Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Nemanja Vidić vs. Martin Škrteľ
Apparently Nemanja Vidić is the current odds on favorite to win PFA Player of the Year this season, and well, that sort of baffles me. I'm not saying Vidić is undeserving of recognition as one of the best center backs in the world, but our very own Martin Škrteľ has been just as, if not more impressive this season. The only thing going against the Slovakian back is that he's played in less matches, but the statistical comparison is, well, not much of one.
First we have what center backs are supposed to do best, stop the opposition. This is best represented by tackle success rate, tackles per match, and interceptions per contest. Škrteľ surprisingly takes all three of these categories. He easily beats his Man U counterpart in tackles per match with 1.82 tpm compared to 1.19, he dominates on tackle success rate with a resounding 88.2% to Vidić's 74.4%, and finally, he edges out the Serb, 2.18 to 1.96 in interceptions per. Pretty impressive if you ask me.
Another important trait is the ability to not only pass the ball effectively, but also to get to where you want it to go, in other words, pass success percentage. Once again, Škrteľ is superior, though only by a hair, 87.5% to 86.6%. Our boy also leads on assists with one to none and has created more goal attempts, 4 to 3, in 10 less matches played might I add.
The only category where Vidić dominates is goals scored and if we were talking about strikers that might make a huge difference, but we're not, and in almost every other single category, Škrteľ reigns supreme. Not to mention Liverpool's sweep of Man U exposed the weaknesses of Nemanja.
Labels:
Liverpool,
liverpool fc,
Manchester United,
Skrtel,
Vidic
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Popular Posts
-
I'm not gonna promise much, but let's see how this works out. The line-up is here. Expect a lot of rubbish and Crouch-nagging. T-...
-
Though it's hard to believe anyone would offer £26m for Adam Lallana , what's even more unimaginable is Barcelona letting Alexis San...
-
With the impending (and ridiculous) debacle concerning the future of Rafael Benitez set to play out in the near future, a potential aftersho...
-
I guess I really should say 'stats' of the match. I'm a number geek, if you can't tell, and what's interesting about th...
-
Well, it looks like Fernando Torres will be out for three weeks following the re-aggravation of his adductor muscle injury. Javier Maschera...
-
Brendan Rodgers is not a bad manager, but he's young and still has to learn from his mistakes. Unfortunately, Liverpool may not be the ...
-
Will Suarez succeed at Barca? Yes, he is a footballing genius. Yes, Messi and Neymar will play nice and share the ball. No, Messi and N...
-
I have all the respect in the world for Andrea Pirlo, he is one of the few Italians that I admire, and that says a lot because I have no lov...
-
1. Joe Allen isn't championship material. Well, he would be great in the Championship, but Liverpool will never win anything starting h...
-
Ha ha ha, what a joke. Somebody got their fix on. Not to take anything away from Marseilles, but it took a wonder goal, three non-called h...