As we arrive at the halfway point of the term, it’s time for the annual MatchPint snarkfest that is our Worst Team Of The Season Thus Far -2014/15.

Unlike most MatchPint ‘articles’ there’s some vague method to this one - it’s decided on the ratings doled by the footy stat magicians at Who Scored. We pick an XI made up of players who’ve featured regularly this year (min 10 PL appearances), those with the worst accumulative season rating make the cut.

Playing a dire 4-4-2 this time round, here’s a veritable crap of the crop.

GK – Julian Speroni

Average Rating – 6.32

Oh dear, it’s not been a season to remember for Crystal Palace’s Lego haired cult hero, Speroni. The Argentine was crowned the club’s Player of the Year for the fourth time in May as Sergeant Pulis pulled off the impossible and kept Palace up at a canter. This term with recently departed primary school dinner lady, Neil Warnock, in charge things have gone horribly.The hoofball has stayed at Selhurst Park but without any of the defensive solidity. This means Speroni has shipped the second most goals of any keeper in the league - only Rob Green has picked the ball out of his net more often. It’s almost is if appointing a manager with a proven track record of failure in the Premier League was a bad idea…

Nadir Thus Far – Consistently the league’s worst passer of a football, Speroni had a hideous day away at Hull as he ended with an accuracy of just 4% finding a teammate with just one of his 23 attempts. That’s spectacularly shite and sensationally boneheaded when I inform you that 22 of those attempted passes were long balls aimed at a front three of Yannick Bolasie, Frazier Campbell and Jason Puncheon – the latter two who are both 5ft 8. Oh, Hull won the game in question 2-0 despite registering just 2 shots on target. Ghastly stuff.



RB – Christian Gamboa

Average Rating – 6.38

Has played an almighty 7 minutes of games which the Baggies have won this term and manages a whopping 0.1 blocked crosses per game in the PL. Exactly the type of numbers I want from my full back. The Costa Rican was part of an impressive back five who managed to shut out England, Holland and Italy en route to the WC quarter finals and to be honest, his stats generally haven’t been appalling this term, especially when you consider it’s his debut season in England. I don’t make the rules though (I do) and pure, hard stats and facts power this list baby. He has, however, largely been forced to ride the pine as Andre Wisdom hogs the No.2 shirt at the Hawthorns. To consistently play second fiddle such a bang average player is slightly less forgivable.

Nadir Thus Far – Has been brought on for less than one minute in three of his 13 West Brom appearances thus far. That’s quite tough for the lad. Also, is no relation to fellow professional footballers Kenneth or Rodolfo Gamboa, both of whom have simply ripping names.

CB – Mike Williamson

Average Rating 6.55

I’ve had my suspicions about Williamson for a while now, mainly due to his facial likeness to Alan Pardew. Would him being an illegitimate lovechild explain his extended spell of mediocrity at the heart of the Toon backline? Newcastle have the worst defensive record in the top half of the table by a country mile, something not helped by the fact that Williamson averages a measly 0.8 tackles per game – a stat that ranks him 77th out of 84 players to have done a stint at centre half in the Premier League this season. Newcastle’s fans attempts to rebrand him as #IRONMIKE, might be one of the funniest things ever fathomed. One, the most fearsome and unhinged heavyweight of all time, the other a lanky streak of piss who’s fortunate that his only competition for a place is Steven Taylor. Good gravy.



Here he is posing for a photo in-between catching up on the One Tree Hill omnibus on T4 and nipping out to get the new Miss Teeq album from Woolies.







Nadir Thus Far – Whilst he had an absolute shocker in the 4-0 loss to Southampton, at error for two goals, the ultimate indignation came at Burnley where he was hooked at half time by Alan Pardew having been given the run around by Ashley Barnes. Sobering stuff.





CB – Damien Delaney

Average Rating – 6.60

An ever present at the centre of Palace’s dogmash defence, Damo is the proud owner of the third worst outfield pass accuracy in the entire division with a rotten to the core 58.8%. Whilst plenty of that can be attributed to the ‘Warnock Factor’ he was only marginally better with the ball (62.5%) last term. When walking brainfart Simon Mingolet is 10.5% more likely to successfully find a teammate when making a pass you know you're doing something drastically wrong. Owner of a weird Glen Quagmire jaw, this Championship journeyman loves a clearance but has thus far managed to catch a single opposition forward offside. Nice. You could point out that Palace don't play with a high line making it unlikely and I’d point out that I’m being a dick for cheap and dubious comic effect.







Giggedy-giggedy.

Nadir Thus Far – No huge standout brainfarts here, just a whole heap of 5 out of 10 performances. A particularly boneheaded first half red card against Chelsea, to wipe clean Palace’s recently acquired man advantage, was pretty crap though.

LB – Paul Konchesky

Average Rating – 6.47

To the untrained eye Paul Konchesky looks far more likely to be discovered in the Crimea somewhere committing atrocities in the name of Putin than playing Premier League football. He’s truly up there with Patrice Evra and Margaret Thatcher in terms of his popularity on the Kop and very much found his level during his last four years in the Championship. Had the misfortune to get promoted this summer with Leicester and has failed to provide the steady hand on the tiller that was required of him in a squad woefully low on top flight experience – something highlighted by two dismissals in his last five games for the Foxes.







Smiling because he knows where the thumb screws are kept.

Nadir Thus Far – Hauled off after an hour at old club West Ham having teed Andy Carroll up for a goal with a backpass so undercooked it could have given you salmonella. Also found an opposition player with his passes more times than he did a teammate.

