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OPPOSITION
FILES
MANCHESTER UNITED
TOTAL ASSISTS IN 2013-14
EUROPA LEAGUE SEASON
pitch – he’s made an average of 4.3 tackles per
game in this season’s Europa League to date.
But if our movement of the ball is as frequent as
it was last week – we completed 444 passes in the
first leg compared to Dnipro’s 199 – we should be
able to carve out the chances we need to overturn
the narrow aggregate deficit.
Dnipro’s back four will have been pleased with
their shutout first time around, and centre-half
Ondrej Mazuch will be keen to continue his track
record of effective clearances in this competition
to try to keep us at bay again here.
Mazuch has made an average of six clearances
per game so far in this European campaign while
his central defensive partner in last week’s
encounter, Yevhen Cheberyachko, is effective
at passing the ball out from the back – having
despatched 31.9 passes per game on average in
the Europa League up to this point.
STAT ATTACK
By Billy Shaw
An ability to counter in numbers makes FC
Dnipro a real threat going forward – and that’s
something we’ll have to deal with tonight in a bid to
prevent them from bagging a potentially decisive
away goal.
While the statistics show Dnipro had only
35 per cent of the possession in last week’s first leg,
they still enjoyed some good spells on the ball and
demonstrated a ruthless attitude to wrestling the
upper hand away from us – pressing the ball all over
the pitch and quickly seizing on any slip-ups to get
forward at pace.
Finding highly-rated dangerman Yevhen
Konoplyanka down the left was an effective out-ball
used to good effect by Dnipro throughout the night in
Ukraine, while a penchant for long diagonal passes is
something else we’ll have to look out for this evening.
But while they’ve already shown how effective
they can be at creating chances, actually putting them
away could prove a stiffer challenge for Dnipro here
at the Lane. Of their 17 overall attempts at goal in
the first leg, only seven of them were on target – but
with home advantage this evening, our focus will no
doubt involve reducing that overall amount of efforts
conceded and piling on the pressure at the other end.
Defensive midfielder Jaba Kankava could prove
a difficult obstacle to negotiate in the centre of the
36 TOTTENHAMHOTSPUR.com
PROBABLE FORMATION
10
17
71
14
3
29
6
44
8
18
99
Last week’s goalscorer Yevhen Konoplyanka
has mustered the joint highest number of
attempts on target so far in this season’s Europa
League. His tally of 13 is matched by his Ukrainian
national team colleague Andriy Yarmolenko, of
Dynamo Kiev.
Dnipro’s Roman Zozulya and Ismail Isa of FC
Sheriff – who we met in the group stage earlier
this campaign – have both been flagged offside 13
times in the 2013-14 Europa League. That’s more
than anyone else in this season’s competition.
Central midfielder Ruslan Rotan has made more
key passes than any of his FC Dnipro colleagues
so far in this competition this term – 2.5 per game
on average.
71
44
3
14
17
6
29
18
8
10
99
BOYKO
FEDETSKIY
MAZUCH
CHEBERYACHKO
STRINIC
KANKAVA
ROTAN
ZOZULYA
GIULIANO
KONOPLYANKA
MATHEUS
TOTAL ASSISTS
1
Bebras Natcho
Rubin Kazan
2Alan
Salzburg
3
Kevin Kampl
Salzburg
4
Fabien CamusGenk
5
Olcan Adin
Trabzonspor
6
David Pavelka
Liberec
7
Roman Zozulya
Dnipro
8
Keita Balde
Lazio
9Lucas
PAOK
10
Benjamin Balima
FC Sheriff
11
Tranquillo Barnetta
Eintracht Frankfurt
12Lino
PAOK
13Gylfi Sigurdsson
Tottenham Hotspur
14
Juan Cuadrado
Fiorentina
5
4
4
4
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
Ukrainian League table
1 Shakhtar Donetsk
2 Metalist Kharkiv
3 Dynamo Kyiv
4 Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk
5 FK Chornomorets Odesa
6 Vorskla Poltava
7 Zarja Lugansk
8 Metalurh Donetsk
9 Volyn Lutsk
10 SK Karpaty L’viv
11 Sevastopol
12 Illichivets Mariupol
13 Hoverla Uzhhorod
14 Metalurh Zaporizhzhya
15Tavria Simferopol
16Arsenal Kyiv
Pl W L DGDPts
17 12 2 3 24 38
169 6 1 1633
17 10 3 4 15 33
16 9 5 2 12 32
17 9 5 3 7 32
17 6 7 4 -1 25
176654 24
17 6 5 6 -4 23
17557-920
16 4 7 5 -4 19
17 5 4 8-1119
17 5 2 10 -6 17
17 4 2 11 -12 14
17 1 5 11 -13 8
172213
-18
8
0 0000 0
Dnipro goalkeeper Denys Boyko is certainly
direct in his distribution if his previous
appearances in this season’s Europa League are
anything to go by. He’s played an average of 4.4
accurate long balls per game to date – more than
any of his outfield colleagues.
If we’re testing Dnipro’s aerial resolve this
evening we’ll have to beware of Ondrej Mazuch –
he’s won, on average, 2.4 aerial duels per match in
this season’s Europa League, more than any of his
defensive team-mates.
TOTTENHAMHOTSPUR.com 37