doesn't mean an awful lot. I mean if you look a tit right bang in the middle you have a group of players like rodri, jorginho, hojberg, rice, allan and they are all radically different players. all it tells me is some lads pass it a bit more forward than others. TBH ward Prowse and McGinn being on there aint even right.
A lot has been said about Bobby and Mane's 'decline' ... The below table shows their expected goals and assists, no. of shots, shot creation and pressing - as you can see, their underlying stats are actually still pretty consistent with peak years. The biggest decline is only really in their final finishing... please log in to view this image
blah.... XG is ****. these stats cannot tell the story that everyone can see watching the game. all this starts to remind me of listening to bbc 5 live in the 90s as they made some of the dreariest gams sound exciting. when you actually see the decision making and lack of confidence writ large. you can stand 6 yards out and spoon the ball 10 yards over the bar or have a world class save. XG records the thing the same.
Very old fashioned way of looking at things. Stats and analytics is a huge part in every single industry now and xG has a part to play alongside other things in evaluating players and teams. Yes we can all say, oh we watched all last season and saw that X player missed a load of goals. But it goes deeper than that. Like expected saves for keepers. Juat cos they conceded 50 goals doesnt men’s they are a terrible keeper if they actually saved 10 more than they should have. if someone is constantly out performing their xG then it shows you that the player is a high quality finisher and even though maybe scoring 10 goals a season, in a better team creating more and better chances they should in theory score you more goals. Stats are used so much in player recruitment and rightly so. Doesn’t mean should be solely done on it but using the stats to back up what you see with your eyes is important.
I gave up arguing the case for Mane a while ago because it felt like everyone but me was criticising him. I don't think he's had a massive decline, slightly yes but not massive. I think he suffered from the change in approach due to our defensive issues last season (who didn't?), plus I reckon it took him longer to get over Covid that we're led to believe. Seems back to it this season imo but people are well and truly on that agenda boat and it's difficult for them to get back to land.
His form definitely dipped but as you say so did everyone at the top end. I still think he’s not at his best yet but he set such high standards 2 years ago when he was one of top scorers in the league. Still does things very well, hold up play is brilliant for smaller guy, still beating players but I don’t think it also helped Robbo hasn’t been in top form either. They used to be very good together. Signs they are getting back there but still more to come and hopefully he can start scoring goals as we are heavily reliant on him Salah Jota to score our goals. If one of them is failing then we will suffer.
I think the main thing with Mane was probably fatigue catching up with him. Was playing so many games and minutes across the PL and summer competitions. It was bound to happen at some point.
its too high level and subjective mate. There are far better stats being used by the real pros in much deeper analysis nobody buys players off stats alone, they all actually go look Again you know full well cos you watched that a lot of firmino's misses were horrid last season and he looked like he lacked confidence. no subjective stat should change that. same for mane. People who watched him will know he added quite a lot of goals by being in the box and scoring headers but those have dried up, instead of XG peoepl need to look deeper at how many crosses he actually got on the end of, the heat map and amount of crosses that there were. the reality is we all know mane needs about 4 chances to score but also he is not making the same runs
this is a more interesting little comment form klopp which for me stimulates thinking Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has questioned England's treatment of Trent Alexander-Arnold by declaring: "Why would you make the best right-back in the world a midfielder?" Alexander-Arnold started on the right side of a midfield three in the Three Lions' World Cup qualifier against Andorra at Wembley last Sunday. However, it was only when the Reds man was switched by England boss Gareth Southgate to a right wing-back role that he began to impress during the second half and had a role in the final goal in a 4-0 win. And Klopp is bewildered by those who believe Alexander-Arnold needs to be more influential upfield as he pointed to a subtle shift in his game with Liverpool. "If you watch our games then you will see that Trent’s position has already changed," said the Reds boss. "Not in all the games but in games where it is possible then his position changed already. "So there is no need to now make him now a midfield player. It is a little bit a shame that we talk in 2021 like this about football. Players play everywhere, especially good players are pretty much everywhere. "Trent is not very often on the left wing, that is true, but on the right wing he was already everywhere on the pitch. "In this game, in a game where England are that dominant for example, or that we are that dominant that Trent could play in midfield, I would rather he was the six than in this case the eight. "That is possible but why would you make the best right-back in the world a midfielder? I don’t understand that really." Klopp added: "(It's) as if the right-back position is not as important as the others. People who say that, I struggle to understand how you could think that. "Some people think that because he plays 10 yards further up the pitch he would be more influential. "Being more influential than Trent Alexander-Arnold in the last, I don’t know, how many years he has played for me is really tricky. It would mean I would have to have a proper look to find somebody. "He plays the right position, we adapt and try and use his skills absolutely, but in the end the right-back is the one who defends the right side and he is doing that really well. "All the rest when we have the ball, we use him as good as we can." ........................................... so that already confirms our impression that TAA has been moving more infield and all that good stuff. It also for me says i really shouldn't have said that trent should be CM this summer.
YEah, i don't see the point of moving into midfield as a starting position. As a right back, he makes the extra man when going forward and, as you say, he's moving more inside now rather than on the overlap and oppo defences haven't really know what to do about that.
Trent is the best RB in the world IMO. He is so influential from right back position, there is no need to change him.
What we need is some more intelligence in midfield to see if trent is on a centre midfield buzz then they need to got wide right and stretch teams. However when vvd is telling the guy to get the **** wide and he is ignoring him then theres something wrong in the plan isnt there. Vvd cannot play a 50 yard ball to feet if nobody is wide right.
This is actually incredible from Trent. This is his expected assists for 2021 (calendar year) - started off slowly as he was coming back from injuries and covid but then he exploded. His xA is far better than the average PL full back, better than his own career, and is also better than Messi It's actually scary to see how far Trent will go ... please log in to view this image
They put a stat up yesterday that he’s the 3rd or 4th youngest player to 35 assists. Only fabregas giggs and I think one other but can’t remember we’re younger. However he’s a bloody RB and not a creative midfielder!! It’s incredible that Southgate just doesn’t know how to manage him, but England’s loss is our gain.
Southgate wants a defensive setup with old school FBs that defend first. Can't stand his approach Salah is the fifth fastest to 100 PL goals but not once as a pundit pointed out that the four above him are all strikers, as are the ones below him.
He is dreary. Drab. Look at all the players he has of a type. Loads of runners and hackers and pusher oversees. Walker, trippier, maguire, stones, rice, Phillips Pickford (hacker) Kane another bull dozer. Mount a runner and presser. He literally just allows two wingers who can run as long as they can defend. He likes saka cos he is strong and can defend. He likes sterling cos pep has taught him to defend. He doesn't trust grealish but now feels he has to play the 100mil man but he doesn't trust sancho at all Trent he views with suspicion. He dropped chilwell totally. Doesn't want him at all. He picks trippier at lb just to take frees and defend.
