Griezmann to replace Suarez? That's mental!

Antoine Griezmann, the 23-year-old French International who did little to nothing in the World Cup, has made it known that he wants out of Real Sociedad.  Hopefully Rodgers will be smart and ignore him.  While France scored 8 goals in Brazil, Griezmann was on the pitch for 299 minutes and couldn't even manage an assist.

As for his efforts with Real Sociedad, the Frenchman benefits greatly from having Carlos Vela as a teammate.  In fact, Vela should be the player we go after.  How great would that be?  Bringing on the former Gunner to stick it to Arsene over the Sanchez debacle.

	Griezmann	Vela	Suarez
app(subs)	31(4)	35(2)	33
mins	2652	3104	2962
p90	29.5	34.5	32.9
goals	16	16	31
assist	3	12	12
chances	34	78	87
npgp90	0.54	0.41	0.94
gcp90	0.64	0.81	1.3
ccp90	1.15	2.26	2.6
ap90	0.1	0.35	0.37
ccv	8.7	15.4	14.2
pass%	77.2	78.7	74.8
bp%	46.6	42.9	44.1
sacc%	47.7	41.9	44.8
shot%	14.4	18.6	17.1
TTI90	10.9	11.2	17
gap90	1.49	1.48	1.43
gsp90	1.53	1.65	2.92
gop90	0.04	0.17	1.49
tgop	0.18	0.18	1.32

As you can see from the stats above, Vela was much more valuable to Sociedad than Griezmann.  The Frenchman's stats aren't necessarily bad, even though 34 chances created is pretty poor, but they pale in comparison to his Mexican teammate.  Griezmann is a poacher and not much else, Vela is the more complete player.

I'm not sure why Arsenal let Vela go, they never really gave him a chance to begin with.  In 6 years with the Gunners, he only appeared in 62 matches and was loaned out 3 times.  He hardly started either, accumulating 1051 minutes in 37 league appearances.  The only thing that would worry me is price, if Sociedad think they can get £20m for Griezmann, they are going to want Man United money for Vela.

Coutinho, Sterling, & Agger all had higher gopds than Suarez last year

The winner of 'goals on pitch difference' for Liverpool last season was Coutinho with Sterling and Agger coming up 2nd and 3rd respectively.  Similar to +/- that is used in basketball, gopd measures the amount of goals a team scored against amount allowed while that player is on the pitch.  Here are the results for relevant LFC players from last season:

	mins	pp90	ga	gap90	gs	gsp90	diff
Coutinho	2323	25.8	37	1.43	78	3.02	1.59
Sterling	2220	24.7	31	1.26	69	2.80	1.54
Agger	1421	15.8	18	1.14	42	2.66	1.52
Suarez	2962	32.9	47	1.43	96	2.92	1.49
Sturridge	2267	25.2	31	1.23	68	2.70	1.47
Johnson	2515	27.9	38	1.36	79	2.83	1.47
Henderson	3129	34.8	42	1.21	93	2.67	1.47
Allen	1443	16.0	21	1.31	44	2.75	1.44
Skrtel	3221	35.8	50	1.40	99	2.77	1.37
Gerrard	2895	32.2	44	1.37	86	2.67	1.30
Flanagan	1890	21.0	38	1.81	63	3.00	1.19
Lucas	1896	21.1	27	1.28	49	2.32	1.04
Toure	1443	16.0	20	1.25	36	2.25	1.00
Sakho	1478	16.4	25	1.52	38	2.32	0.79

The gopd average for Liverpool was 1.33 per match, which does not bode well for Gerrard and anyone else below him on the table.  Flanagan is particularly dreadful being his 3 goal scored per 90 is second highest, but his 1.81 goals allowed is worst.  I'm at a loss for words when it comes to Sakho, maybe he just isn't that good, and if you would have asked me last week if selling Lucas was a good idea, I would have said absolutely not, but now I'm beginning to wonder if he's no longer of much value.

I'm not surprised by any of the players in the top five except for maybe Agger, who we should truly not sell, but Johnson at sixth is perplexing.  I figured he'd be much worse.  Maybe we should hold on to him for a little bit longer.

