Stats are for Prats

I’d like to start by apologising to anyone that’s offended by the wittiest of phrases that I’ve used to title this piece. I’d used it for emphasis, so that it rolls off the tongue; and not because I think people that use stats are, in fact, prats. That being said, I generally can’t accept any kind of football debate where someone uses stats and stats alone. Sure, on rare occasions they can tell much of the story, such as goals to gauge the output of an out and out striker, but most of the time they don’t even get you halfway there. There is simply too much to the beautiful game that can’t be measured purely from numbers, otherwise why bother watching?

Firmino is the perfect example. As a centre forward his stats are no better than a Championship level striker playing in the Premier League, but try telling a Liverpool fan that. His work rate, unselfishness, touch and movement are perfect for Sadio Mane and Mohammad Salah, who he dovetails perfectly with. These qualities are very hard to calculate, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. What bugs me the most is when the assist stat is used as a primary basis to detail how good they believe a midfielder or winger to be. This is nothing but a starting point again; chance creation is more viable, but even that only provides a snippet. De Bruyne has a much better chance of getting an assist with attackers like Sterling and Aguero in the side, than the likes of Jack Grealish with all that Aston Villa have to offer at the time of writing, which is just after the 2019/20 season.

One Spanish magician helps to make my point perfectly. 150 assists and 57 club goals in 674 Barcelona games are pitiful stats, but I will fight anyone to the death who tells me that Andres Iniesta was not world class for a good number of years. His dribbling in tight spaces was second only to Messi, and while the skill can be assessed somewhat, it doesn’t give an indication as to how difficult the dribble was; whereas one of his biggest assets, finding space between the lines, is impossible to quantify. His ability to receive the ball in between the channels is very hard to evaluate, from which he’d pop it off for someone to give the goal scorer a tap in (Messi would usually be one of the two players). Iniesta isn’t credited with the assist, nor the goal, but has still played a vital part in that goal.

Then there’s a host of stats that pretty much tell me nothing. The completed passes stat is one of them: where is the pass going? Is it a long or short pass? Is it a risky pass or a safe sideways pass? Is it a long pass out to the wing or over the defence to meet the run of an attacker? Each has their place, but some are more difficult than others. Then there’s that of ‘shots on target:’ did the shot trouble the goalkeeper or did it just roll into their arms? Was it from 30 yards or five? Was it at the end of a brilliant move, or a long punt up the field? The tackle stat is another where the potential circumstances are as long as a piece of string, but they are almost always used to establish how good a defender is. Positioning and ability to read the game are not taken into account; and defenders that are poor positionally will inevitably have to complete more last-ditch challenges.

Good stats are too heavily reliant on other people to make them concrete arguments for the ability of a player, in my humble opinion. Paul Scholes ran a game better than anyone I’ve seen in England, but because he doesn’t have the goals and assists to back it up, he was woefully undervalued by many. I’ve read comments about Ryan Giggs being a distinctly average footballer because he hasn’t racked up enough assists, despite being an important member of a team that dominated for two decades. Denis Bergkamp, too, will never get the high level of respect I believe he deserves (he is up there with Henry for Arsenal), mainly based on his stats. We’re bombarded with them every day, on every news outlet, in Facebook comments and in bar room chats, but I ask how someone can have an opinion based on numbers that only come to fruition when a variety of factors are met, with so many other facets of football being ignored.

By Calum Dewsbury