Tag Archives: Cazorla

Cazorla (1)

Luis Suarez the selective attention Player of the Year

Here’s the etymology of today’s post:

  • Hey, why didn’t Cazorla get mentioned for PFA player of the year? He’s one of the best players in the League!
  • I should write a post comparing him to some of the others, statistically! That will rile up the stats-haters.
  • Before you read this article, check out Les Crang’s awesome Rogues Gallery piece on van Stapleton the original Arsenal-to-Man U-traitor.
  • Let’s see, Cazorla, Bale, Michu — got to have Michu, everyone loves Michu, Suarez, van Persie, that’s enough. Yeah yeah, Hazard, Mata, blah…
  • Ok, what should I compare, goals, shots, shots on goal, assists, key passes….
  • Uhhh… Santi’s not looking too good here.
  • Holy crap. Van Persie’s a monster and I don’t mean that in the sense of “Robin van Persie, history’s monster” because he is that too. I mean, he’s a stats stuffer. 8 assists to go with 24 goals, on just 128 shots, with 61 key passes. Ouch, maybe I need to look at something else… what about dribbles and turnovers?
  • Ok, fuck this shit, Robin is clearly the Player of the Year. What about Suarez and Bale though? Look at all the possession they get!
  • Wow… that’s kind of crazy. If I look at the minutes per event, Bale and Suarez are putting up crazy numbers both good and bad. I wonder if my readers would find that interesting?

POYAs you can see, when it comes to shots per goal, Cazorla looks kind of poor, at least among this group. Though it’s important to note that Robin scored 2 of his goals off penalties and Cazorla takes a healthy percent of his shots from distance.

That said, there is a magic ratio of shots/shots on goal of 2:1 which I look for in forwards. Van Stapleton hits that closest, Bale is second, and then the rest.

I’ve said this before but it bears repeating, Luis Suarez is a black hole. Just look at the total number of shots and dribbles the man has taken, 383. He’s only attempted 1203 passes, which means that for every 3 passes he’s dribbling or shooting. That makes him similar to Kobe Bryant in a way: he’s the focal point in the Liverpool attack, to a ridiculous degree.

However, some could use the same data to say that, Suarez is very “direct” and I’d have to agree.

That shows in his minutes/shot-keypass-dribble: he’s attacking the opposition with a dribble, shot, or key pass every 5 minutes! 18 times a game! I don’t know if anyone else is that attack-minded in the League because I haven’t studied the entire League. Gareth Bale has a similar number there, one every 7 minutes, while Cazorla has one every 9 minutes. This is my first time looking at this ratio. It seems like it might be important in measuring how “direct” a forward is. Not sure yet, would have to measure other forwards.

On the flip side of that Suarez is also the most wasteful of the group, averaging a failed dribble, missed shot (off target), or just turning the ball over once every 8 minutes. Again, that’s 11 times a game. Still, if he’s doing something we all consider good for the team (Shooting, Dribbling, and Setting up teammates) 18 times a game and only doing something detrimental 11 times a game, well, he’s a net good of +7.

Cazorla and Bale are a net good of +5 each, Robin is a net good of +3, and Michu is a +1.

The Suarez phenomena — people seem to really rate him as a footballer while I never really have — was a puzzler for me for a while. I just couldn’t see what others saw in him. That’s probably because I was selectively watching every turnover, failed dribble (and there are a LOT of those, 196 has to be the most in the League), or wasted shot and judging him based on that while everyone who rates him were looking at the insane output of activity in terms of setting teammates up, trying to get past a man, and having a go at goal.

In the end, I’m not quite sure what my ratio of good attacking qualities (shots, KP, dribbles) to wasteful (missed shots, turnovers, failed dribbles) really tells me because I need to apply it to a broader sample. But even if that turns out to say nothing, the Suarez numbers present an interesting lesson in selective attention for me. Though I am still partial to Cazorla. I like our little pocket dynamite.

Still, selective attention is a killer. If you’re not careful it will…

Bite you in the ass.

Qq

RONALDO SMASH!

Santi Cazorla, better than Bale? Stats say he’s better than RONALDO!

Christiano Ronaldo is known the world over for three things: his abs, his hair, and his title “Would Be World’s Greatest Footballer If Not For That Meddling Messi”. This season, however, Ronaldo has had his title of second-ish best footballer in the world challenged by an upstart young Welshman playing for a small team from Middlesex who goes by the name Gareth Frank Bale.

Both show pony players share many of the same characteristics: both players were gold medalists in diving as youths before switching to football; both were named after R. Frank Beetlebaum who had the 1961 number one hit “Tottenham Won The League in Black and White”; neither player will play defense; both players display a trademark “hulking” before they take a free kick; and both players have a similar mincing run-up, to a toe-punched, shot which they occasionally score and people love.

But there’s a third player, a reserved, quiet player, who works hard for his team, plays both ends of the pitch, and yet still keeps his team going forward. A player who really should be counted among the gods of football but yet is often overlooked because he plays for a team that everyone seems to hate. That player’s name is Santi Cazorla and he plays for The Arsenal.

I ran the numbers over the three players and the results are not surprising, Carzola (whose name can actually be spelled Cazorla, Carzola, Cathorla, and Quaxuwrly) is literally better than both players in every category, except crosses.

Cazorla-Bale-Ronaldo

The one thing every gets extra excited about with Christiano Ronaldo is that he scores goals. But in league play for Real Madrid he has taken an incredible 199 shots and scored just 28 goals. Even worse than that 6 of his goals were penalties, meaning that he needs 9 shots for every goal from open play! 

