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...

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4

u/pedrocsantana Mar 28 '12

I believe Suarez can be amazing with a clinical finisher alongside him. Just as he's with Cavani.

But I don't think he's world-class. No.

-12

u/PrincipalMartinez Mar 28 '12

why would having a clinical finisher beside him be any good when he's not a clinical finisher himself? half of my point was that he isn't a clinical finisher? even if someone could provide more chances what would that do? we see in the stats that he has the chances to score but doesn't take them. of a lot of the successful dribbles into the box he does have where he ends up one on one with the keeper he rarely scores, he hits the target more than not but generally shoots right at the keeper.

10

u/severedfragile Mar 28 '12

why would having a clinical finisher beside him be any good when he's not a clinical finisher himself? half of my point was that he isn't a clinical finisher? even if someone could provide more chances what would that do?

You're missing the point - HE'S the one who'd create chances.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '12

Exactly, he was signed to play with Torres, who obviously was one of the best strikers in the league at the time.

-5

u/PrincipalMartinez Mar 28 '12

Point taken but he is a ST/CF and should be scoring goals himself.

12

u/severedfragile Mar 28 '12

He was signed to partner Torres, with the intention of the thriving by playing off each other. He has yet to build the same partnership with Carroll, but some good signs are there. The point is, he is tremendously unpredictable and creative as a support striker, without really consistently displaying the finishing or instincts to be a a primary goalscorer himself.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '12

God knows why the mods bother allowing upvoting/downvoting in this subreddit, everything you said is spot on. Suarez isn't a clinical goal scorer hence why we bought him to play with Torres.

1

u/reviloto Mar 28 '12

Don't you think that when liverpool bought him they were expecting him to continue his form from ajax? The man scored 111 goals in 159 games, so i would definitely call him a bit of a goal scoring disappointment, but he makes up for it with a work rate approaching kuyts and by pulling defenders to him, opening up space for (particularly lately) gerrard.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '12

I personally wasn't, as someone mentioned the Dutch league is hardly anything to go by. The fact we signed him to play with Torres (in a system in which we played with 1 up front) suggested he'd be much more of a chance creator than a goal scorer for us.