Monday, June 30, 2014

We should have signed Dusan Tadic, not Lallana

With the announcement of our signing Adam Lallana forthcoming, I have not held back on my disappoint of his transfer.  He is just not good enough and brings nothing to our side that we don't already have a better version.  We need to bring players that offer a special dynamic, not one who actually created less chances and had less assists last season than his 29-year-old unheralded teammate, Steven Davis.  Here are last season stats for Dusan Tadic and Quincy Promes, who play for FC Twente in the Eredivisie, Lucas Piaźon, a Chelsea player who played for Vitesse, and Lallana, Sterling, and Coutinho:

TadicPromesPiaźonLallanaSterlingCoutinho
age252220261922
app (sub)333124(5)37(1)24(9)28(5)
mins297027242106308222202323
goals161111995
assists1488657
chances1338478685164
npg900.270.360.340.260.360.19
gcp900.90.630.810.410.570.47
ccp9042.83.31.92.12.5
pass %79.382.381.784.681.780.6
bp %45.452.252.350.346.836.7
sacc %37.43439.141.448.928.7
shot %17.61115.918207
TTI9016.112.71413.912.111

Tadic's 133 chances created is beyond impressive, it is phenomenal.  He had 40 more than Antonio Cassano in Serie A, who finished second in all of Europe with 93, and 49 more than teammate Quincy Promes, who finished second in the Eredivisie with 84.

An interesting stat that I've been toying with is chance created efficiency, the percentage of chances created that actually results in goals.  A player can create chances all day, but if it doesn't result in goals, it usually produces a loss of possession.  Tadic has a 22.6% cce while Lallana has a 20.6%, which doesn't seem much of a difference, but when you consider the amount of key passes it's why Tadic has created twice as many goals while playing in a full less match.  Sterling, by the way, has the best of the above group at a very impressive 27.1% cce.

The bottom line is we could have bought a playmaker with Fabregas ability for £12-15m, but instead we paid £23-26m for a player with Kevin Mirallas skills.  Mirallas isn't bad, but he's far from great, and when his days at Anfield are over, I hope Lallana gets at least that much respect.

No comments:

Popular Posts