So Liverpool have finally agreed a deal for Adam. Is he the long-needed successor to Alonso? Who can say. Is he a one-season wonder? I bloody hope not. Anyway for those fans worried i thought i'd do a quick comparison of our soon-to-be midfielder with other highly rated midfielders in the league with regards defensive stats. What happen is people see Charlie Adam's occasional sloppy tackle (like that on Bale) on Match Of The Day and suddenly Adam is 'poor defensively', a myth which plenty of Blackpool fans cannot understand (according to forums and a couple of mates i know who support them), but which builds and builds. Anyway make your mind up about what the truth is but here is a statistical comparison and my take on things: Please note the number of successful actions in each category is in brackets e.g. 75 tackles attempted (62 won) Charlie Adam Minutes played- 3051 Tackles- 75 (62) Possession duels- 556 (281) Aerial Duels- 100 (52) Interceptions- 73 Frank Lampard Minutes played- 2026 Tackles- 53 (38) Possession duels- 145 (76) Aerial Duels- 10 (3) Interceptions- 30 Nigel De Jong Minutes played- 2610 Tackles- 95 (72) Possession duels- 262 (161) Aerial Duels- 23 (16) Interceptions- 88 Francesc Fabregas Minutes played- 1887 Tackles- 41 (28) Possession duels- 264 (123) Aerial Duels- 14 (4) Interceptions- 25 Michael Essien Minutes played- 2801 Tackles- 48 (41) Possession duels- 321 (180) Aerial Duels- 53 (29) Interceptions- 57 Darren Fletcher Minutes played- 2108 Tackles- 29 (27) Possession duels- 168 (73) Aerial Duels- 32 (19) Interceptions- 39 Data used is from www.eplindex.com Figured that would be a good selection of players (even threw in a few defensive mids to balance it out). Also might want to bear in mind that if we want him to be our new Alonso, then he will have Lucas to be his Mascherano, so will have a designated defensive midfielder alongside him this season which he didn't have at Blackpool. Basically we don't even need him to do a great amount of defensive work, but i think the stats suggest he is capable of it. It should also dispel the myth that he is lazy.
What we need now is a natural outlet.Downing being left sided and more importantly left footed is perfect to compliment this.I hope this goes through.I reckon we'll see a number of signings within the next forthnight.
You've found some excellent stats. An excellent point at the end as well about him and Lucas. Adam can do what he does best and not have to worry as much about the defensive side of his game.
I can see what you're saying Skrtels Nips, and I am very surprised at how good the stats are. Although, I'm still not convinced he's an Alonso type of player, if he's going to fit into the team then he's going to have to stop doing hopeless hollywood balls and instead concentrate on his pass actually reaching the target. It's all well and good threading through a magnificent through ball, but if for every through ball he does he loses another 4 to the opposition, then that's 4 more chances potentially lost. With some training, and some good players then he could be a revelation. I'm still concerned about the amount of center mids we've got though. Shelvey, Spearing, Lucas, Meireles, Aquilani, Poulson, Gerrard, Henderson (naturally RW though) and now Adam.
So Frank the tank was only involved in 10 aerial duel's in the whole of last season? The lazy fat ****.
Yeah i agree with that mostly, the difficulty is curbing the number of hollywood passes without ruining his game, but he's in good hands. His passing for the record: Total passes- 2091 Completed passes- 1408 Passing Accuracy- 67%
