Gerrard & Sturridge are more important than Suarez

Again and again I'm trying to convince myself that the loss of Suarez won't be that great, well, this may be the straw that breaks the camel's back.  I went through each match last year and broke down goal importance according to whether a point was salvaged or gained (crucial goal) or gave us an advantage (important goal).  I did the same for assists as well.  Then I applied a points system: 3 points for crucial goal or assist and 1 point for important goal or assist.  Here are the results:

	crucial goal	imp goal	crucial asst	imp assist	value
Gerrard	5	4	4	4	35
Sturridge	7	6	1	2	32
Suarez	0	11	1	4	18
Coutinho	2	1	0	2	9
Agger	1	1	1	1	8
Henderson	1	0	0	3	6
Enrique	0	0	1	1	4
Sterling	0	2	0	2	4
Aspas	0	0	1	0	3
Skrtel	0	3	0	0	3
Toure	0	0	0	1	1
Sakho	0	1	0	0	1
Johnson	0	0	0	1	1
Allen	0	1	0	0	1

Not a single goal and only one assist from Suarez was 'crucial' to our title chase last year.  He did score 11 'important' goals though, unfortunately that also means he essentially scored 20 'meaningless' goals or goals that wouldn't have mattered had he scored them or not.

We will be fine if Suarez leaves as long as we improve defensively.  Yes, he's fun to watch and I wish he would play the rest of his days in a Liverpool shirt, but in the end, we go on.

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.

Why Rodgers should buy Bertrand

To get sacked and go on holiday.  I have little doubt that buying the Chelsea left back for his estimated valuation of £7m would be on par with buying Aspas for £7.5m or Borini for £10.4m.  Here are last season's stats for Bertrand, who spent the majority on loan at Villa, our Jon Flanagan, and the guy we should sign on a free from Heracles of the Eredivisie, Australian Jason Davidson.

	Bertrand	Flanagan	Davidson
age	25*	21	22
app(subs)	17	23	30
mins	1449	1890	2669
goals	0	1	2
assist	0	1	3
chances	4	13	32
npgp90	0	0.05	0.06
gcp90	0	0.1	0.17
ccp90	0.25	0.62	1.08
pass%	76.4	83.7	76.5
bp%	38.4	42.6	31.4
sacc%	50	42.9	38.5
shot%	0	14.3	15.4
tp90	1.9	3.8	1.7
tack %	60.5	45.7	51.2
intp90	0.9	1.9	2.2
clrp90	2.1	3.6	5.2
dribpp90	0.4	1.9	0.9
bsp90	0.4	0.2	0.5
TTI90	10.2	9.2	7.6

Bertrand pales in comparison to Flanagan and Davidson, in fact, other than his tackle success percentage, he's quite unimpressive.  More damning is that before joining Villa they had 23 points from their first 20 matches, but in the 16 of the remaining 18 matches that Bertrand played, they garnered only 12 points and won the fixture against Chelsea which could not feature him. 

Just don't do it Rodgers.  I read somewhere that the argument was how Rodgers has 'righted' Sturridge and could do the same for Bertrand.  That's a bunch of crock, when Sturridge is allowed to play in his natural position up front, as he did on loan at Bolton, he's highly productive, it has little to do with Rodgers 'righting' anything.  BR should be getting Davidson's rep on the phone as soon as possible before he finalizes his deal with Fulham.  That Felix Magath, he's never won anything.

The evolution of Raheem Sterling (or why we may not need Suarez anymore)

Rumor has it Real Madrid is very high on Raheem Sterling.  I'm not sure how realistic their intentions are, but if it is true, we need to do everything we can to hold on to him.  He is ultimately more important than Suarez because he is 19-years-old and exhibits 'Messi class' potential.  If he gets even remotely close to that, he's worth what ever LFC has to pay him.

I was curious to see what Sterling's potential output of the next two seasons could be, so using a very simple projection model based on his progression over the last two seasons, I came up with this:

	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16
age	18	19	20	21
app (sub)	19(5)	24(9)	27(7)	28(8)
mins	1748	2220	2520	2935
goals	2	9	23	32
assists	2	5	7	10
chances	37	51	60	72
npg90	0.1	0.36	0.82	0.98
gcp90	0.21	0.57	1.07	1.29
ccp90	1.91	2.06	2.14	2.21
TTI90	12.3	12.1	12	11.7

Before anyone takes leave of their senses, these are max potential projections.  I'm not saying Sterling won't score more than 23 goals next season, but it's highly unlikely.  What is probable though is that he'll have more than 7 assists and that his goal created per 90 will be around 1.07.  Let's say he only reaches 80% of his goal max, which means he scores 18 goals.  To reach a 1.07 gcp90, he'll need 12 total assists, a very realistic achievement.

