by Brain Traysers »
25 Jul 2019 19:54
This debate is a tough one - both of those radars (and subsequent analysis) are based on small samples, and we don't know causality (he either was struggling with injuries and fitness leading to bad numbers when on the pitch, or was struggling for minutes
because he was poor on the pitch). If it was fitness/injures it's entirely possible those are behind him - someone referenced him looking in good shape above (not that a single anecdote is meaningful).
If we go back to 16/17 we have a younger Charlie Adam playing 1500 mins in a higher league - a much better sample size than the 400s above. I was surprised to see his figures above average in every category in the
Understats radar (average = darker gray octagon in the centre), although they are more attacking focused stats so he should show better here than the more balanced StasBomb set. Nevertheless it was nowhere near as poor as I expected to see.
That was enough evidence to move me from 'very underwhelmed' to 'meh'.
(Of course there is a classic BT '
he needs to shoot less frequently from poor positions' point, but that applies to nearly all players...)