Ah preseason; it was the best of times, it was the blurst of times. A time when every player has infinite ceilings and supporter optimism borders on neurological dysfunction. Where the background music at training or choice of subway sub becomes a point of intense debate for weeks on end. Let’s face it – preseason is a long, drawn out repetitious episode of borefest for us. But never fear, I have come to the rescue to save the preseason from the mind-numbing, zombie inducing coma that that friends at club PR provide.
Our first instalment concerns the scourge of upright structures and is an enigma to all that have crossed his path. It is said that he conducts humanitarian reconstructive efforts during the night purely so he can train the buildings down again during the day. Like an improbable anthropoid, he is known by many names: Masten, Marsden, Hipster Seagull, CM7, Martin, Morton… ok maybe not Morton, that’s probably taking this too far...
I asked the experienced opinion of my five year old son his thoughts on CM7.
“Chicken McNuggets”
I sat back and realised the depth and magnificence of the answer. It truly was one of those moments as a parent when you smile and give a silent appreciative nod, knowing that everything is going to be just fine.
In celebration of my son’s revelation, here is a picture of an oversized chicken nugget in a CM7 shirt, clearly causing mass destruction training the place down.
So why dedicate an entire article to Chicken McNuggets?
For like trying to track the course of a Malaysian Airlines flight, the Eagles will never reach their planned destination if Chicken McNuggets is not functioning to his full potential.
Every club has a whipping boy, the object of rage and frustrated derision from the supporters. Throughout the recent years, we have had many – Fletcher, Gehrig, McKinley, Read, RoJo, Staker, Swift and Wooden among others. Chicken McNuggets is our current dark star.
Being akin to an actual nugget not resembling food, CM7 does not resemble a classical footballer with his hipster styling and convergent skin art. This tends to particularly draw the ire of the meat-n-3-veg section of the crowd. Additionally, the reconstituted by-product that comprises a nugget will never compare against an actual piece of chicken. Likewise, Chicken McNuggets will forever live in the long shadow of comparison with Chris Judd despite not even being cleaved from the same animal. Finally, unless you are Usain Bolt, a trainspotter, or five years old nobody wants nuggets as their first choice from the menu. They want steak or burgers or subway subs or whatever other gluttonous monstrosity to calcify their arteries and end their lives faster. Similarly, Chicken McNuggets is that day when all the usual good stuff is on back order and the one quality item is sold out despite you being just the third customer. Regardless of how good those nuggets are, you will always compare them to what you were expecting to receive instead.
So putting the hate and misunderstanding aside, what does Chicken McNuggets present as a footballer?
If he were one of my juniors, vying for a place in the team, my short notes would be along the lines:
With the above in mind, my question (and the crux of this article) is why is he not stationed as an absolutely outside midfielder and given as much space as possible to work with?
The statistical reality suggests this argument also.
In 2016 we averaged the second-least most disposals per game in the competition, only ahead of the Lions of Leppitsch (who remain the worst full team at AFL level that I have ever seen). It is a truly damning set of figures. Conversely, the two teams with the most average disposals last season played in the Grand Final.
Here is a chart that emphasises this. It is purely only the effectiveness of our forwardline that has kept us competitive.
“Yes, I already know that” I hear you say. “The reason our midfield is poor is because Chicken McNuggets is in the team” you exclaim.
Let’s have a further look into that.
Here is a chart of the performance of the leading 12 midfielders currently in our squad (including Mitchell) over the last two seasons. If you obviously exclude Mitchell, Chicken McNuggets has been by far our most productive and consistent midfielder after the standout trio of Priddis, Shuey and Gaff. Any opinions suggesting he does not merit a place in the team would need to justify why any of those seven other midfield options who have been inferior in output throughout the last two seasons should be selected ahead of him.
It goes further however. Uncontested possessions, the realm of the seagull – are important and in order to be successful teams need them. For example here is a list of the numbers of players within the top 100 and top 20 of uncontested possessions for each club last season:
As you can see, our club is on the wrong side of the correlation for success there.
Let’s now have a look at the breakdown of average uncontested possessions per match for the club in season 2016:
As you can see above there is Gaff and then daylight before Chicken McNuggets and the rest of the squad. Indeed, Gaff is possibly the most underrated player in the league as he is currently without parallel when it comes to owning the wing. Simply put, without him last year we would have struggled to finish in the top 12, lest the top 8.
