http://www.eplindex.com/16467/fabio-borini-statistically-compared-liverpool-strikers.html Bellamy's were most impressive and I am sure with him now gone we must be looking for another who can be that 4th striker and give that sort of conversion rate ( younger hopefully).
part 2- Joe Allen against other deep-lying midfielders. http://www.eplindex.com/16614/top-target-joe-allen-statistically-compared-rivals.html Again, I know that stats don't tell the whole story but they do help to analyze what a player can bring to the table.
Also showed how improtant the likes of Ramirez and Arteta are to their respected teams. The stats against our midfield was kind of shocking, Hendo didn't look to good in that one, albeit he played in every position through the midfield doesn't help his stats.
The stats for Allen are great, he is up there with any midfielder in the country in both deep and box to box stats.
Also ( I hope not) if Lucas gets injured he seems to be a perfect "replacement" that could do almost the same job. Spearing doesn't fill me with that kind of confidence. Probably because of his overnight arm sleeve tattoo .
Spearing doesn't fill me with confidence for one simple reason, in a fluid system you cannot have players that dawdle in posession. Its okay to bring them on with 10 minutes to go when you're closing the game out, but when you're attempting to set a high tempo players like that shouldn't be on the pitch. Thats why both he and Charlie Adam should not be starters, in fact Charlie Adam should be moved on.
If we are to play 433 / 4231 type system, do we really need four 'strikers'...? The likes of downing, Cole, Sterling, Pacheco, Gerrard, etc can be counted as forwards in this system. The 'strikers' are Carroll, Suarez and Borini with only one true 'striker' spot available. I am but 'striker' because I don't believe we will have an out and out goalscorer so I'd prefer to call it the focal point of the attacker, the main forward, the attacker. Nor do I believe Suarez to be a striker, he is an attacker IMO. A striker is a player that plays up top and bags at least twenty a season, I don't see Suarez doing that.
Suarez stats arnt balanced. 100% of his goals have come from CF because its the only position he has played for us. If you look at his time at Ajax, and also Uruguay, it says some thing different. Suarez also drifts wide a lot. It also doesnt say how often they played in each position. Borini could ave scored 5 of his 9 goals last year from LF because he played there a lot more. But say that, lets try this. -Suarez-----Carroll------Borini- He also says Walcott can only play RW, he can also play LW and Wenger said said he see's him as a striker in the long term.
Yeah, looking at them you can see that Allen and Lucas would work well together lying deep with quick closing down and tackling stats. Whereas Shelvey is not so good at tackling but his shooting rate and accuracy is very good. Allen Lucas Shelvey This would be good when Gerrard isn't playing.
Stats are sometimes misleading. Joe Allens stats suggest that his passing success rate was 91% making him higher than Andres Iniesta. However if you break it down to forward passing and assists, its clearly obvious Iniesta would be the daddy. This is because theres a chance that say 60% of Allens passes were sideways and not cutting passes. In other words and this seems likely that Swansea had loads of possession without really going anywhere. We seriously cannot have that at Liverpool. We cannot be like Arsenal on occasions and spend 90 minutes playing in front of the oppositions back-four.
I noticed that too. The interchanging of players( not just the forwards) was fascinating. Did you notice that when the full-backs ended up in a forward position one of Shelvey or Lucas tucked in between the centre-backs? That was to ensure that we had cover if a quick break occured. Our ball retention was fantastic yet we attacked and defended in numbers, the formation was balanced, something it hasn't been in quite a while.
I was counting up to 7 seconds every time Gomel had the ball. Really surprising the amount of times they failed to keep it over 3 seconds.
I read a report recently that Brendan Rodgers insists that the when posession is lost that it is retained within 7 seconds. Its apparently been implemented in training.
I've heard that BR is working the bollockses off the players in training. Its mainly ball-work but its done in such a way, they are left exhausted afterwards. We could be the fittest side in the premier league.
I think castration can only be a good thing for all football players- if I were manager it's the first thing I'd do. At least we won't have to worry about them sleeping with each others wives *cough cough Terry* or grannies *cough cough Rooney* or transvestites *cough cough Ronaldo* or hot dogs *cough cough Rafael Da Silva*. Sorry, I appear to have developed a cough.
