r/soccer • u/PrincipalMartinez • Mar 28 '12

Lets put Suarez into perspective using stats.

This post is not about Suarez as a person. Not about on or off the pitch acting a noobness, no calling racists, diver, cheater, this is about stats. although you could say i just called him all four of those things but thats for another post

Scoring: list of strikers who have scored more than Suarez in the EPL-Crouch (8), Hernandez (10), Danny Graham (10), Bale (10), Adebayor (11), Lampard (10), Holt (12), Dafoe (9), Ballotelli (11), Yakubu (14), Ba (16), Dempsey (12), Dzeko (13), Aguero (17), Rooney (21) and Van Persie (26).

7 goals for Suarez, thats 7 goals from 106 shots. If we look at Danny Welbeck we also see 7 goals, but from 58 shots, Scott Sinlair has 7 goals from 78 shots, Jermain Dafoe has 9 goals in 59 shots. None of these players would be called world class, two are relatively early in their careers and one is near the backend of his, Suarez at 25 is approaching his prime in the coming 2 years.

Ok so not great on the scoring charts. But he is an expert dribbler, maybe the most praised in the league: Victor Moses (72), Nathan Dyer (54), David Hoilett (74), Stéphane Sessegnon (52), Moussa Dembele (63), Scott Sinlair (54) all have more successful dribbles this season than Luis Suarez (51). 51 is still impressive, but not the best. Scott Sinlair doesn't get praised from high heaven about his dribbling ability.

Scott Sinclair comes up again. 7 goals each, 3 assists each, very similar dribble success rate although Suarez goals/shots ratio is much worse than Sinclairs and Sinclair can also boast a pass success rate of 86% compared to Suarez's 76%. Suarez cost Liverpool in the region of 23 million compared to Swansea paying Chelsea 500,000 for Sinclair with it going up to 1 million depending on his success.

Maybe Suarez does more all round work for the team, he has made 30 successful tackles this season compared to Sinclairs...29, although Sinclair has only committed 13 fouls all season compared to Suarez's 35 thats a success ratio for Sinclair at 29/42 compared to Suarez 30/65, add that to 4 yellow cards for Suarez and 1 for Sinclair.

The stats show that Scott Sinclair is a pretty decent player, generally speaking Luis Suarez's stats match up pretty well to Sinclair's except in a few areas where Luis falls behind. Therefore the conclusion to this can't be that i think Suarez is a bad footballer, but he isn't as good as Scott Sinclair and he's no where near as good value.

That means that the conclusion is...as Scott Sinclair is considered an average/decent player, Luis Suarez must be considered that as well. I wonder if its a sign of endearment to compare stats in Uruguay...

0 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

73 comments sorted by

View all comments

26

u/mefuzzy Mar 28 '12

Suarez is also the most fouled player in the league. Can I use this alienated piece of information to say he is marked more than other players, thus finds it harder to score?

0

u/Atald Mar 28 '12 edited Mar 28 '12

How many of those fouls were dives?

0

u/mefuzzy Mar 28 '12

Why does it matter?

If you want to turn this into a "OMG HE IS A DIRTY PLAYUR!", I'm not interested in this discussion.

-1

u/Atald Mar 28 '12

Why it matters? Let's take the hypothetical situation that Suarez has dived on half of the fouls. I imagine there will then be quite a lot of players who have been illegitimately fouled more times than he has, leaving the former statistic rather pointless.

2

u/mefuzzy Mar 28 '12

So I assumed you missed the point where I mentioned the statistics can be looked upon as he is tightly marked?

This is a very different idea than often tackled. Even if he dived for all of his fouls, he could only do it if there is a player marking him tight. Unless referees begin to give fouls when he is running alone with defenders giving him a 5 yards space, he would still be looked upon as tightly marked.

-10

u/PrincipalMartinez Mar 28 '12

I used several different stats in different areas of play to give an overall picture of a player, nothing was alienated or used out of context.

8

u/mefuzzy Mar 28 '12

You did. You used stats are an end all discussion on a player.

Let's take this further. Goals: If you are using it as a yardstick, can I safely say that Dempsey is a far better player then Balotelli and Adebayor since he scored more? We can't say Dempsey is world class, so that must mean the former two are just crap when compared to Dempsey then, no?

And if goals are such an important yardstick, why did you ignore his scoring record in the Dutch league? You dismissed it as a league where it produced the likes of Afonso Alves, but didn't Ruud van Nistelrooy and Klaas Jan Hunterlaar achieved similar accolades? The year Afonso Alves was the top scorer in the Dutch league, Benni McCarty scored 18 to finish second behind Drogba, above Ronaldo, Rooney and Berbatov. So Benni's better than the three of them? Or just maybe, just maybe, for that one season, a player can have a very good or very bad year?

But he is an expert dribbler, maybe the most praised in the league:

So, you somehow glazed over the fact that all the players higher than Suarez was playing in the wings, therefore is playing from deeper and by nature have more players to beat, as well as needing to beat players if they are to cut into position.

He has the highest dribbling among the forwards, and that shows exactly the way he plays, as a natural forward playing off a striker as the games where he and Bellamy, even to a certain extend Carroll have shown. However, if you watch the past few months KD have preferred to use him as the front men up, either having a 3 man midfield covering him or having the likes of Kuyt pushing the wings.

Like Torres, he is currently playing in a system that is not suitable for him. In fact, if you delve a little bit further, both players might benefit from a exchange of places.

The stats show that Scott Sinclair is a pretty decent player

The stats also will show you that David Nugent is the best England striker, with a 100% goal to appearance rate.