Sturridge remains least efficient on Liverpool, N'Zogbia now worst overall

*Only players with 180 minutes played qualify.

Sturridge is still the least overall efficient player LFC player at 0.492.  He has averaged about 12 'give-aways' per match and a 78.1% pass completion percentage.  True strikers are always going to be 'middle of the pack' at best as they take more chances and are usually out-numbered in the final third. Jovetic is the highest rated and he's 71st in the league, Sturridge ranks 155th out of 191.  Goals don't matter much, even if Sturridge had scored 10 goals in the first three matches, his per would have only went up to 0.565, good for only 126th, which happens to be Alexis Sanchez' current ranking.

The ten worst overall per:

C. N'Zogbia	0.338
L. Jutkiewicz	0.355
M. Phillips	0.358
C. Wickham	0.361
M. Biram Diouf	0.390
Kieran Tripper	0.394
C. Cole	0.399
Loic Remy	0.409
Y. Bolasie	0.419
J. Schlupp	0.420

I didn't realize N'Zogbia still played  in the league, I also can't believe he's only 28.  Seems like he's been around forever.  Loic Remy was clearly unhappy at QPR, watch how miraculously his stats go up at Chelsea.  Not only because he got out of Loftus Road, but now he's got world class service from Fabregas & Co.

Alexis Sanchez & Arsenal: A match made in delusional heaven

Whether this Goal article has even an ounce of truth to it, it is still amusing.  In it, apparently Alexis Sanchez claims he chose Arsenal because 'With [Mesut] Ozil in the squad Arsenal were [close] to winning the league title. I hope I can make a contribution so we can win as many titles as possible.' Now that's comedy at it's finest.  He must not be aware that the Gooners finished fourth last season.

He also says about Wenger, 'I was told that he is a manager you can learn a lot with. He wants to achieve great things in football and that helped me make the decision to sign for Arsenal.' Wenger was great, 10 or so years ago, but he's well past it now.  Just ask Bendtner or Chamakh how great a teacher he is.

The sad thing is, Arsenal supporters think he will actually be able to improve their club.  If he's so great why did Barcelona want to off-load him? Do you think it may be because he was part of their epic down slide last season when they won not a single trophy for the first time in six seasons? In fact, in the three seasons he was with Barca, they won a total of six honours.  For most clubs, that would be impressive, but Barca averaged a full trophy more the three seasons before including winning two Champions Leagues and La Liga every season.  They won no Cl and only one La Liga title with Sanchez.

I guess that makes them a perfect fit.  On one hand you have a club that won it's first major trophy in nine years last season, almost finished third in the league, and have Mesut Ozil, and on the other you have a player who is okay with his team not performing up to par of their previous seasons' title and cup-winning standards.  If all goes as plans, the Gunners will finish fifth and make the League Cup final.

Shaqiri, Rojo, Sanchez, & Origi: The transfer vultures are circling

Though it appears Lazar Markovic is a likely signing, others who were once possibly on our radar are gone or slowly disappearing.  Of the four I listed in this post's title, the only one whom I'm disappointed about is Shaqiri. Apparently Bayern Munich offered him more money, but will that translate into more playing time for the loaded German side? Not that he'll be handed a spot at Liverpool, but Der FCB isn't called 'FC Hollywood' for nothing.

Apparently Roma are now in talks to sign the Swiss International.  If I were Shaqiri and an Serie A club came for me with an offer equivalent or greater than what I could make anywhere else, I'd sign faster than an imploding Brazilian defense.  Shaqiri will run rampant in Italy and his has the technical prowess to persevere as well.

Personally I have not been all the impressed with Marcos Rojo at the World Cup.  He's got that WC hype feeling.  He has received praises for his play in Portugal, but his stats do not overwhelm other than his card collection of 14 yellows and 3 reds in 33 matches.  If that's not a red flag, I don't know what is.

