of which an amazing 613 (88%) were completed. In reply, Fulham’s percentage return was actually worse that they managed at the Liberty, with their 344 completed passes reflecting an 80% success rate.
All this means is that in two meetings this season, Martin Jol and his players have basically been chasing shadows – 1,103 of them to be precise – whilst Swansea City and Leon Britton in particular, have been dancing triangles around them.
I’m guessing that everyone associated with Fulham are just delighted that they only have to face Swansea twice a year, because the team I saw wearily walking off the Craven Cottage pitch yesterday was one that had been run ragged for a second time and were looking completely shell-shocked by the experience.
Next up for Swansea is Everton at the Liberty Stadium, and as such, I’m guessing that David Moyes had someone in the crowd watching at Craven Cottage. I’m also guessing that whoever that was, when he’s asked by Moyes to sum up Swansea’s success against Fulham, his scout will offer just two words – Leon Britton.
And I wouldn’t be surprised if he’ll also tell Moyes something like, “if I hadn’t seen with my own eyes how good Britton was, I simply wouldn’t have believed it.”
All of the stats from this article have been taken from the Opta Stats Centre at EPLIndex.com – Subscribe Now (Includes author privileges!) See Demo’s and videos about the Stats Centre & read about new additions to the stats centre.