But I digress, let’s look at the other leaders we have in that list:
“Hey what about Sam Mitchell?” I hear you ask. Well he is goddamn awesome. Elite or near-elite in almost every relevant category for a midfielder consistently for several seasons. Regarding average uncontested possessions, he was ranked 2nd and 7th in the competition during 2015 and 2016 respectively. It is in this aspect of his game that I believe will most positively change the dynamic of the way the Eagle’s midfield functions. But he is certainly not a wing – he is far too valuable for that.
So with all the above in mind, it leaves Chicken McNuggets as the best option to occupy the wing that Gaff is not charging rent upon.
But there is more to this than simply that, I’ll let the statistics speak for themselves - over seasons 2015 and 2016 the following occurs:
Staggering. When Chicken McNuggets is given the time and space to kick rather than handball, he becomes elite and the team wins 20% more of the time.
It should be abundantly clear, like when the family dog gets old and incontinent – that he needs to play outside. Even if we are getting pumped for the contested ball he has to remain away from the packs. The data clearly shows that as soon as he is in a confined pressure situation that he either clangers a spud handball or gets pinged for holding it. I could even go as far to say that he is possibly the most outside player on the current list.
But every team needs a seagull, even the good ones – and elite seagulls can be the difference in winning premierships.
So don’t be so hard on our current dark star, because if we are going be successful we will need him to play his part well.
And so the destruction of buildings shall continue...
Our first instalment concerns the scourge of upright structures and is an enigma to all that have crossed his path. It is said that he conducts humanitarian reconstructive efforts during the night purely so he can train the buildings down again during the day. Like an improbable anthropoid, he is known by many names: Masten, Marsden, Hipster Seagull, CM7, Martin, Morton… ok maybe not Morton, that’s probably taking this too far...
I asked the experienced opinion of my five year old son his thoughts on CM7.
“Chicken McNuggets”
I sat back and realised the depth and magnificence of the answer. It truly was one of those moments as a parent when you smile and give a silent appreciative nod, knowing that everything is going to be just fine.
In celebration of my son’s revelation, here is a picture of an oversized chicken nugget in a CM7 shirt, clearly causing mass destruction training the place down.
So why dedicate an entire article to Chicken McNuggets?
For like trying to track the course of a Malaysian Airlines flight, the Eagles will never reach their planned destination if Chicken McNuggets is not functioning to his full potential.
Every club has a whipping boy, the object of rage and frustrated derision from the supporters. Throughout the recent years, we have had many – Fletcher, Gehrig, McKinley, Read, RoJo, Staker, Swift and Wooden among others. Chicken McNuggets is our current dark star.
Being akin to an actual nugget not resembling food, CM7 does not resemble a classical footballer with his hipster styling and convergent skin art. This tends to particularly draw the ire of the meat-n-3-veg section of the crowd. Additionally, the reconstituted by-product that comprises a nugget will never compare against an actual piece of chicken. Likewise, Chicken McNuggets will forever live in the long shadow of comparison with Chris Judd despite not even being cleaved from the same animal. Finally, unless you are Usain Bolt, a trainspotter, or five years old nobody wants nuggets as their first choice from the menu. They want steak or burgers or subway subs or whatever other gluttonous monstrosity to calcify their arteries and end their lives faster. Similarly, Chicken McNuggets is that day when all the usual good stuff is on back order and the one quality item is sold out despite you being just the third customer. Regardless of how good those nuggets are, you will always compare them to what you were expecting to receive instead.
So putting the hate and misunderstanding aside, what does Chicken McNuggets present as a footballer?
If he were one of my juniors, vying for a place in the team, my short notes would be along the lines:
- Covers ground, runs hard repeatedly.
- Good feet, bad hands.
- Makes good decisions in space.
- Makes mistakes under pressure.
- Looks to kick rather than handball, can be caught in possession due to this.
- Natural winger.
With the above in mind, my question (and the crux of this article) is why is he not stationed as an absolutely outside midfielder and given as much space as possible to work with?
The statistical reality suggests this argument also.
In 2016 we averaged the second-least most disposals per game in the competition, only ahead of the Lions of Leppitsch (who remain the worst full team at AFL level that I have ever seen). It is a truly damning set of figures. Conversely, the two teams with the most average disposals last season played in the Grand Final.
Here is a chart that emphasises this. It is purely only the effectiveness of our forwardline that has kept us competitive.
“Yes, I already know that” I hear you say. “The reason our midfield is poor is because Chicken McNuggets is in the team” you exclaim.
Let’s have a further look into that.