I don't care about Sanchez.  He prefers Arsenal and that tells me he's absolutely clueless.  The reason being his family wants to 'live in London' is just lame.  Oh well, have fun getting rotated to death and make sure not to make Arsene angry, you wouldn't like him when he's angry.

Finally we get to Origi, who I have already written about. Now there are reports that Spurs are interested in him.  I couldn't care less either way considering we would probably loan him back to Lille anyhow.  Seems ridiculous to me to spend £10m for a player just to loan him back to the club we bought him from.  What are we, Chelsea now? And if Origi wants to know how things will probably work out for him at Tottenham, I suggest he give Erik Lamela a call.

Oh and we missed out on Ashley Cole.  You can only imagine the tears.  Let's just hope we 'miss out' on Bertrand as well.  I will really be crying then.

Good riddance Suarez, we'll be better without you

If Suarez leaves, and it's looking highly likely, we'll be fine.  We still have Sturridge, Sterling, Coutinho, Gerrard, and Henderson, all but one are young and all will be improved.  We don't need to necessarily make up 31 goals, we could actually play better defense.  If we would have prevented just 5 more goals last year, we would have won the league.  Last season, we lead the league in defensive errors with 42, 13 which directly resulted in a goal, that obviously has to stop.

If there ever was an example to follow,  look no further than Ateltico Madrid from last season.  They only scored 77 goals, 27 less than Real, and 23 less than Barça.  They also only allowed 26 and committed just 17 defensive errors, which was not best in league, but only 5 off and light years better than 42.  They also lost Falcao and Martin Demichelis from the season before.

Falcao scored 28 goals for Atletico in the 2012-13 season, that was a ridiculous 43.1% of their total output of 65.  Suarez was 'only' responsible for 30.1% of our goals last season,  but his 13 assists means he took part in 42.6%.  Atletico rebounded with Diego Costa and added David Villa, we have Sturridge and added Rickie Lambert.

In fact, over the years, Atletico has lost a number of key players.  Since summer 2007, they've lost Falcao, Martin Demichelis, Eduardo Salvio, Serio Aguero, David De Gea, Diego Forlan, Jose Manuel Jurado, Simao Sabrosa, Maxi Rodriguez, Martin Petrov, and of course, Torres.  In that time they've won a Copa Del Rey, 2 Europa Cups, and 2 UEFA Super Cups.  Their progression in La Liga since 2009-10 has been consistent to say the least, they went from 9th to 7th to 5th to 3rd to winning it last season.  

They also reduced their goals allowed each season starting in 09-10 they conceded 61, then 53 in 10-11, 46 the next season, and 31 the year before last.  The thing is, their goal scoring showed no such progression save last season.  Over the same period from 2009-10 to 2012-13, they scored 57, 62, 53, and 65 in each successive season.

Brendan Rodgers appears to have solved our goal scoring issues, but now he needs to focus on defense.  I think we'll be better because our defenders, Sakho in particular, should be more familiar with on another.  Communication appeared to lack last season, I just hope that changes.  Also, the addition of Emre Can gives us another option at defensive midfielder, which is the most important defender on the pitch.

Suarez leaving is far from the end of the world.  Yes, he scored and created goals, but he also gave away the ball an awfully lot.  Counter attack goals killed us last year, particularly late in the season.  We can make up for Suarez by playing smarter defense and most of all, holding on to the ball longer and making smarter passes, though we will need to add at least one more attack-minded player.  Hopefully that's Shaqiri, Sanchez, or in the very least, Memphis Depay.

What Barça has to offer for Suarez

(Note: Most of this article was written before today's incident.)

Though I doubt the reports that Luis Suarez wants out are true, after the abrupt and classless exit of Fernando Torres, nothing surprises me these days.  The thing is we really can't afford to take straight cash for him, especially when whomever we replace him with, and we are going to have to replace 31 non-penalty goals and 13 assists with someone, is going to be well over-priced.  Why not try to get best value from whomever we sell him, which right now appears to be Barça.