RW - Matt Phillips

Average Rating – 6.03

There’s an article on the Guardian somewhere which sees Steve Claridge compare a 17-year-old Matt Phillips to Luka Modric. It’s safe to say the world’s most baffling pundit wasn’t quite on the money with that prognosis. Phillips it turns out is the very worst type of creative wide man – in ten Premier League games for QPR (half of them starts) he’s conjured up one chance for teammates, managed just two accurate crosses and fails with a hearty 72% of his attempted dribbles. Also out of 290 PL players to have featured in 10 games this term, he sits 284th in the average passes completed table. He’s about as useful as a multipack of arse flavoured yoghurts.

Fortunately the former England youth international was ‘poached’ by Scotland manager, Craig Levein, in 2012. A blessed relief for all concerned.

Nadir Thus Far – Touched the ball 21 times in 74 minutes against Spurs (in the same game Étienne Capoue managed 131), conspiring to lose possession with 9 of those touches as the R’s lost 4-0.

CM – Darren Fletcher

Average Rating – 6.19

The old Scotch egg has done a whole lot of nothing this term I’m afraid as his career looks to be dwindling into nowt. It’s a far cry from the marauding presence that had United fans wailing when he was suspended for the 2009 CL final. From his midfield hole the human greyhound has offered a tackle every other appearance, has won one header all season, managed just 4 clearances and is yet to make a block. For a back four shield, he’s not, erm, very shieldy. Apparently over his nasty stomach affliction yet somehow looking more malnourished these days than ever.

Nadir Thus Far – Started in back to back draws against Sunderland and Burnley at the start of the season.



CM – Scott Arfield

Average Rating – 6.39

One of those footballers who’s 26, plays in the Premier League and yet has still never received a senior Scotland call up (meybs because Matt Phillips is busy snaffling all the caps) so you know he must be proper bobbins. Despite making all bar four of his 18 PL appearances on the wing, he’s as yet managed just two crosses all season. Here’s a picture of his key traits as surmised by the stat bods at WhoScored:





As a Premier League midfielder he’s very much like Mido on the first day (or any for that matter) of the season – entirely unfit for purpose.

Nadir Thus Far – Since a corking goal on PL debut, Arfield’s served up nothing but shit butty after shit butty at Turf Moor. Really stunk the place out as Burnley lost 2-0 to the 10 men of QP – 67% pass completion combined with zero tackles, blocks or interceptions before getting hooked for former Sunderland legend Ross Wallace smells pretty bad to me.



LW – Kieran Richardson

Average Rating – 6.24

One of the worst footballers to take home a PL medal has turned out not to be a Bobby Bargain for Villa after Paul Lambert was handed 5 quid and a couple of jelly babies to do his summer shopping with. The fact that he’d just been relegated with Fulham should have been the hint you needed Paul. Another wide man absolutely scared stiff of putting in a cross (currently on course to end the season with two accurate centres) he’s not very tidy in possession and doesn’t seem to do that much going backwards.

Tried to go all Kaka a while back but couldn’t quite hack the bookings whenever he took his shirt off to reveal a religious message (where was your God then EH KEIRAN???), ended up whipping out these naff customised shinnies instead. Not to be confused by the Kieran Richardson off Hollyoaks. He’d probably really hate that.





Nadir Thus Far – A straight red, 22 minutes into the West Midlands derby, as his side lost 1-0 to a wretched Baggies outfit, will take some beating for the season.

CF – Marvin Sordell

Average Rating – 6.04

Remember when tiki taka legend Owen Coyle, in a bid to keep his Bolton side in the Premier League, spunked over £7 million on David N’Gog and Marvin Sordell - a player he compared to Daniel Sturridge? HAHAHAHAHAHA - how we all laughed.



Sean Dyche hasn’t made quite the same blunder (he paid 74p for the ‘striker’) but thus far the outcome has been pretty similar. As it stands Sordell averages a shot on target once every 10 PL games, has a 0% dribble success rate and averages 5.4 passes per appearance. Those are stats genuinely worse than the idea of having to read EVERY SINGLE WORD of a Sunday broadsheet, including the ‘Money’, ‘Property’ AND ‘Family’ supplements. Just imagine that for a second – horrifying.

Nadir Thus Far – Parking his arse on the bench almost every game while Lukas Jutkiewicz thrashes around indiscriminately up front is pretty low. Once also got prescribed counselling for his Twitter addiction by former manager Dougie Freedman, a chap who clearly has no idea with the Internet is.

CF – Jozy Altidore

Average Rating – 6.15

Oh Jozy - the eternal reminder that for every Bony or Van Nistelrooy, the Eredivisie can merk you in the cruellest way possible. Despite wanging in 51 goals in two seasons with AZ Alkmaar, Altidore’s second spell in the Premier League has somehow managed to be more disastrous than his first, where he scored once in 28 PL games for the Tigers.

Currently repping a naughty 1 in 40 PL strike rate at Sunderland he is the proud owner of a particularly bovine first touch and completely shattered confidence. Will forever remain in my heart, however, for his touchingly sincere comments at the end of this video having sat through a quite staging ‘motivational speech’ by professional headcase Donnie Moore. Incidentally, the day after this rousing address, the USA went on to lose to Jamaica for the first time in their history. MURCA!

Nadir Thus Far – Presented a sitter 6 yards out against West Ham recently, the Yank forward contrived to kick the ball into his own ample buttocks and away from goal.



Bench Of Shame: Emmanuel Riviere, Dwight Gayle, Tim Howard, Liam Rosenior, Jon Obi Mikel, Adnan Januzaj



Pete Starr - Do him a twitter mate.

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