Here is a chart of the performance of the leading 12 midfielders currently in our squad (including Mitchell) over the last two seasons. If you obviously exclude Mitchell, Chicken McNuggets has been by far our most productive and consistent midfielder after the standout trio of Priddis, Shuey and Gaff. Any opinions suggesting he does not merit a place in the team would need to justify why any of those seven other midfield options who have been inferior in output throughout the last two seasons should be selected ahead of him.
It goes further however. Uncontested possessions, the realm of the seagull – are important and in order to be successful teams need them. For example here is a list of the numbers of players within the top 100 and top 20 of uncontested possessions for each club last season:
As you can see, our club is on the wrong side of the correlation for success there.
Let’s now have a look at the breakdown of average uncontested possessions per match for the club in season 2016:
As you can see above there is Gaff and then daylight before Chicken McNuggets and the rest of the squad. Indeed, Gaff is possibly the most underrated player in the league as he is currently without parallel when it comes to owning the wing. Simply put, without him last year we would have struggled to finish in the top 12, lest the top 8.
But I digress, let’s look at the other leaders we have in that list:
- Shuey – a complete midfielder who would be wasted out on the wing.
- Hurn – a mobile defender with elite kicking that will never have the running capacity to play higher up the ground on a permanent basis.
- Priddis – an inside contested bull. It is an indictment on other members of the squad that he is able to work harder and play the link up role more than them. Was inside top 50 for 2015, but outside top 100 in 2016.
- Sheppard – much like Hurn, does not have the capacity to be a permanent part of the midfield.
- Sheed – has potential to fulfil the role, but is better suited as an inside midfielder seeing that almost 40% of all his possessions over the last two seasons have been contested.
- Butler – has a pensioner role in the backline, will never be a permanent midfielder. Dropped outside the top 100 in 2016.
- Wellingham – has the skillset but not the mindset to be a midfielder and tends to get lost ball-watching when in the middle. Will not be a permanent part of the midfield.
- Lecras – is a forward not a midfielder.
- Jetta – everyone thinks of him as a winger because of a few games for the Swans in 2012. He is not a wing, or if he is, he is a poor one. His highest ranking for uncontested possessions in any season is 72nd in 2015. In 2016 he averaged almost five less uncontested possessions per game than Rosa’s output in 2015. He is a forward pocket not a midfielder.
- Yeo – has all the talent to play just about anywhere on the ground. Decision making during link-up play can often be questionable. Currently doesn’t get the ball enough to justify a start on the wing.
- Hutchings – if Priddis starred in the movie Twins, he would the Danny DeVito version. Useful as a tagging option but is not a wing.
- Nelson – has potential, but is yet to demonstrate that he can get enough ball to become a midfielder.
- Redden – the great disappointment of 2016. An inside bull at the Lions, he showed nothing of his capabilities in the season just gone. His 2015 uncontested average (61st) was higher than anyone on the Eagle’s list aside from Gaff and Chicken McNuggets. If he recaptures his Lions form he will surely be utilised to his strength as an inside midfielder.
- Duggan – is seen to be another inside midfielder in the making, but statistically is much better when used on the outside. Indeed if he were 100% fit I would list him as the third best option in the current squad when it comes to the wing.
- The rest of the list is irrelevant as options for the wing.
“Hey what about Sam Mitchell?” I hear you ask. Well he is goddamn awesome. Elite or near-elite in almost every relevant category for a midfielder consistently for several seasons. Regarding average uncontested possessions, he was ranked 2nd and 7th in the competition during 2015 and 2016 respectively. It is in this aspect of his game that I believe will most positively change the dynamic of the way the Eagle’s midfield functions. But he is certainly not a wing – he is far too valuable for that.
So with all the above in mind, it leaves Chicken McNuggets as the best option to occupy the wing that Gaff is not charging rent upon.
But there is more to this than simply that, I’ll let the statistics speak for themselves - over seasons 2015 and 2016 the following occurs:
Staggering. When Chicken McNuggets is given the time and space to kick rather than handball, he becomes elite and the team wins 20% more of the time.
It should be abundantly clear, like when the family dog gets old and incontinent – that he needs to play outside. Even if we are getting pumped for the contested ball he has to remain away from the packs. The data clearly shows that as soon as he is in a confined pressure situation that he either clangers a spud handball or gets pinged for holding it. I could even go as far to say that he is possibly the most outside player on the current list.
But every team needs a seagull, even the good ones – and elite seagulls can be the difference in winning premierships.
So don’t be so hard on our current dark star, because if we are going be successful we will need him to play his part well.
And so the destruction of buildings shall continue...