By the way, of all players who played at least 1000 league minutes last season, Aly Cissokho had the highest goal scored per 90 at 3.05 and highest gopd at 1.73. Go figure.

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.

Suarez?! We don't need no stinkin' Suarez!

Don't have much time to post now, but I did some research on match results for the past three-and-a-half seasons and broke them down according to whether Suarez played or not.  Here's the data:

	w/o	with	w/o	with	w/o	with	w/o	with
season	10-11	10-11	11-12	11-12	12-13	12-13	13-14	13-14
matches	1	13	7	31	5	33	5	33
goals for	1	25	10	37	12	59	5	96
goals allowed	0	13	10	30	3	40	3	47
win	1	7	3	11	4	12	3	23
draw	0	2	2	8	1	12	1	5
loss	0	4	2	12	0	9	1	5
points	3	23	11	41	13	48	10	74

	Totals		Avg/Pct
	w/o	with	w/o	with
matches	18	110	-	-
goals for	28	217	1.56	1.97
goals allowed	16	130	0.89	1.18
win	11	53	61.1	48.2
draw	4	27	22.2	24.5
loss	3	30	16.7	27.3
points	37	186	2.1	1.7

Basically we score more goals with Suarez, but allow less and win more without him.  I have a lot more on this that I'll post later.  Cheers.

Paul Scholes: clandestine Liverpool fan

The Ginger Prince appears obsessed with the Reds these days, sounding off on our players whenever he can.  I would say he's a wind-up muppet, but he's not, most of the time he actually talks sense.

He most recently chimed in on the Luis Suarez transfer saga, questioning whether 'El Conejo Loco' and Messi will be able to play together. “If Luis Suarez does sign for Barcelona from Liverpool, will Lionel Messi ‘accept’ him? Suarez is a centre forward and he won’t want to play out wide. I can’t see Suarez and Messi linking well together,” Scholes wrote on his Paddy Power blog.

He's not afraid to criticize his former club either.  On the Shaw transfer, he wrote, 'For a left-back to be worth £34m shows how silly the game has gone. For that money I want a centre-forward who’s going to score 30 goals a season.'  Preaching to the choir, my frienemy.

Before the World Cup, he praised 'the Liverpool way' of playing football and challenged the English to emulate it in Brazil.  On the subject he wrote, 'It would be refreshing for England to adopt Liverpool’s attacking mentality in Brazil. Really go for it. That means certainly four, and possibly five, Liverpool players in the England starting XI against Italy on June 14' and 'I’d love to see Roy be brave enough to play like Liverpool (or Man United teams of the past).'  Glad to see he realizes the glory years of his former club are in the past.

When it comes to Gerrard, he's had nothing but love, stating in the same post, 'Gerrard (a good leader who will have quickly moved on from that slip) has adjusted his game superbly, very much like I did' and 'That’s the big difference between Steven (Gerrard) and Lampard, for example. I’m not sure Lampard has the ability to control a game. He’s always someone who’s up trying to score goals.'  You know now he's expecting a nice Christmas present for the Gerrard household.

The best part is he gets a joke in here and there, for instance, 'Defensively Liverpool were poor – conceding 50 goals – but they can be contenders again next year IF they can get two world-class centre halves and a left-back. I’m talking about players of the standard of Jaap Stam and Rio Ferdinand.' Rio Ferdinand, world class!?!? Oh the wit.

It's too bad Scholesy wasted his career on the dark side.  He should have went to Italy or Spain, where he's actually more appreciated and wouldn't have played in the shadows of bigger personalities.  No matter what, I've never desired him to play for Liverpool and he has never been better than Gerrard.

Memphis Depay: The Dutch Raheem Sterling

If you haven't been impressed with 20-year-old Dutch attacking midfielder, Memphis Depay, at the World Cup, than there's plenty more to drool over.  First off, one of my favorite sites, StatsBomb, wrote an excellent article about how he may be a great replacement for Suarez.  Here's his stats from last season at PSV compared to some of our players and one soon-to-be former player:

