davek
Player Valuation: £150m
An accusation against this side (and it is a cause for concern as far as I'm concerned) is that we rely too heavily on one player - a player on the verge of leaving if a massive change of heart isn't found between now and the summer transfer window.
I, and others, take the view that the barb "Lukaku + luggage" is dangerously near the truth. Many others take the view that we aren't as reliant on him as we think (and it's fair to say the Liverpool Echo in all its idiocy has been trying over the last fortnight to run insanely down a road that portrays him as not the be all and end all of Koeman's Everton team...who can forget the bizarre 'Everton and CL football without Lukaku's goals" numb-nuts piece last week?!)
But what are the facts?
Below I set out the measure of 'one man team' as far as an attacker is concerned by measuring the only two factors worth a good God damn: goals and assist. The findings are shocking, and they firmly underline the extent to which we are imbalanced as a football team and ill-equipped to progress without Lukaku.
Using the top 7 teams who have a small points gap on West Brom, and who are a cut above the rest of the PL at the moment, here are the stats for star players and their value to their teams.
Goals / assists as a % of key involvement in total number of PL goals scored by club - 2016/17.
Lukaku
21 / 6
53%
Ibrahimovic
15 / 4
48%
Sanchez
18 / 9
44%
Kane
18 / 4
41%
Costa
17 / 5
39%
Mane
12 / 5
28%
Aguero
12 / 0
23%
...and the same metric applied to the next best performers at each of the top 7 clubs:
Alli
13 / 3
30%
Eriksen
5 / 10
28%
Hazard
11 / 4
25%
De Bruyne
4 / 9
25%
Pedro
7 / 7
24%
Lallana
7 /7
23%
Firminho
9 / 4
22%
Barkley
4 / 7
21%
Ozil
5 / 4
16%
From that we can appreciate just how much of an overbalance there is in our team in terms of overall impact spread across it.
Two related observations jump out:
1/ Obviously Lukaku's colossal input into the season has us where we are right now.
2/ The greater depth of significant contribution from 'secondary' players at our rivals is startling.
I dont know whether it's the way we are set up to play in terms of committing less bodies to attack this season, or whether outside of Lukaku are players just aren't confident enough to get up the field and score on a regular basis or a combination of both, but something is very much out of whack in terms of balance, and with the summer looming it is a feature of this team that needs sorting out asap because it is no basis whatsoever for progress.
Thoughts?
I, and others, take the view that the barb "Lukaku + luggage" is dangerously near the truth. Many others take the view that we aren't as reliant on him as we think (and it's fair to say the Liverpool Echo in all its idiocy has been trying over the last fortnight to run insanely down a road that portrays him as not the be all and end all of Koeman's Everton team...who can forget the bizarre 'Everton and CL football without Lukaku's goals" numb-nuts piece last week?!)
But what are the facts?
Below I set out the measure of 'one man team' as far as an attacker is concerned by measuring the only two factors worth a good God damn: goals and assist. The findings are shocking, and they firmly underline the extent to which we are imbalanced as a football team and ill-equipped to progress without Lukaku.
Using the top 7 teams who have a small points gap on West Brom, and who are a cut above the rest of the PL at the moment, here are the stats for star players and their value to their teams.
Goals / assists as a % of key involvement in total number of PL goals scored by club - 2016/17.
Lukaku
21 / 6
53%
Ibrahimovic
15 / 4
48%
Sanchez
18 / 9
44%
Kane
18 / 4
41%
Costa
17 / 5
39%
Mane
12 / 5
28%
Aguero
12 / 0
23%
...and the same metric applied to the next best performers at each of the top 7 clubs:
Alli
13 / 3
30%
Eriksen
5 / 10
28%
Hazard
11 / 4
25%
De Bruyne
4 / 9
25%
Pedro
7 / 7
24%
Lallana
7 /7
23%
Firminho
9 / 4
22%
Barkley
4 / 7
21%
Ozil
5 / 4
16%
From that we can appreciate just how much of an overbalance there is in our team in terms of overall impact spread across it.
Two related observations jump out:
1/ Obviously Lukaku's colossal input into the season has us where we are right now.
2/ The greater depth of significant contribution from 'secondary' players at our rivals is startling.
I dont know whether it's the way we are set up to play in terms of committing less bodies to attack this season, or whether outside of Lukaku are players just aren't confident enough to get up the field and score on a regular basis or a combination of both, but something is very much out of whack in terms of balance, and with the summer looming it is a feature of this team that needs sorting out asap because it is no basis whatsoever for progress.
Thoughts?