As you might have noticed, with these projections, Sterling will break the Prem goal scoring record in two years.  The chances of that happening are as likely as Everton winning the league.  In fact, if he accounts for 42 goals created, it will be tied for Drogba (2009-10) for second most all-time next to Suarez from last season.  Probably not going to happen either but even if he has a 60% goal output, he finishes with 19 goals plus 10 assists, which is a decent season to say the least.

I was curious to see the progression of Messi from age 18 to 21, for a possible comparison.  Unfortunately, 'chances created' is a relatively new recorded stat, so I only included what I could.

	2005-6	2006-7	2007-8	2008-9
age	18	19	20	21
app (sub)	11(6)	23(3)	23(5)	27(4)
mins	909	1995	1998	2513
goals	2	14	10	23
assists	6	2	12	11
npg90	0.2	0.63	0.27	0.72
gcp90	0.8	0.72	0.99	1.22

Interestingly enough, his goal creation regressed from age 18 to 19 and if you take away his penalty goals, he actually only had an open field goal creation of 0.81 at age 20.  Lack of chances created makes it awfully hard to compare the two players.  By just these stats alone, Messi is far and way the better player, but will Sterling have a lapse in his career next season like the Argentinian did?  I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I'm not saying Sterling will ever reach the heights of Messi, but he does possess the potential to do so. You don't get mentioned in the same breathe as Real Madrid if you don't. 

Sturridge & Lambert just as good as Rooney & RVP

I'm obsessed... with numbers that is.  Yesterday I wrote a piece about how Man U severrely skewed the market for overpaying for Herrera and Luke Shaw.  Needless  to say, I got some interesting responses from our second favorite club's fans.  Some of those referred to Rickie Lambert not being the best choice as our man up front, which is ignorant in itself as we all know Sturridge will play there as long as he's healthy.

It goes without saying that Sturridge & Suarez are eons better than Rooney & Van Persie, but Sturridge & Lambert are at least comparable.  Here are each pair's combined stats from last season:

	Sturridge & Lambert	Rooney & RVP
goals	34	29
assists	17	13
chances	82	72
npg90	0.55	0.54
gcp90	0.9	0.94
ccp90	1.4	1.6
pass %	73.5	79.4
bp %	46.1	49
sacc %	39.2	39.3
shot %	16	17.8
TTI90	27.3	25.9

As you can see, not much difference.  Of course, Rooney and RVP cost Man United £71m when adjusted for inflation, while Sturridge and Lambert only cost LFC £19m, which is £52m less for all you math-challenged Mancunians.  That would have been plenty to buy Herrera and Shaw for a club that knows how to negotiate a transfer.

How Liverpool & Suarez can benefit from his ban

Instead of looking on the punishment FIFA dished out Suarez as a huge dark cloud that will doom our season, let's look at some possible positives.  First and foremost, Suarez needs some time off.  Despite his two goals in the England match, he was dreadful, and he was even more useless against Italy.  In fact, since his hat-trick against Cardiff on March 22nd, he scored 3 goals and had 1 assist in our final 8 league matches.  In the previous 25 matches, he had 28 goals and 12 assists, he is clearly burnt out and an extended rest will do him wonders.

His absence allows others to get more playing time, specifically Emre Can, probably Rickie Lambert, and possibly Samed Yeşil & Jerome Sinclair.  Though I believe Rodgers brought Can in to eventually be our first choice DM, he can play box-to-box just as effectively.  I for one can't wait to see how he, Gerrard, Hendo, and Lucas are played and interact. I also think Yeşil and Sinclair deserve decent chances to show us what they can offer, probably just in cup ties though.  What I don't wish is for Borini to get more pitch time.

Everybody stay calm, we still have Sturridge, Sterling, Coutinho, and hopefully, Suso.  The latter might now benefit the most from Suarez' absence and I hope this convinces Rodgers to let him stay and play.  What worries me about Sturridge is that he will get burnt out as well, but if BR knows what's best for him, he'll let our number 15 stay home from all the off-season promotional tours and rest up until the season starts.  If we truly added Sanchez then we'll have even less issue with player wear.  If we add Shaqiri, we won't miss a beat.

Finally, we are now no longer one of the favorites to win the league, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  Pressure's off, no one thinks we have a chance, much like last season.  If we can come out and be competitive until Suarez' return, we'll be in great position to win the league.  I have a feeling if Suarez is still around, he's gonna come out on fire and give everyone else a rest as he wins a few fixtures by himself.  He's done it before.

