Myths #1: Lucas Only Passes Backwards

Here's an old piece that seems very relevant in view of a tweet from WhoScored today:

In his first game back after injury, @LucasLeiva87 made more forward passes (45) in a PL game than any player has this season

Welcome back, Lucas! 

If you read a lot of my articles, you may notice that I enjoy putting wide spread beliefs (e.g. lies) to bed with the use of statistics.

One I've heard a lot lately is that Lucas only passes the ball backwards, which helps his passing accuracy stats.

I tweeted earlier today that last season in the Premier League, Lucas only played 148 of his 1794 passes backwards. This equates to just 8.25%

There I thought, the issue has been put to bed.

"About 1000 were sideways" was the swift response from the Twittersphere.

As usual, not even close. The full breakdown of passing for Liverpool's player of the season for last year is:

Two out of every three passes by the young Brazilian went forwards.

I haven't heard anyone try to explain this away negatively. Only a matter of time though, no doubt.

Stats obtained from Anfield Index. Please take a look at my other articles, a list of which can be found here.