Partick Thistle v Ross County- Michael Fraser's Distribution

Evening. (insert excuse for lack of activity on this blog here)

Yesterday, I decided to study County keeper Michael Fraser's distribution, and also to have a look specifically at County's shooting. I'll return to the shooting later, but firstly Fraser's distribution.The basic results are that, of the 24 times Fraser played the ball, he managed to find a team-mate just 5 times (I intend to have the graphic showing this online tomorrow). This gives Fraser a pass completion figure of just 20.83%. It's probably slightly unfair to level that exclusively as a criticism of Fraser, and it should also be noted that he kept a clean sheet and dealt competently with then somewhat stifled Partick Thistle threat, most notably a flying save late on to deny David Rowson what would have been a rather ill-deserved equaliser for Thistle.

It should be noted that Fraser's cause wasn't helped by the fact that many of his goal kicks and passes were directed at Michael Gardyne who, for all his technical ability, is always going to struggle to compete aerially. Compare and contrast this with the game away to Dundee 3 weeks ago, where the more physically imposing Sam Morrow was in the team instead, and able to retain the ball far more often.

The nature of Fraser's distribution is also worthy of comment. Apart from 6 occasions where he had to leave his goal, either in anticipation of forthcoming danger or to take a free-kick, all his kicks were straight down the middle, aiming for 1 of the 2 frontmen. It seems County this season are not for building from the back, or at least not involving Fraser- there were, interestingly, a couple of excellent transitions from defence to offence ending in shots on goal which completely bypassed Fraser. While it sounds churlish to be finding fault with a team unbeaten in 10 league games and top of the league, should County be denied the services of both Morrow and Colin McMenamin, they are going to have real issues with ball retention in the attacking 3rd of the park. But we'll worry about that another day