So who can we get from the Catalan club that would be acceptable?  Well, Messi of course.  Unfortunately, that's not going to happen.  The other player who would be a straight fair trade would be Neymar, but it's highly doubtful that they would pry their cold, dead hands from the baby Brazilian wizard even if we were to throw in cash and/or Daniel Agger.  Other than replacing Suarez, we could use a left back, centre back, and another defensive midfielder, so let's see what they have to offer in those regards.

Let's look at what they have to offer on attack (with a comparison with Suarez):

	Suarez	Pedro	Sanchez	Deulofeu	Tello
age	27	26	25	20	23
pp	F	F(L)	F(R)	M(R)	F(L,R)
app (sub)	33	28(9)	27(7)	9(16)	2(20)
mins	2962	2354	2374	900	428
goals	31	15	19	3	1
assists	12	8	10	3	2
chances	87	37	47	9	9
npg90	0.94	0.57	0.72	0.3	0.21
gcp90	1.3	0.89	1.1	0.6	0.63
ccp90	2.6	1.4	1.8	0.9	1.9
pass %	74.8	84.5	79.7	78.5	82.1
bp %	44.1	66.5	63.7	47	77.6
sacc %	44.8	41.4	52.8	67.7	25
shot %	17.1	21.4	20	9.7	5
TTI90	17	10.8	13	10.3	12.1

The only player on the list above who we should even consider taking is Alexis Sanchez, plus at least £20m.  He has shown he can create the goals that we need to replace Suarez, but his backpass % is quite worrisome.  Pedro can score, but needs service, we would probably need him plus another player plus cash to justify the transaction.  Taking either Deulofeu, who impressed with his energy for Everton last season, or Tello, who appears to be great at creating goal chances, is just too risky.  We need players who have solid records of production.

Here's what they have to offer on defense:

	Busquets	Song	Montoya	Alba	Bartra
age	26	27	23	25	23
pp	DM	DM	RB	LB	CB
app (sub)	30(2)	12(7)	12(1)	14(1)	17(3)
mins	2650	1130	1123	1195	1590
goals	1	0	0	0	1
assists	1	0	2	2	1
chances	18	5	4	18	6
npg90	0.03	0	0	0	0.06
gcp90	0.07	0	0.16	0.15	0.11
ccp90	0.6	0.4	0.3	1.4	0.3
pass %	92.5	91.7	87.6	89.4	89.9
bp %	30.1	31.6	52.7	42.2	28.6
sacc %	25	50	12.5	60	37.5
shot %	12.5	0	0	0	12.5
TTI90	7.5	7.9	8.6	9	6.8
tp90	2.8	2.9	3.4	1.7	3.1
tack %	44.9	49.2	57.1	38.6	51.9
intp90	2	2.2	1.7	1.9	3.2
clrp90	1.4	1.1	2.1	3	4
dribpp90	1.3	1	1.2	0.7	0.8
bsp90	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.7
adwp90	1.9	1.9	2.6	1.3	2.5
adwon%	54.9	55.8	55.2	50	67.7

Busquets is a great passer, especially considering his very low back pass rate, and for a defensive midfielder, he's not a bad chance creator either.  What worries me about him is his subpar tackle rate, though it is better than Lucas at 42.9%.  Song is the better true DM than Busquets, but offers next to nothing on the attack.

Montoya, who can play both left and right back (which is why he is included here), is the best defender overall. He is the best tackler at the highest success rate and leads in both clearances per 90 and aerial duels won per 90.  Alba is a great attacking left back, but not all that impressive on defense.  He produces the most chances per 90, but has both a poor tackle rate and success percentage.  

Finally we have Bartra, who overall is the cream of the defender crop  His 89.9% passing is nothing short of amazing when you consider only 28.6% are back passes. There is actually little to nothing that Bartra does poorly.  If we were to get him or Busquets and Pedro, plus £20m, I could live with that.