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.

The 'dream' signings to forget Loic Remy

Now that the Remy deal is off, Rodgers should be back in the market for another striker unless Divock Origi doesn't go back to Lille on loan, but I'm sure that was a non-negotiable part of the deal.  There are plenty of options out there, though the more experienced may be harder to convince to leave their current clubs and the younger ones are risks due to lack of experience.  Then you have the older, temporary solution, who hardly ever make mistakes, but don't always adapt well and produce.

Two of these 'dream' signings would be either Pedro or José María Callejón. The chances of Rodriguez leaving Barcelona are little to none, he would have to be 'sold' into coming to Liverpool, it would take more than just money to convince him and who says Barca would let him leave? It really depends on whether he is willing to play fourth fiddle to Messi, Neymar, and Suarez, when the Uruguayan becomes eligible, or be a starter and get all the minutes he wants at Liverpool.  His numbers the past five seasons in La Liga and in Europe are not mind-blowing, but far from shabby:

npg90	ap90	gc90	cc90	ccv	pass%	sacc%	shot%	TTI90
0.44	0.22	0.67	1.33	16.2	88.4	48.6	20.6	10.98

Callejón may be easier to convince to leave Napoli.  Rafa may even take a player or two in exchange for the Spaniard, who had a breakout season last year, his first in Italy.  His stats from the last five seasons of La Liga, Serie A, and European competitions are comparable to Pedro, though less impressive:

npg90	ap90	gc90	cc90	ccv	pass%	sacc%	shot%	TTI90
0.31	0.17	0.48	1.39	12.1	81.6	42.5	12.9	11.18

I highly doubt we could pry either one of these players from their respective clubs, but it wouldn't hurt to inquire.  Barcelona are interested in Agger and though I'd rather we hang on to the Dane, if it means getting Pedro, it'd be hard to pass up.

Two others come to mind and I've written about both before.  Seydou Doumbia has been tearing up the Russian Premier League and the Swiss Super League for years now.  You can read more about his amazing production here. 

I've briefly mentioned the torrid scoring rate of 21-year-old Jesé Rodríguez.  The Real Madrid forward is off to a blistering start in his career and the sky seems the limit.  His influence on his club is beyond just numbers though, in the 18 matches he featured last season, Real earned 47 pts, in the 20 he did not, they only managed 40.  He is coming off injury though, which is a worry.  Before so, he posted these ridiculous numbers:

gc90	cc90	ccv	pass%	bp%	sacc%	shot%	TTI90	gopd
1.3	1.94	30.7	83.2	52.40	52.40	23.80	10.90	1.24

Oh yeah, then there's Marco Reus.

Next I'll write about some lesser known, less expensive, but certainly less sexier picks like Nolito, Kevin Gameiro, and Max Kruse.

Let Man United waste their dosh on Cavani

Is Edinson Cavani the most overrated player in the world? If not, he's up there.  He can't pass, he can't shoot, he can't dribble, and he does not create goals.  What is the big deal?

His stats from last season do nothing to justify his £50m+ estimation:

npgp90	gcp90	ccp90	ap90	ccv
0.55	0.71	0.9	0.08	8.7
pass%	bp%	sacc%	shot%	TTI90
85.5	62.3	36.5	16.7	9.5
gsp90	gap90	gop90	tgop	gopd90
2.12	0.63	1.49	1.61	-0.12

His pass success rate of 85.5% is excellent, at being misleading.  I'm not sure If I have ever seen a back pass percentage above 60, even Iago Aspas had 58.1% last season.  He does have a low turnover rate, but he wasn't exactly the primary ball carrier for PSG, they do have a few other well-known footballers on their squad.  In fact, he only averaged 28 pass attempts and 3.8 shots per 90 minutes last season, for perspective, Ibrahimovic averaged 50 and 5.2 respectively.

Further proof that his passing rate from last season was an anomaly:

year	age	club	comp	app(sub)	pcom	patt	pass%
2012-13	26	Napoli	Serie A	33(1)	544	598	77.9
2011-12	25	Napoli	Serie A	32(3)	551	758	72.7
2010-11	24	Napoli	Serie A	32(3)	495	678	73
2009-10	23	Palermo	Serie A	31(3)	523	682	76.7
				totals	2113	2716	77.8

His previous four year average is nearly 8 points lower.  All those expensive teammates make him look like a Pirlo, when he's really just a Kevin Nolan.  Oddly enough, his 8.7 ccv is his lowest in five years, while his career high was 18.8, his first season in Napoli.  His five year average though is only 11.

Cavani is far from worth £50m, he's probably not even worth £15m. I hope Van Gaal buys him though, it will just add to the horrible deals they made this summer.

Pepe Reina or Simon Mignolet?

Since Napoli have admitted they won't be able to pay Pepe Reina to stay, he may be sold to Arsenal at a discount of £5m.  I think most would agree it would be bad business to sell Reina to a competing club like Arsenal, but what if a lesser club like West Brom or even Villa come knocking?  Should Reina be given the chance to be our number 1 again?  Should we try to keep him as a back-up? I don't know about anyone else, but I wasn't exactly blown away by Mignolet last season.  Let's look at the stats, two seasons ago for Reina and last season for Mignolet, league matches only.

	Reina	Mignolet
matches (sub)	31	38
clean sheets	14	10
goals allowed per	1.1	1.32
saves per match	1.35	1.97
saves per goal	1.27	1.7
avg claim success %	89	96
dist. success %	75	69
pass success %	70.8	67.3
aerial duel win %	85.7	83.3
long ball success %	45.8	39

The most important stats here are saves per goal and average claim success percentage, both of which go to Mignolet.  The 7% difference between the two keepers in ACSP is crippling to Reina if he has any aspirations to win his old job back.  It is an indication of what many think of the 31-year-old Spaniard: he takes unnecessary risks and has frequent momentary lapses of reason and concentration.

In his last couple of seasons, Reina appeared to be more interested in trying to create goal scoring opportunities instead of trying to prevent them.  The thing is, he's quite good at contributing to the attack, much more so than Mignolet, but what's the point if you can't do your primary job as a keeper?  I would even argue that Reina had a better defense in front of him than Mignolet does now.

Reina had Jamie Carragher and a healthy Jose Enrique for most of the season.  Though Carra was in his twilight year, he knew his limitations, made few mistakes, and was in command of Liverpool's defense, even when he wasn't on the pitch.  When he was, Carragher rarely went forward as much as Agger, Skrtel, and Sakho tend to.  The thing about Mignolet is that he doesn't take command like a keeper should and if that doesn't change, he should find his way somewhere else soon.