The Elmander effect

Over the past month or so, I’ve got used to seeing Bolton play some decent football. Enjoyable football, so much so that it didn’t feel like a chore going to the Reebok. The watershed moment was the abysmal match against Stoke, where we were outplayed by Stoke. It’s worth re-reading the last bit of that sentence. Since then, at home against Spurs and Everton, the team look energetic, creative, and the players look like they’re enjoying playing for the club. The main difference for me has been the lack of Johan Elmander, who returned to the team yesterday against Chelsea.

Instead of playing with freedom of expression, Megson opted for a defensive line-up lacking in width to try and nullify Chelsea’s midfield. The problem with that is that you rely on your striker(s) to hold the ball up and when there are chances, to get the ball on target. Elmander did neither throughout the match, I’ve lost patience with the Swede, and I can’t defend him anymore. He’s worse than Bobby Zamora. Fact. To demonstrate this point, I’ll compare his 90 minutes to Ivan “2 kidneys” Klasnic’s cameo last week against Everton, thanks to Guardian Chalkboards.

Klasnic had three shots. All were on target and from different distances and places on the pitch. What more could you ask from your striker? Now, Elmander vs Chelsea from yesterday:

Elmander had three shots in 90 minutes. In better positions than Klasnic, and he still couldn’t manage to get them on target. I wouldn’t mind, but the two shots were within minutes of each other. This just isn’t good enough for a Premier League striker.

We didn’t lose 4-0 because of Elmander, we lost because the team was ultra defensive, which worked for 45 minutes until Samuel was sent off. We came out of our shell a little more in the second half, and Gardner running with the ball definitely made a difference. But we still insisted on playing long balls and crosses from just inside the half-way line, which were useless, as Elmander is truly abysmal in the air. Look at the number of successful crosses vs Everton (without Elmander):

 

And vs Chelsea (with Elmander):

True, this will be due to the fact Chelsea have a better defence than Everton. But Heitinga isn’t a pushover, and neither is Yobo. But look at the number of unsuccessful crosses vs Chelsea:

Elmander is so useless in the air, it defies logic as to why we tried to cross into the box almost one every five minutes. Look at the number of unsuccessful crosses vs Everton:

Against Everton, in total, we made 18 crosses, winning 39% of them. Against Chelsea in total, we made a total of 23 crosses, winning just 9% of them. Why, when Elmander is in the team, do we make more crosses into the box when we know how useless he is? I have no idea why we are more predisposed to hit crap crosses in the box when he plays, but we do. It doesn’t work, and he needs to go.