	Depay	Sterling	Coutinho	Lallana	Suarez
age	20	19	22	26	27
app (sub)	32	24(9)	28(5)	37(1)	33
mins	2694	2220	2323	3082	2962
goals	12	9	5	9	31
assists	8	5	7	6	12
chances	86	51	64	68	87
npg90	0.37	0.36	0.19	0.26	0.94
gcp90	0.67	0.57	0.47	0.44	1.3
ccp90	2.88	2.06	2.5	1.9	2.6
ap90	0.27	0.2	0.27	0.21	0.37
ccv	9.4	9.7	10.8	11.1	14.2
pass %	77.5	81.7	80.6	84.6	74.8
bp %	44.1	46.8	36.7	50.3	44.1
sacc %	48.4	48.9	28.7	41.4	44.8
shot %	9.1	20	7	18	17.1
TTI90	11.6	12.1	11	13.9	17

The thing that stands out most is his chances created per 90, he is the best of the bunch, even better than Suarez.  Speaking of 'El Conejo Loco', Depay comes second only to him in non-penalty goals per 90, goals created per 90, and assists per 90.  Only Coutinho keeps better care of the ball, but not by much.

For some reason he's only valued at £4.4m at http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk. I'm sure that was pre-World Cup, because it would be idiotic for PSV to let him go for less than £15m.  Though unlike Lallana, I wouldn't mind spending upwards of £27m for him.

Huntelaar to replace Suarez?

There are reports that we are interested in bringing in Klaas-Jan Huntelaar to 'replace' Suarez.  First and foremost, Suarez is not 'replaceable' except for maybe by Messi.  Bringing in Huntelaar would be purely on his goal-scoring prowess and not his goal creation ability, though Suarez trumps him in both regards.  Huntelaar, who had that crazy period where he jumped from Ajax to Real Madrid to Milan to Schalke in little over two seasons, has actually settled at the Bundesliga side for four seasons now.  Here is the output of him and Suarez from last season.

	Huntelaar	Suarez
age	31*	27
app (sub)	17(1)	33
mins	1454	2962
goals	12	31
assists	0	12
chances	9	87
npg90	0.74	0.94
gcp90	0.74	1.3
ccp90	0.56	2.6
ap90	0	0.37
ccv	0	0.14
pass %	74.5	74.8
bp %	41.8	44.1
sacc %	41.8	44.8
shot %	21.8	17.1
TTI90	11.5	17

*Huntelaar will turn 31 in early August.

Huntelaar is only better at one thing, shot selection, but not significantly.  He does appear to hold on to the ball better, but Suarez has approximately 37.3% more touches per match.

Other than the fact that Huntelaar will struggle to make up for the loss of goals provided by Suarez, he will provide little to no assists nor chances created.  Also, he'll be 31 this August and though the season before last he regained his 'Ajax form', he has battled niggling injuries much of the past four seasons at Schalke.  Here are his stats from the past five seasons:

	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14
	Milan	Schalke	Schalke	Schalke	Schalke	Totals
age	27	28	29	30	31
app (sub)	11(14)	22(2)	32	26	17(1)	108(17)
mins	1046	1986	2796	2225	1454	9507
goals	7	8	29	10	12	66
assists	0	1	8	4	0	13
chances	5	11	39	22	9	86
npg90	0.52	0.32	0.74	0.36	0.74	0.55
gcp90	0.6	0.41	1.19	0.57	0.74	0.75
ccp90	0.43	0.5	1.25	0.89	0.56	0.81
ap90	0	0.05	0.26	0.16	0	0.12
ccv	0	0.1	0.21	0.18	0	0.15
pass %	81.7	76.2	76.1	74.1	74.5	76
bp %	-	-	-	47.4	41.8	45.8
sacc %	30.6	30	35.3	28.7	44.8	45.6
shot %	14.3	8	19.3	9.3	21.8	19.8
TTI90	10.4	11.5	11.2	10.3	11.5	11

The most impressive thing is that his TTI90 stays consistent, but he appears to be unpredictable in most every other stat, which only adds to his risk.  The other thing is his price.  His valuation is set at £10.56, not a chance in hell should anyone pay that much.  Even at £8m, it's a gamble for a 15-20 goal scorer.  I can understand Rodgers' thinking here, right-footed poacher to pair with Sturridge, but there's definitely better prospects.  If Huntelaar's teammate, Jefferson Farfan, wasn't about to undergo knee surgery, he would be a much preferred choice.