Not afraid of battles
Petah Tikva may have given up 33 goals this season which ranks them 7th, but the stats tell us that we’re talking about a team that isn’t afraid if battling for the ball. In fact, Petah Tikva is the club with the most battles with roughly 169 per match and win 88 of them for a 52% success rate. Romario Pires and Manor Solomon lead the way as the former who is a defensive midfielder leads the league in defensive battles for the ball with 318 of them, winning 176 for a 55% success rate. Pires also ranks second in the league in tackles with 157, winning 83. On the other side of the pitch, Solomon is 7th in the league in offensive battles going 178/372 and has been involved with the most tackles 228/455. The youngster is also lethal when dribbling, successful in 151 of 256 while Gadi Kinda is in second place with 178 dribbles in total.
Set piece success
Petah Tikva ranks 7th in goals scored this season with 30 and they also sit in 7th place on the league table. To date a third of the goals scored, 10 have come from set piece situations which puts them in 2nd place together with Kiryat Shemona and Maccabi Netanya. Three goals have come off of corners, 2 from direct free kicks, 2 from non-direct free kicks and three via penalty.
Mimer’s club may be experts when it comes to set pieces, but in the case of key passes they are only in 12th place with 9 per match (4.6 accurate). This also effects the amount of attempts on goal as they are in 9th place with 9.9 attempts (3.4 on target). In comparison, Maccabi leads the league with 16.1 attempts per match on average and find the target 5.7 times.
Benayoun is back
At 37 years old, the midfielder moved from Beitar Jerusalem to Maccabi Petah Tikva during the January transfer window and has found the back of the goal 4 times in his last 5 matches. He has scored in every game so far for his new club except for the 3:0 loss to Hapoel Beer Sheva 3 weeks ago. If we tack on his Beitar statistics, Benayoun has scored 7 goals this season and only 8 players have scored more. Lidor Cohen leads Petah Tikva with 7 goals while Manor Solomon leads the team in assists with 5.
