Friday, July 4, 2014

Agger was our best defender last season, Sakho was worst

Last season Brendan Rodgers utlilized 16 different line-ups on the back line.  I remember back in the day when Benitez used to change the line-up that often, he was ridiculed as a 'tinkerer'.  The truth is, he was ahead of his time and most successful managers started to do the same including Mourinho and Ferguson. Nowadays it's the status quo for clubs involved in multiple competitions, especially Europe (Sorry Man U).

 Rodgers, though, had a ton of injury issues to deal with last season.  Sakho, Enrique, Johnson, Toure, and Agger all had injury spells, some multiple.  Here are those line-ups along with their stats:

MGAGAPMCS
JohnsonToureAggerEnrique200.002
JohnsonSkrtelAggerEnrique100.001
JohnsonSkrtelAggerCissohko200.002
JohnsonSkrtelSakhoFlanagan320.671
ToureSkrtelAggerSakho111.000
FlanaganSkrtelToureCissohko441.001
JohnsonSkrtelAggerFlanagan551.002
ToureSkrtelSakho571.400
FlanaganSkrtelAggerJohnson231.501
WisdomSkrtelSakhoEnrique122.000
JohnsonSkrtelAggerFlanagan242.000
JohnsonSkrtelSakhoCissohko122.000
JohnsonSkrtelSakhoAgger122.000
JohnsonSkrtelSakhoFlanagan5102.000
JohnsonSkrtelToureCissohko252.500
JohnsonSkrtelToureFlanagan133.000

Those are sorted by goals allowed per match and if we break it down per player:

msgagapmcscs%
Agger16150.9480.50
Cissohko9111.2230.33
Johnson27361.3390.33
Toure15201.3330.20
Skrtel36501.3980.22
Flanagan22311.4150.23
Sakho17261.5310.06

It's pretty clear our most valuable player on the back line is Agger.  It's not even close.  In fact, we only had 2 clean sheets without him.  What's disappointing is Sakho appears to be the biggest liability.  One clean sheet in 17 starts and the highest goal allowed per match average at 1.53.

I'm not sure what Rodgers plans on doing since it was pretty clear by the end of last season that Skrtel and Sakho were his first choice centre backs.  If they continue last year's form, that's not acceptable.  Agger is our best defensive back and I don't know what else proof the gaffer needs.  We will not win the league next year unless we shore up our defense, no matter what hard decisions need to be made.  I like Sakho, but if that means sitting him, so be it.

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