Signing Divock Origi is a waste of everyone's time

There are recent reports that we may be after 19-year-old Belgian and World Cup darling, Divock Origi, but I highly doubt it.  There is absolutely no reason to add him to the squad and no logic for him to join.  I'm not saying he isn't good enough, but why sign a 19-year-old who will be our fourth striker (with or without Suarez, we will sign a top replacement if needs be). He will get little playing time, which could hamper his development, and he'll probably be unhappy spending time on the reserves or loaned out to other sides.  It makes no sense to either party.

Furthermore, there's nothing in his statistical output that separates him from what we already have at the club.  Here are his numbers from last season for Lille along with last season's production of fellow 19-year-old Sterling and the player Origi should long to emulate, Daniel Sturridge:

	Origi	Sterling	Sturridge
age	19	19	24
app (sub)	12(18)	24(9)	26(3)
mins	1286	2220	2267
goals	5	9	21
assists	0	5	7
chances	18	51	29
npg90	0.35	0.36	0.83
gcp90	0.35	0.57	1.1
ccp90	1.3	2.06	1.2
pass %	79.1	81.7	79.3
bp %	54.2	46.8	53.4
sacc %	54.2	48.9	42.4
shot %	20.8	20	21.2
TTI90	12.2	12.1	11

First and foremost, Origi primarily starts up front and covers the left side of the pitch.  Overall his numbers are eerily similar to Sterling with two exceptions, chances created and back pass percentage.  Sterling creates nearly a chance more per 90 and passes towards his own goal much less.  

The only thing separating him and Sturridge is goal-scoring rate, which is kind of important when you're a forward.  Their shooting rate is similar, though Origi has the superior shooting accuracy percentage, which tells me he tends to take bad shots and/or fails to challenge the keeper most of the time.

The bottom line is Origi is not what we need and he's not dynamic enough to justify bringing him in for what will probably be a speculative price.  Let him prove himself elsewhere for 4-5 seasons and when Sturridge starts to go in decline then try to sign him.  Right now he's just the victim of the World Cup hype train.

Blame the FA, Hodgson, or the entire squad, not just Gerrard

It is sad and pathetic that the English press and the wind-up blogs are attempting, though ever so poorly, to blame Steven Gerrard for the early World Cup exit of the Three Lions. He did not pick the manager.  He did not pick the players.  He did not pick the formations, his own position, nor tactics.  All he did was go out and play to the best of his ability, trying to execute the plan of his manager.

Roy Hodgson is not truly to blame either, he is just doing what he has always done, but it is quite evident that his style of management doesn't work for the English side.  He is a blue collar manager if there ever was one.  He found most of his success at clubs in lesser leagues like the Allsvenskan or at smaller clubs like Fulham and West Brom which rely more on tactics than talent.  Let's face it, England is made up of big club players and it is hard for a big club player to revert to simple tactics, it is like asking a chef to wash dishes, he can do it, but he won't be happy nor necessarily do it well.

Capello utilized advanced tactics, but he also knew how to control the superstar egos of the English side.  You were either part of the team or watching from the outside, Hodgson is too much of a gentleman to command the Three Lions.  I'm not saying they lack discipline, because if anything they are seemingly one of England's more mature squads despite their age, I just think Hodgson's tactics and demeanor lack the authority to shape the squad to his liking.

Gerrard had a very poor performance against Uruguay and a medicore one, at least for him, versus Italy.  Neither losses can be fully pegged on him though.  In the Italy match, England's lack of a true defensive midfielder, which they don't even have in the squad, hurt them because no one could stifle the Italian attack.  Neither Gerrard nor Henderson are true DMs and it's idiotic to ask them to play such a role on the world's biggest stage.  Hodgson supposedly imploys zonal marking, so it was either executed quite poorly on both of Italy's goals or nobody listened.  The lack of coverage on the second goal and the careless positioning by Hart are clear signs of a insufficiently managed side.

The Uruguay match was just plain awful from everyone, even for Suarez.  He scored two goals, but was statistically one of, if not the, worst player on the pitch.  Uruguay overall had a passing rate of 64.7%, 53.9% in the England half, and did not connect on a single one of their 18 cross attempts.  Unfortunately the England defense went asleep for a total of about ten seconds and it cost them the match.  Hodgson's tactical approach is a support method of twos and the two centre backs, Jagielka and Cahill, failed to communicate on the first goal, allowing Suarez to sneak in and put away a brilliant header.

