Is Gonzalo Higuaín worth more than Suárez?

We all know Ronaldo and Messi are the cream of the European football crop, but number three is up for grabs with Luis Suárez and Gonzalo Higuaín among the top candidates.  Most people believe the Uruguayan is the clear cut choice, but a closer look at their performance data may lead to a change of mind.

The fact is, Higuaín is the superior player when it comes to the numbers.  The Argentine is considered to be more of a 'poacher' while most believe Suárez is the more complete player, but the stats tell a different story.  Both players have benefited by playing most of their careers at 'big' clubs.  Ajax may not seem like as 'big' a club as it was 20 years ago, but it still attracts some of the best young talent in the world and was absolutely loaded the years El Conejo Loco played there.  His teammates included Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, Jan Vertonghen, Urby Emanuelson, Thomas Vermaelen, Dennis Rommedahl, Maarten Stekelenburg, and Gregory van der Wiel among others.

Also, it could be argued that Suarez prospered from playing in a lesser league where his 'world class' talents allowed him to dominant his 'lesser' opponents while Higuain had to deal with the superior defences of La Liga.  Not to mention that the Eredivisie is an 'attacker's paradise' where players tend to rack up more impressive offensive stats than any other league in Europe.

Here are their accumulative stats since the 2006-07 seasons:

	npg90	ap90	gc90	cc90	ccv	pass%	sacc%	shot%	TTI90	gopd
Higuaín	0.73	0.31	1.09	1.38	0.23	0.808	0.518	0.449	12.27	0.11
Suárez	0.62	0.17	0.87	2.50	0.09	0.753	0.407	0.296	17.37	0.09

Higuaín takes almost every stat except chances created, but his chance created value is far superior.  In fact, one out of every four of his chances finds the back of the net while only one out of eleven for Suarez result in a goal.  That is one of the best ccvs I have ever seen and really sums up what Higuain is, efficient.  It's not that Suarez lacks in precision, but he fails in comparison to his Argentine counterpart.

The one thing Suarez does better, though is hard to quantify, is create chances for himself.  Though it doesn't really show self-created chances, the former Liverpool man has a successful dribble rate of 2.88 per 90 at 38% while the Napoli striker posts a 1.40 sdr90 at 47%.  Once again, Higuain is more efficient, though only completes half as many take-ons per ninety minutes.

To answer the question of this post though, no, I don't think Higuain is worth more than Suarez.  Numbers aren't everything and if you put the latter on the worst team in any league, I firmly believe he would make a bigger impact than the former.  Suarez doesn't need highly-skilled teammates to make a difference, but they obviously help.  Higuain is more efficient and can make a good team great, but I highly doubt he would be able to lead a team like Stoke to a Champions League spot.  He would make Liverpool more of a contender though, but £80m?  Messi is the only player worthy of that amount, but if we could somehow get Napoli to agree to half that, Rodgers would be crazy not to break the bank for him.