On topic:
Stats för matchen mot Sunderland.
http://www.anfieldindex.com/3092/sea...erpool-fc.html
Säsongen 10/11
Now for successful passes. The team average is 75%. Lucas excels here with a pass completion percentage of 83% well above the teams average.
Lucas was involved in 21 chances.
Lucas territory, tackling. Lucas has made a staggering 157 tackles of them 100 have been won giving him a tackles won rate of 63.69%.
Duels or 50/50s. This seems to be one of Lucas specialities he’s been involved in 462 possession duels coming on top 266 times so a rate of 57.58.
Now for headers won Lucas has won 52.52% of his aerial duals.
Lucas has made 59 interceptions.
Säsongen 08/09: Jämförelse Lucas/Mascherano/Alonso
Spoiler:
Lucas, Mascher & Xabi Stats comparison for 08/09
The number of appearances between Javier Mascherano and Lucas Leiva may seem very similar however number of minutes have been added to put this in to context. Lucas was involved in 25 appearances however he only started 13 of these games in comparison to Mascherano’s 27 starts.
We were very surprised by the pass completion statistics displayed above. Lucas definitely matched the far more experience Mascherano and Xabi Alonso. The argument can definitely be made asking whether Lucas could continue to pass this way in a longer season and at a consistent percentage? Well he’s answered those questions this season averaging a slightly higher 84%.
Looking at their zonal passing statistics Lucas has made approximately 40% of his open play passes in the defensive half. This can be compared to 43% of Mascherano’s passes being in the defensive half and Xabi Alonso averaging just 35% of all his open play passes in the defensive half. So Xabi making 65% of all of his open play passes in the attacking half is an incredible statistic and just shows what Liverpool are missing at this moment in time. Especially with the fact that Xabi was completing 79% of his passes in the attacking half. In this current season none of the Liverpool players are averaging anywhere near 79% completion in the attacking half. A superlative effort from our past pass master Xabi.
Now onto Javier Mascherano, who has a 92% pass completion in the defensive zone and 75% in the attacking zone. This may contradict many supporter’s observations that Mascherano couldn’t pass a ball. The stats seem to state that he could pass the ball pretty accurately, but we’ll touch on this a little later. Lucas’s numbers are also surprising seeing the amount of stick he has taken in the last few years, however his accuracy has decreased in the attacking third this year (as it has with the whole of the team).
Lucas, again, sprang a surprise with his reading of the game doing very well in comparison to his colleagues. An area that he was left behind in was the blocking of shots which Mascherano again led as the main defensive midfielder.
Lucas Leiva’s poorest area, which was very evident when watching the game as well as the stats, was the amount of free kicks he was conceding. Looking at the table below it is clear that he was giving away the most free kicks out of three players but did get fouled, on average, as much as Xabi did.
Javier Mascherano is undoubtedly the better “defensive” midfielder out of the three players. The interceptions per game was an impressive stat as well as the stat that he’d made 86 interception in the season. There seemed to be defined roles for each player with Xabi doing the passing and Mascherano covering, tackling and reading the game.
The one stand out point so far is that it’s turning out that Lucas seems to be “good” at most aspects of the game whilst Mascherano and Xabi Alonso are outstanding in their specialised areas. Both articles are showing Lucas in a very positive light even though he’s not been the best at either of the disciplines. It shows that the player we have at the moment should be supported by the fans as he has a lot of potential to improve.
Goals
Xabi Alonso got three goals out of the 77 (4%) that Liverpool scored that season. Not a great return for Xabi but playing as a defensive midfielder, you wouldn’t expect him to be prolific. A lot of people will start to compare to Meireles’s goal scoring however Raul has been played off of the front man in the majority of those games and therefore had the freedom to go further up the pitch.
Lucas Leiva and Javier Mascherano failed to hit the back of the net in the 2008/2009 season however they did manage a few efforts on goal.
Shots
Xabi Alonso had the most shots out of the three players with a total of 32, averaging one every 78 minutes. Mascherano averaged one every 144 minutes whilst Lucas averaged a shot every 92 minutes. The last stat is quite surprising as it seems Lucas was playing further up the pitch in his early years at Anfield. This season he’s managed only six shots at the rate of; a shot every 372 minutes. That’s a massive difference three years on. It also shows how Lucas Leiva’s role over the years has evolved and he’s now much more a defensive midfielder than the attacking one we brought from Gremio. Having Javier Mascherano as the defensive midfielder definitely gave Lucas and Xabi enough license to get further if they wanted but it seems Rafa Benitez always wanted the two central midfielders to be compact.