Everyone wants to blame Gerrard for the second goal since he miscalculated his header and passed it on to his Liverpool teammate, but it was the brilliance of Suarez to net at a tight angle with scorching pace.  Still it was Gerrard's error that gave him the ball and actually Cahill did a great job in cutting down Suarez' perspective, but Hart's indecisiveness to go for it or stay back was quite apparent and he ended up doing neither.  If he would have stayed back, he would at least had a chance of a save, but getting stuck in the middle left him little chance.

No one seems to be talking about Rooney missing three point blank chances, one in the Italy match and two versus Uruguay.  He connects on one of those, this post doesn't happen.  England still has hope against Costa Rica.  He better realize that if it weren't for Sterling, Sturridge, and Johnson, he would have had zero assists and zero goals, they better be on his Christmas card list.

Listen I can spew stats all day to disprove Gerrard's culpability and direct the blame on others, but it's just as stupid as being a sensationalist and blaming the captain for a total piss poor team effort.  The bottom line is, and it pains me to say this, they should have brought Michael Carrick and begged Gareth Barry to come, so they would have a true DM.  I don't want to get into why I would have picked a different squad, but I don't see the point in taking Lampard and an injured Oxlade-Chamberlain.

Also, if reports are true, and Hodgson still has a job after the World Cup, than the only people to truly blame are the donkey shepherds at the FA.  Hodgson is not the manager to take England anywhere, not even a watermelon festival.  They should go after a gaffer with balls, who that is, well I don't know, but I would even take André Villas-Boas at this point.

How good is Luis Alberto Suárez Díaz?

Before the World Cup match between Uruguay and England, Roy Hodgson said that Luis Suarez is not yet 'world class'.  Well, he found out the hard way how wrong he was.  Suarez may not have had the greatest match, but his world class ability shone through.

Let's see how he sizes up against some other players considered 'world class'.  Charted below is their previous seasons in their respective leagues except for Falcao, his stats are from his previous and last season in La Liga with Atletico Madrid.

	Suarez	Messi	Ronaldo	Bale	Costa	Falcao
age	27	26	29	24	25	28
app (sub)	33	29(2)	30	24(3)	34(1)	34
mins	2962	2498	2537	2065	2952	2896
goals	31	28	31	15	27	28
assists	12	11	9	12	3	1
chances	87	75	47	40	45	32
npg90	0.94	0.79	0.89	0.66	0.67	0.62
gcp90	1.3	1.4	1.3	1.2	0.91	0.9
ccp90	2.6	2.8	1.6	1.8	1.4	1
pass %	74.8	85	80.3	76.3	75.5	79.9
bp %	44.1	44.6	56.4	52.2	61	59.4
sacc %	44.8	46.3	43.1	34.1	50	43.1
shot %	17.1	17.5	14.4	17.1	25	22.8
TTI90	17	13.1	12.9	11.5	15.5	12.8
	Sturridge	Y. Toure	Aguero	RVP	Rooney	Ribery
age	24	31	26	30	28	31
app (sub)	26(3)	35	20(3)	18(3)	27(2)	18(4)
mins	2267	2917	1526	1578	2446	1635
goals	21	20	17	12	17	10
assists	7	9	6	3	10	10
chances	29	40	34	16	56	56
npg90	0.83	0.43	1	0.57	0.51	0.55
gcp90	1.1	0.9	1.4	0.86	1	1.1
ccp90	1.2	1.2	2	0.9	2.1	2.8
pass %	79.3	90.1	84.9	76.7	80.1	83.9
bp %	53.4	35.1	56	50.9	48.4	50.8
sacc %	42.4	42.2	50	33.9	42.6	49.2
shot %	21.2	31.3	19.8	19.4	16.8	17
TTI90	11	10.2	11.8	10.5	15.4	17.8

Suarez comes in 2nd in non-penalty goals per 90, 3rd in goals created per 90, and 3rd in chances created per 90.  He also finished 4th in shot accuracy.  Unfortunately he had the worst pass rate, but he did have the second lowest back pass percentage, bettered only by Yaya Toure.  His TTI90 was second worst after Franck Ribery, mainly due to bad pass attempts.

Overall he is bested by Messi alone, but the Argentinian's stats are padded by 6 penalty goals where Suarez had none.  If you consider the six penalties that Ronaldo converted, Suarez is much better overall.  He already trumps the defending Ballon D'or winner in nearly every category, but take away spot kicks and CR7 is not even part of the conversation.

Speaking of the Ballon D'or, if Suarez can continue his scorching pace, Messi should be the only other player considered.  How they and their teams perform in the World Cup is probably on what the award will hinge.  Both are off to great starts, but Uruguay will have to beat Italy if they want to advance to the knock-out stages.  Suarez will probably once again have to prove his 'world class' if they are to do so.