Striker solution? This 'once-linked', former Barça prospect, could be a quality buy

Despite being 'pre-season' and meaningless, last night's match exposed our need for another striker.  Waiting for the magical boots to turn on and make Lambert the answer just won't hack it.  The problem is there isn't much else out there, certainly nothing of Suarez' class.  We may have to 'settle' for a forward with 'potential' and most likely risk funds to do so.  One of these players is Celta Vigo's Nolito, who we've been linked to in years past.

The 27-year-old forward/winger first came to prominence playing for Segunda División B side, Écija Balompié.  His performances helped lead Écija to the league title, catching the eye of Barcelona B scouts, where he would transfer to in July 2008.  There he scored 29 goals in 108 appearances, helping them get promoted to the Segundo División for the first time this century.

Seeing the pitch just three times for the senior side, he turned down a contract offer in summer 2011 and was transferred to Benfica for £2.2m.  His first year with the Portuguese club was somewhat successful, scoring 15 goals in all competitions and helping the club win the Taça de Liga.  He also scored in his first five consecutive league matches, tying Eusébio's record for goals by a debut player in Primeira Liga.

Unfortunately the honeymoon ended and Nolito found himself as fourth choice forward at the start of 2012-13 season.  After only 6 appearances and 188 minutes the first half of the year, he was loaned to Granada CF in the January transfer window.  At the Andalusian club, he created lots of chances, but only managed one assist to go with his 3 goals, but garnered enough interest to earn a transfer to Celta Vigo for £2.2m.

His stats for the La Liga club last season are not mind-blowing, but somewhat impressive considering it was his first season there and he wasn't exactly surrounded by world class talent:

npg90	gc90	cc90	sacc%	shot%	TTI90	gopd
0.48	0.63	1.94	41.18%	14.12%	11.5	0.29

Nolito seems to set up lots of chances for his teammates no matter where he plays, just imagine what he could do with the likes of Sturridge, Sterling, and Coutinho around him.  He also doesn't waste shot opportunities nor turnover the ball at a ridiculous rate, hence his 11.5 TTI90.  The most impressive stat though is his goals on pitch difference 90 of 0.29, when he wasn't on the pitch, Celta Vigo was destined to lose with a team gopd of -0.13.

The soon-to-be 28-year-old Spaniard is not just a poacher, but can contribute in many ways.  Other than setting others up, he is also a decent tackler, averaging 2.34 successful tackles per 90 minutes at a 48.4% rate.  He's valued at around £5m, which if we could get him for anything close, would be steal.  Recently, he said if Barcelona came calling, he would leave, I wonder if that applies to other 'big' clubs. 

You have to feel for Iago Aspas

The wide-eyed Spaniard has become the butt of many jokes, the top clown in the circus of mockery, and the subject of a very amusing twitter account.  I previously wrote about how the former Celta de Vigo star showed little promise for his £7.7m transfer fee, but let's see what that got us:

goals	0	npgp90	0	pass%	75.4	gap90	0.47
assist	1	gcp90	0.23	bp%	58.1	gsp90	1.41
chances	8	ccp90	1.86	sacc%	50	gop90	0.94
		ap90	0.23	shot%	0
		ccv	12.4	TTI90	14.4

Surprisingly, Aspas has a decent chance created per 90 average of 1.86 and chance created value of 12.4.  Unfortunately that's about it, his piss poor passing, abysmal turnover rate, and goals-on-pitch difference of 0.94 aren't worth  £770,000.

It started out so promising though.  He scored 4 goals in the preseason, including one in his first match, a curling beaut of a strike from outside of the box against Preston.  In our opening fixture versus Stoke at Anfield, he assisted on what would be the game-winning goal.  Then he did little else save his only official goal as a Liverpool player, when Oldham came to Anfield for their FA Cup tie in January.

You have to wonder what Rodgers has in store for Aspas.  I would hope he's planning to sell him, apparently Sevilla will take him on the cheap.  At this point getting anything back for him would be a plus,  £7.7m is awfully expensive for a mascot.

Iago Aspas was bad business

In my post about TTI per 90, Iago Aspas came in 2nd at 14.7 last season.  Considering his diminishing minutes as the season progressed, I decided to take a look at the stats from his last campaign at Celta Vigo to see if maybe there was an indication this would happen.

apps (sub)	34
goals	12
assists	7
chances	69
shot acc %	57
shot %	11.8
pass %	77.3
back pass %	61.5
take on %	33.3
TTI per 90	15

Wow, we paid £7.7m for a guy who needed 9 shots per match to score, who passes the ball towards his own goal two-thirds of the time, gives the ball away frequently, and can't dribble passed anyone.

Brendan Rodgers clearly didn't do his homework.  Aspas will turn 27 in August, if he was in his early 20s, I'd say send him out on loan and see if he can improve, but I don't think that's an option anymore.  Celta Vigo must have laughed all the way to the bank.  Rodgers clearly can't continue to spend that kind of money on fringe players without analyzing their game thoroughly.