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Liverpool FC Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 11/12 MOD POST #1130
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Article from EPLIndex. Andy Carroll in Brendan Rodgers system.
Since Brendan Rodgers took over at Liverpool, there’s been a lot of speculation about Andy Carroll’s future, with Rodgers himself saying he’d have to “look at” the possibility of loaning out the striker.
Could Andy Carroll fit into the Rodgers style? Swansea’s passing game last season was well documented, so that’s where I started – with a comparison of passing quantity and quality for Liverpool’s and Swansea’s 2011/2012 line-ups. We’re interested in how Carroll might fit in, when set against the types of players that Rodgers assembled at Swansea.
A quick note on data here; I’ve filtered out players who played less than 500 minutes across the season and where a statistic is a quantity rather than a percentage (e.g. number of passes), then I’ve converted it into number per minute played. This deals with players having differing amounts of time on the pitch across a season and makes them comparable.
First up, number of passes played per minute (vertical axis) vs. passing accuracy (horizontal axis). Liverpool players in red and Swansea in blue.
It’s immediately obvious that Carroll (bottom left hand corner of the chart) plays fewer passes per minute on the pitch and is less accurate with those passes than the majority of Swansea’s 2011/2012 team. Or for that matter, compared to his Liverpool team mates. The hypothesis that Rodgers favours a passing game also looks valid, with a cluster of Swansea players appearing in the top-right corner.
We can discount the two goalkeepers’ passing stats for this analysis, but Twitter provided some immediate and very interesting feed-back on other players who appear in the bottom-left of that first chart. On a purely passing analysis, Carroll looks potentially better than Swansea’s Danny Graham, who played under Rodgers, with Carroll playing more passes (0.35/min vs. 0.21/min) but being less accurate (64% vs. 77% accuracy). Maybe he could fit in a Rodgers team after all?
For me, it depends on how you view the Rodgers philosophy. A passing system could be looked at as favouring quality over quantity and in a “don’t give the ball away” approach, more passes and less accuracy would count significantly against a player. Carroll, on average, misplaced eleven passes per game, while Graham misplaced four.
By that measure, the players look much less similar and Carroll gives the ball away nearly three times as often as Graham.
Another point which jumped out from the first chart was that measured solely on passing accuracy and quantity, Suarez doesn’t look particularly good either, with only 75% pass accuracy and 0.42 passes per minute. If Carroll doesn’t fit, then maybe the same is true for Suarez?
It’s time to step outside passing stats and have a look at what else these players might add to a team. I’ve left passing accuracy on the horizontal axis, but now we have chances created per minute on the vertical and the size of the circles is shots on target per minute.
Suddenly, Suarez jumps to the top, with 0.023 chances created per minute and 0.019 shots on target. He’s less accurate with his passing than any player in Swansea’s 2011/2012 team (with the exception of Vorm, the goalkeeper), but valuable in terms of creating goal scoring chances.
Carroll also looks better in this second analysis and he created more chances per minute than any player who was under Rodgers at Swansea last season. As a side note, a few Twitter comments on the original passing analysis picked up that Jay Spearing scored well for passing, but he falls away badly here.
The question which Rodgers must be wrestling with, is how much he is willing to compromise a passing philosophy to generate more goal scoring chances, if at all? Carroll can undoubtedly do damage and create chances, but he will also give the ball away. He might well be an effective player, but is he an effective player of the type that Brendan Rodgers likes? This analysis and some of the manager’s early comments, would suggest not.0 -
Lets not pretend Kenny lost his job because fans are impatient.
He did. It's not up for dispute.
Pretty hilarious we're now hearing from some we don't need a plan B considering a lack of 1 was one of the invented criticisms thrown at Kenny last season. Now we don't need one though, such is the belief in the managers new style of play. You actually couldn't make it up!
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He did. It's not up for dispute.
Pretty hilarious we're now hearing from some we don't need a plan B considering a lack of 1 was one of the invented criticisms thrown at Kenny last season. Now we don't need one though, such is the belief in the managers new style of play. You actually couldn't make it up!
Who said we don't need one? What is being said is that we don't need Carroll and the hoofball as the Plan B, we can use different players in attack without having to resort to that.
Kenny really didn't have one. He changed players on the pitch, but never really changed the approach to a game...0 -
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He did. It's not up for dispute.
Pretty hilarious we're now hearing from some we don't need a plan B considering a lack of 1 was one of the invented criticisms thrown at Kenny last season. Now we don't need one though, such is the belief in the managers new style of play. You actually couldn't make it up!
The problem with Kenny was he quite often didn't seem to have a plan A, and the players seemed without structure or instructions.
Edit: No Diggity beat me to it.0 -
He did. It's not up for dispute.
Pretty hilarious we're now hearing from some we don't need a plan B considering a lack of 1 was one of the invented criticisms thrown at Kenny last season. Now we don't need one though, such is the belief in the managers new style of play. You actually couldn't make it up!
So things like an 8th place finish in the league, the Suarez incident, the money spent etc all played no part in Kenny losing his job? It was totally down to the fans that he lost his job.:D0 -
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He did. It's not up for dispute.
Pretty hilarious we're now hearing from some we don't need a plan B considering a lack of 1 was one of the invented criticisms thrown at Kenny last season. Now we don't need one though, such is the belief in the managers new style of play. You actually couldn't make it up!
Completely agreed on in the need for a Plan B.
Completely disgaree on Kenny:
1) Awful leage results and performances and no real sign that things would improve.
2) Biggest transfer disasters in the club's history
3) His terrbile off-field conduct and PR disasters in terms of the Suarez incident and handling of the media.
Saying it was due to fans having no patience is not accurate - in fact it isn't even up for dispute!0 -
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He did. It's not up for dispute.
Pretty hilarious we're now hearing from some we don't need a plan B considering a lack of 1 was one of the invented criticisms thrown at Kenny last season. Now we don't need one though, such is the belief in the managers new style of play. You actually couldn't make it up!
Alan, I'm struggling with some parts of what your saying.
You're using the idea of selling Carroll as a stick to beat Rodgers with while using it was Dalglish that underutilised him last year.
Lots of talk too of replacing Kuyt and Maxi yet the 2 of them were sat on the bench for more or less the entirity of last season.
There's a certain unreasonableness about all this.
For instance if Borini and Dempsey were to come in and play mostly every game they'd play alot more than Carroll, Kuyt and Maxi combined did last season.
And finally this plan B nonsense should not boil down to throwing Andy Carroll up front if we need a goal, that's not plan B, that's no plan at all.0 -
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He did. It's not up for dispute.
Pretty hilarious we're now hearing from some we don't need a plan B considering a lack of 1 was one of the invented criticisms thrown at Kenny last season. Now we don't need one though, such is the belief in the managers new style of play. You actually couldn't make it up!
We don't get to pick the team. We've a manager who believes in playing the game a certain way. If he isn't willing to alter that style or have a plan B then keeping hold of Carroll is pointless.mayordenis wrote: »And finally this plan B nonsense should not boil down to throwing Andy Carroll up front if we need a goal, that's not plan B, that's no plan at all.
Most reasonable people aren't suggesting that but the way you play with a striker like Andy down the middle as opposed to someone like Suarez should be radically different.
Opr0 -
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