Creativity
Xabi Alonso also took the honours for most chances created. He created 67 chances in the 2,516 minutes he played averaging 2.4 chances every 90 minutes. Javier Mascherano created 33 chances in 2307 minutes and Lucas Leiva created 18 chances in 1282 minutes. Mascherano actually had a slightly higher average than Lucas in the chance creation per 90 minutes with Javier averaging 1.3 and Lucas 1.2. Not much in there really but still a higher average.
There is a surprising statistic in the assists area. Despite creating 67 chances Xabi only made 3 assists all season. Obviously we cannot attribue the chance completion to Xabi as he should get credit for creating the chance however he has no control over the outcome of the opportunity.
Lucas Leiva managed to get two assists whilst playing a bit part role that year which is a pretty good achievement when Xabi had managed three and Mascherano one. Even more impressive is that Lucas Leiva created eighteen chances in total and had a higher percentage of assists out these chances than his colleauges. Unfortunately Lucas has not been able to reproduce this in the Premier League this season with only one assist which is a clear indication of the evolution of his role at the club; more concentration on the defensive side of the game.
Random stats:-
* Between the three players compared they created a total of 118 chances.
* The entire Liverpool team created 566 chances in the 2008/2009 season.
* The percentage of chances converted into goals for Liverpool that season was just below 14%.
* The percentage of chances created by Alonso out of the total was 12%
* The percentage of chances created by Mascherano out of the total was 6%
* The percentage of chances created by Lucas Leiva out of the total was 3%
* The defensive midfield trio compared in this article created 21% of total chances for Liverpool FC in 2008/2009.
Overall
It has been an interesting comparison between the three players. We had expected it to be pretty one sided and in certain areas but Lucas Leiva’s stats were quite intriguing in the fact that he didn’t do as badly as people had made out. If we take anything from this article it is that Lucas Leiva has actually been pretty competitive with our outstanding midfielders of the last few years. The pass completion percentages of Lucas’s have been brought into the spot light this season but the fact is that he’s been completing passes at this rate since he’s been at the club. The articles show that a lot of fans have been unfair on Lucas. As we’ve mentioned he had a higher duel win % than the other midfielders compared and he has further improved in the defensive areas this season.
Lucas has attempted 125 tackles this season which is the highest individual number by any player in the Premier League. The contract renewal yesterday was a glowing reference of how Lucas has been playing for us in the 2010/2011 season. We hop he can continue to play as he has been doing in the years to come.
Javier Mascherano’s statistics proved he could actually pass a ball which, again, a lot of supporters believed he could not do. The statistics show that his reading of the game defensively was the best out of the three in 2008/2009. His excellent tackling ability has been highlighted in the articles.
Xabi Alonso has been our standout midfielder from the Benitez era. His distribution of the ball, creativity and goals have been sorely missed from a centre midfielder / defensive midfield position since he left (before you say it, Meireles played off of the striker when he’s scored goals for us, hence his dry patch now that Suarez, Kuyt and Carroll take up those positions). If Xabi Alonso was to ever contemplate coming back to Liverpool FC, we believe all Liverpool supporters would welcome him back with open arms.
Så kort och gott, Lucas spelar av en anledning. Till och med säsongen 08/09 höll han jämna steg med Alonso och Masch trots mindre erfarenhet och flera år yngre.
Kan gräva fram statsen där han jämförs med de andra topplagens DM om det fortfarande finns tvivel på hans kompetens.
För övrigt är diskussionen döfödd då de flesta soffcoacher tror sig veta bättre än Liverpools, Brasiliens och Gremios ledarstaber, samtliga fans sammantagna röster förra året, de faktum att Lucas blivit vald till bästa spelare i Serie A i Brasilien som 19-åring etc etc.
Men visst presentera gärna lite fakta som motsäger detta, och inte någon trött huvudräkning på hur många gånger Lucas tappade bollen mot Sunderland och massa subjektivt skitsnack.
Det finns officiella siffror för sånt.