Few players score Premier League goals more often than Cody Gakpo. The Liverpool forward performs well at a stat which could be football's Moneyball metric
Ha. I appreciate the shot at Balotelli. Was mentioning the other day that I saw him come on for Genoa against Cagliari. The crowd went crazy seeing him on the touchline and I just laughed because the guy is a NAME, but hasn't been worth his space on the bench in a decade, largely because of what you mention here (all show, no substance.) In the end, he didn't even get a touch in his roughly 10 minutes in the match. One of the best things that Arne has done is play Cody in that position in which he excels for the Oranje, as it produces more xT (last I checked) and it gives him those opportunities that you highlight here, with Mo and Trent doing the work down the right side and then feeding Cody across the box. Great piece.
Thanks, Marc. I remember being sceptical of the Balotelli signing when Liverpool bought him... I wrote this on my old blog at that time, and it said everything:
"if you exclude free-kick goals too then the much maligned Andy Carroll has converted a higher proportion of shots in the last two seasons than Balotelli has, by 5.5% to 5.2%."
The Reds sadly got a similar output from both of them.
Yup. Same here. I remember thinking that the Suarez money was going to burn a hole in their pockets because they'd just sold the club's best player and the fans would be irate if they didn't get another name to try to at least partially replace him. We'd gotten Lallana, Can, Lovren, and Origi in that window, all of whom would go on to do so much more than Balotelli has in the 8(!) clubs he's been with since, but none of whom were even close to being THE signing that would justify losing Suarez.
Ha. I appreciate the shot at Balotelli. Was mentioning the other day that I saw him come on for Genoa against Cagliari. The crowd went crazy seeing him on the touchline and I just laughed because the guy is a NAME, but hasn't been worth his space on the bench in a decade, largely because of what you mention here (all show, no substance.) In the end, he didn't even get a touch in his roughly 10 minutes in the match. One of the best things that Arne has done is play Cody in that position in which he excels for the Oranje, as it produces more xT (last I checked) and it gives him those opportunities that you highlight here, with Mo and Trent doing the work down the right side and then feeding Cody across the box. Great piece.
Thanks, Marc. I remember being sceptical of the Balotelli signing when Liverpool bought him... I wrote this on my old blog at that time, and it said everything:
"if you exclude free-kick goals too then the much maligned Andy Carroll has converted a higher proportion of shots in the last two seasons than Balotelli has, by 5.5% to 5.2%."
The Reds sadly got a similar output from both of them.
Yup. Same here. I remember thinking that the Suarez money was going to burn a hole in their pockets because they'd just sold the club's best player and the fans would be irate if they didn't get another name to try to at least partially replace him. We'd gotten Lallana, Can, Lovren, and Origi in that window, all of whom would go on to do so much more than Balotelli has in the 8(!) clubs he's been with since, but none of whom were even close to being THE signing that would justify losing Suarez.