Charlie Adam Stats Pack

By: Noel | November 23rd, 2011

For most, Charlie Adam had his best game in a Liverpool shirt against Chelsea, and so before moving on completely from Sunday’s match it only seems right to at the very least acknowledge that. And considering this blog’s fondness for statistics—not to mention the role stats play in the approach of Fenway Sports Group and Damien Comolli—an obvious point of interest seems clear: Is there anything obvious in Adam’s numbers from the weekend that help to separate Sunday from most of what came before?

A widely held belief is that this summer’s new midfield arrivals—Adam, Jordan Henderson, and Stewart Downing—were all chosen with an eye firmly focused on chance creation, but if it’s chance creation that speaks to whether Charlie Adam is at the top of his game, then on the weekend he was far from it. In fact, in the twelve league games he’s played so far for Liverpool, there have been six matches in which Adam’s chances created have totalled one or none. And against Chelsea he had one—the one that Glen Johnson stuck in the back of the net to win Liverpool the match. It was a quality pass, but it hardly reflected the totality of Adam’s game.

In fact, when it came to his entire passing game, it doesn’t seem a stretch to say that by the numbers Adam actually had a bit of an off day, completing only 73% of his passes from open play. Rather surprisingly, the only time he’s had a worse completion rate was against Tottenham—at least until a second yellow card saw him sent off before the end of the first half.

Not only that, but on Sunday he attempted a fairly low number of total passes. It seems a fairly self-evident statistic for a midfielder tasked with creating, but for Adam, the matches in which he makes an impact—for good or ill—tend to be the ones in which he attempts more than fifty passes. Attempting only 48 on Sunday, and then only completing 35 of them, doesn’t suggest a player having much of an influence on proceedings. If anything, his passing totals seem closer to early season outings against Bolton and Wolves when he was generally invisible, even if against the former he managed one moment of magic that ended in the back of the Wanderers’ net.

Perhaps, then, the biggest difference can be found in defensive statistics—ones that would reflect an increased workrate. And here, perhaps, there is something to be found, as his three successful tackles on four attempts only trails his top performance at Arsenal while only twice has he attempted more challenges on the ground than he did on Sunday. Still, there’s nothing to be found anywhere in the numbers that really reflects just how much better Adam seemed to perform on Sunday, leaving one to wonder if in fact the glow of a well-earned victory is covering up that his overall game wasn’t quite so good as many remember. Or maybe it’s simply a reminder that while statistics remain a useful tool, one that can help illuminate and tell the story, alone they don’t necessarily tell the entire story. Probably it’s a bit of both.

If you do approach Adam’s statistics with an eye to casting a bit of light on the larger story, there are indeed some illuminating—and encouraging—trends. In fact, looking at the season to date there seems a rather stark dividing line, with Wolves on one side and Everton on the other. Following futility and a red card against Tottenham with an entirely invisible display at Wolves both with and without the ball summed up all the worst aspects of Charlie Adam in a painful pair of games, but it also capped an inconsistent beginning that often seemed more bad than good. Outside of a performance at the Emirates that is arguably, when considering all of the numbers, his best statistical showing of the season, he never completed more than 79% of his passes. Meanwhile, four of the six games in which he created a single chance or none at all come from that opening stretch.

On the other side of that divide he’s only fallen below 80% in the passing game once, registered 18 of his 25 chances created to date, and had more consistently high tackle totals. It hasn’t been a perfect stretch, either going by the numbers or based on just watching the games, with West Bromwich Albion representing a glaring numerical blip and events like his being caught in possession against Norwich leading to the newly promoted side’s equalising goal obvious blemishes. Still, for those suggesting Adam has been getting better of late—and despite that there are still many questions that seem far from being fully answered—at least there’s a glimmer of hope to be found in the numbers now.

