In the second part of my review articles I will look in details how things are going with corners in Russian Premier League. Of course, the championship is not too exciting as in England although there are enough candidates for title of winner such as Zenit, CSKA, Spartak and Krasnodar. Also Lokomotiv and Rostov pretend as minimum for Eurocups. Let’s look how things are going in these and other teams with corners. Let’s start, as always, from leaders on corners:
As is seen, Zenit and CSKA (what is expectable) are leading and also Lokomotiv (what is less expectable) and Orenburg. For beginner of RPL to be in such list is quite surprising. Maybe this is for long-term but I am prone to think that Orenburg will move down to the middle of the table on this indicator that’s why you can try to bet against the team on corners.
The table of outsiders looks a little more impressive:
Among teams Anzhi stands out, of course. Only one win on corners for 9 weeks is dramatically low indicator. After Anzhi there are 6 clubs which have only 3 wins. Most likely this group exfoliates during the season –some team will be close to Anzhi and some of them will be close to the middle of the table. Anzhi was one of the worst teams on quantity of wins on corners in last year that’s why should count to attention to make bets against it.
Who takes the biggest quantity of corners in the tournament? You must certainly guess 4 of 5 clubs:
Lokomotiv, Zenit, Spartak and CSKA – all of these teams are expected to take on average over 5 corners per match. Is it surprise that Tomsk is among leading teams on this indicator? Definitely it can’t be said because Tomsk spent last season at Football National League. Their indicator was over 5 corners per match although a level of FNL is completely different. Anyway it will be extremely interesting to watch them because they keep the 2nd place on quantity of taken corners per match.
Also it is not difficult to define outsiders:
Why is it not difficult you may ask? Because Kuban, Anzhi, Ural and Rostov teams placed on last places on this indicator in last season of Russian Football Premier League. The surprise may be the appearance of Amkar Perm in this group even on the last place, because the Permians were real middle peasants and took almost 5 corners per game. They have a reserve growth and taking into account last season it is a good idea to bet on their individual total corners over.
It’s not enough to create corner kicks close to opponent’s gates, it’s also necessary not to let corners close to yours.
Zenit and CSKA rightfully occupy leading places in the table. Last year there was the same. However, average indicator of the Petersburgers is only 2.33 "missing" corners during a game what is extremely little and, most likely, the indicator will grow to 3.5 to the end of the season. You can try bet on total corners over of their opponents especially if rivals can actually compete with Zenit. The existence Ural and Rubin in this group is surprise. They were ones of outsiders in last season. There is a big question if they manage to hold positions.
And who is among outsiders? And there is one more surprise:
It is hard to believe but there is Spartak. The leader of the league is among outsiders on this indicator. However, is it such a big suddenness? The fact that rivals of Muscovites took on average 5.13 corners per game in the past season. Now this is 5.11. That’s why the team is steady.
Let’s go from individual totals to match totals. Which teams like to take corners and allow to doing this to opponents?
There is again Spartak. To be honest it is one of the funniest teams of Premier League. Spartak takes over 5 corners per match and let it doing to the rivals. If to look at Tomsk, when it comes to corners, this team mostly hopes on opponents, taking on average approximately less 1 corner than opponents. Truly, this is quite little when only 2 clubs have average total over 10 corners in a match. There were 4 such teams last season. And, of course, Spartak was one of them with 10.4 corner indicator. The Muscovites save positions from season to season.
So, in which team matches are taken least of all?
We can notice that currently four teams have average total corners under 8 in a match. This is quite a bit, because at the end of last season, the least of corners were taken to Locomotive matches and average number of corners was 8.47. Most likely, all of these teams during the tournament teams will be aligned with last year indicators and totals in the games with their participation will increase. This is especially true to Rubin, because last season the Kazans shared the first place with Ufa on quantity of corners in matches with their participation. It may be promising to bet on total corners over in matches in which plays Rubin.
I hope that my corner review of Russian Premier League was interesting to you. For analysis were used data of the site
http://corner-stats.com
