The Injuries and Suspensions Column: Sevilla will miss Kanoute's goals

Spanish Football / Bettorlogic / 08 January 2010 / Leave a Comment

"Kanoute's importance to Sevilla is highlighted by the 21 goals he has scored in 33 appearances since the start of last season which makes him Sevilla’s leading scorer."

Bettorlogic have compiled a report using our player analysis tool Player PRO highlighting the most important players that are likely to be missing across Europe's major leagues this weekend.

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*NB Player appearances are based on a player starting and completing at least an hour of the match unless otherwise stated. The sample is based on a team's home and away league matches since the start of last season unless otherwise stated.

Sevilla v Racing

Frédéric Kanouté

Sevilla have won only one of their last five matches and will be unable to call upon one of their main strikers for the rest of the month while Frédéric Kanouté is away at the African Cup of Nations playing for Mali.

The former Hammer's importance to Sevilla is highlighted by the 21 goals he has scored in 33 appearances since the start of last season which makes him Sevilla's leading scorer. More significantly however, is the fact that Sevilla's win percentage falls from 60% with Kanouté to just 48% in the 21 games he's missed and as a result, their PPG from 1.97 to 1.67.

Not surprisingly, without Kanouté's goals Sevilla's average goals-scored has fallen by 21% from 1.64 per game to just 1.29 and as a result there have been fewer than three goals in 62% of the matches Kanouté's missed compared with 55% with him.

Furthermore, Sevilla will also be missing another first team player with Didier Zokora away, and since his arrival, Sevilla have won eight of 12 matches with him compared to just one of four without. Racing don't tend to be a particularly high-scoring team and with Sevilla out-of-form and shorn of one of their main attacking weapons this match looks likely to be a relatively low-scoring affair. As such the [1.98] for under 2.5 goals looks well worth taking.