THE ALEX RUFER-SIZED HOLE IN THE MIDFIELD
With the captain suspended following his slippery stomp last week, the Nix lacked nothing for leadership thanks to: a powerful performance from Scott Wootton with the armband, the return off the bench of Tim Payne, Kosta Barbarouses’ cleverness up top, and enthusiastic efforts from imports Bozhidar Kraev and Youstin Salas. No dramas there. But the actual literal midfield activities of Rufer were not to be overcome by a collective shift from everyone else.
Rufer has presence in that defensive midfield role. He shields the backline. He moves the ball around smoothly. He’s top five in the league for tackles per ninety minutes and this is from a bloke who plays almost every minute he’s available for. Even when he doesn’t win those tackles (his success rate is 63.3% per Fotmob), he’s still affecting the play with a disruptive act. This may have been a rare error on the part of Giancarlo Italiano but Nico Pennington took over that role against CCM and... was a bit of a turnstile. He was dribbled past six times and only won 4/14 ground duels. Good in possession but without nearly enough touches. Probably would’ve been better having Salas or Mo Al-Taay there instead (then again, Salas was on a mission to fold folks in half with his tackling so it could’ve been two CDM reds in a row with him there).
Not that it’s an issue they necessarily need a solution for. Alex Rufer is a key player for this side and he wasn’t there, which was always going to make the team worse. It did make them worse. But he’ll be back for the run-in and the difference will be felt if/when these two teams meet again, when Alex Rufer’s presence will be the biggest reason to think the Phoenix can flip the result around.
ACADEMY GOAL CONTRIBUTIONS
Flash back to that goal again, with Van Hattum assisting Old, and you’ll see an all-academy combination. Admittedly the move that led to the goal involved most of the team... but the specific assist to goal was born of WeeNix pathways. That seems to be the first time that’s happened this season, at least according to the official stats... though overall we’re now up to 6 goals and 10 assists from academy players which is the equal-most since Sarpreet Singh departed. The strength of this current crop is more in the defensive areas (think Alex Paulsen, Finn Surman, Lukas Kelly-Heald, Isaac Hughes) but the forwards are doing their bit too.
Ben Old has five goals and three assists. His breakthrough has also already gotten a write-up, suffice to say that he’s caught the efficiency bug along with his mates. He’s gotten so much more deliberate in how he hunts for goals, when he shoots and when he passes. The numbers speak for themselves...
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Ben Old in 2021-22: 1 goal from 1.23 xG (18 shots, 4 on target)
Ben Old in 2022-23: 1 goal from 0.97 xG (17 shots, 1 on target)
Ben Old in 2023-24: 5 goals from 3.12 xG (35 shots, 11 on target)
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Great stuff from Oldy... but definitely don’t sleep on the increasing influence of Oskar van Hattum either, he’s up to four goal contributions now.