Extrapolating that number out, which is a highly scientific process requiring advanced mathematical concepts like “division” and “multiplication” we see that if Santi Cazorla were given 199 shots and made the entire focal point of a billion dollar team like Real Madrid, he would actually score MORE goals than Christiano Ronaldo from open play. Remember, this is indisputable fact.

What’s even weirder, like “how I used this one weird trick to get rid of belly fat” weird, is that Cazorla also beats both Bale and CR7GREATEST in every other statistical category. Except crosses, and Bale only edges Cazorla in that category because crosses are pretty much all he does.

Here’s an example of stats telling the whole story: if you look at the number of shots that all three players have, the number of dribbles, the number of passes, and the pass accuracy of all three players, you can see that not only does Cazorla get more of the ball than either of those two but he turns the ball over far less than they do (per possession) and involves his teammates far more.

Santi Cazorla, better than Bale, better than Ronaldo and about 1/10th the price.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Qq

abou

Arsenal 4-1 Reading: he is risen

Welcome to your Easter Sunday Resurrection themed blog post.

Someone rolled the rock out from in front the cave that Wenger stored him in for the last six months and Gervinho’s resurrection is the talk of the town, naturally, as he scored an early goal and assisted on two others in Arsenal’s romp to a 4-1 win over a dreadful Reading side. Gervinho is a player who can divide opinion but credit where it’s due, he was instrumental in three goals for Arsenal yesterday.

Gervinho’s day started bang on form with him tripping over the ball and ignominiously falling over in midfield but he got back up, dusted himself off, and just got on with the game. By the 11th minute he was feeling his oats and played the ball in to Giroud (the pre-pre-assist?) who seemed to lose control only for the ball to fall for Cazorla in the box. The Spaniard’s shot come cross was then expertly turned into goal by Gervinho who, again credit where it’s due, had the awareness to follow up the whole move and get himself into a scoring position.

Arsenal often frustrate with players who don’t do exactly what Gervinho did for the first goal. For a team which is often accused of trying to walk the ball into the net it’s odd that I’ve lost count of how many times the announcers have said “if only an Arsenal player were in the box there” after a pass or shot whistles harmlessly across the box. Arsenal could certainly use Gervinho in the tight run-up to fourth place if he’s going to get himself into those types of positions.

I've had it up to HERE with Tim's criticism

For the second goal Gervinho didn’t try to get past his man but rather just drove him back a bit and then passed the ball to Cazorla at the top of the box. Cazorla knew exactly what he wanted to do with the ball before it even came to him and he simply swept in a curling shot, around the defender and in at the near post. It was the type of goal that only a top quality player scores. A player of the level of Dennis Bergkamp.

I’m just going to put this out there: in Cazorla, Arsenal have found their first top quality signing of the new era. A “Bergkamp signing” if you will. Cazorla is the kind of player who can break down an opponent (he leads Arsenal in successful dribbles with 70), who can get his own shot and who takes shots from all over (he leads Arsenal with shots outside the box and shots in general), who can score a few goals (he leads Arsenal in League goals with 12), who has the vision to create for others (he has created 74 goal-scoring opportunities for Arsenal and leads the League with 0.8 through balls per game), and who keeps the ball penned in to the opposition final third but also very rarely gets dispossessed or turns the ball over (1.4 and 1 each per game, compared to someone like Suarez who averages 2.9 and 2.4 per game). Continuing the theme, then, Cazorla is the resurrection of Bergkamp.

The other thing that Cazorla does which I find refreshing is that he kills off the zombie Arsenal. It certainly helped that Reading were effectively playing a 9-0-1 formation, but Cazorla’s pressing from the front forced Reading into several terrible turnovers in dangerous areas. He led Arsenal in tackles yesterday with 3.

It certainly helped that Rosicky was hunting in packs with him, though the Czech didn’t get a single tackle on the day, harassing an harrying the opposition isn’t always measured by stats. Rosicky got his first League start of the season and given the troubling injury record looks like he might have had a resurrection of his own. Rosicky and Diaby were brought to the club around the same time, but Rosicky sat out for 18 months with his mystery injury, played one good season after that where he got 19 League starts, signed a new contract with Arsenal, and promptly had surgery forcing him to miss most of this season. We have to hope, nay pray, that his injury problems are behind him at this point. Arsenal need his energy in midfield if they are going to finish the season in the top four.

Rosicky’s compatriot in the sick room, Abou Diaby, received a heartwarming show of support from the Arsenal players during the warmup who all wore shirts that read “Get Well Soon Abou”. As I’ve said before this player has done nothing wrong. He’s only been injured playing for or preparing to play for his team, he’s taken extra measures to get healthy, and he’s been unlucky with injury. Saying that does not mean that I think Arsenal shouldn’t buy a midfielder to back up Arteta, I have long held the opinion that Arsenal are too light in that department. It also doesn’t mean I think Diaby is the best player who ever kicked a ball for Arsenal. I am simply sharing my empathy, the same empathy I have for Fabrice Muamba, Steve Zakuani, or really any player who has suffered with an  injury nightmare. It’s the kind of empathy that the entire stadium showed for Rocky Rocastle, who died way before his time.

Well, I have empathy for most people. Except if Robin van Persie, Joey Barton, or Piers Morgan were injured. Because, well, because fuck those guys.

That’s it for today. I’m not going to moan about the defense letting in a goal because it was a very brave header and an expertly placed cross. If you’d like to have a go at Sagna (that’s who seems to be getting the blame) or Nacho (who hurt his knee on the post trying to recover), feel free.

Me, I’m going to have a great day playing football in the sun and enjoying the Resurrection of the Arsenal win.

Qq

Related posts: Tactical Preview by Arsenal Letters and Man at the Match by Charibdys1966