Some Related Liverpool Posts:

The Stats Don’t Lie but the People Do, and Other Wednesday Notes

Category: Miscellaneous, Premier League, Season Review

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Nbusa

While I agree with most that it looked like Charlie's best game in a LFC shirt the stats show that it was Charlie was being Charlie and he is who we thought he was... a decent midfielder who makes some good passes, some bad passes, runs around a lot but because his defensive positioning is poor and because of this he ends up running extra to make up for it and ends up tired by the hour mark. I think he's a nice player to have in the squad but I still think LFC should try to find a better partner for Lucas. Lucas needs to be free to roam and it seems like being partnered with Adam has forced him into more man marking situations which cause him to be significantly less helpful on opportunities like the one Chelsea scored last week.
Luis Suarez dentist

I think stats just don't work to show a footballers performance. There are just too many variables in football that's why we love it!

One stat from a few years ago. Paulo Maldini had made less tackles than any Seie A defender by about halfway through a season.

The reason for this was his positioning was so good that he didin't have to make those last gasp tackles.

Stats can confuse, and amuse but never rely on them for the truth.
Noel

Right, but tackles count standing tackles, too—Lucas wouldn't have led Europe's top five leagues in them last season if it only meant last gaspers, since he rarely makes those. And if better positioning did in fact lead to fewer tackles for any given player, you would expect a major uptick in 50-50 challenges made and won, plus a boatload of interceptions. Stats may not show everything—and I've yet to see anybody claim they do—but they can tell a heck of a lot more than you're giving them credit for, and they've kind of been a cornerstone of how we look at things here for quite a while now.

So, sure, I get that people want to go beyond just numbers. And I think we try to do that, just as we try to do our best to be as objective as possible—something that respecting the stats genuinely helps us a lot with. But any time somebody trots out "Stats aren't eveything!" I tend to think two things. One: Duh. And two: You know this is the Liverpool Offside, right?
Luis Suarez dentist

Sorry but I just disagree on this one. Stats tell you what happened but not how or why that happened.

I think it's very dangerous for a team to be picked or instructed because of some stats. I always wonder what Bill Shankly would have made of it!
Noel

I wonder what hard evidence people are relying on when they suggest Shankly would have abhorred using statistics to find an edge, because it mostly seems to be a "Back in the day when men were men and the roads were paved with gold, life was good!" argument. Or non-argument, really.

I find it odd because Shankly revolutionised the club by looking to Europe for training methods and a tactical edge while the rest of English football was stuck in its old ways—some of which persist to this day. He was on the cutting edge of combining scary shit that had no place in football—at least according to the traditionalists—with what he saw as the best traditions of English football to give the club any advantage he could. He was an innovator, and compared to other managers at the time he did embrace statistics, cross referencing and using information on everything from weather to pitch conditions to what players ate and exactly what they did in training and for how long to exactly when and how specific injuries occurred in relation to all of that... in order to fine tune focused skills training, fitness regimes, and diet plans for each player—almost all of which was completely foreign to the game in England at the time.

Would he be a Billy Beane sort sitting in an office crunching numbers? I doubt it. But next time somebody trots out the specter of Shankly to tut-tut statistics, it'd be nice if they could give a couple of solid reasons why they think he wouldn't have been interested in exploiting any possible edge stats could give him. Especially since, you know, he actually did compile and exploit all the statistics he could at the time in order to give Liverpool an edge in training, fitness, injury avoidance, and blah blah blah.
jpr

You go boy!!
Latortillablanca

i agree with both of you halfways - does that equal 100%? not sure. ive gone back an forth with noel on this one before, so i think LSD's fighting the good fight, but at the end of the day, its like spittin in the ocean. the rise of stats in football & baseball have leaked over into pretty much every sport. at this point they are getting so detailed and so good, they are actually quite useful for coaches i'd imagine. i highly recommend tracking down the "beyond the pitch" podcast with the Opta guys. they've been puttin straight Work in for like 2 decades now and having them explain really opened my eyes to the usefulness of stats.

like you both have said though, its not the be all end all. but it is a tool, so why spurn it? kinda like the anti-technology stance for football - if its there an it can help, why deny it?
jpr

obviously, the only solution is to send LSD and 50% of 'blanca to wee Henry's house in Florida for 2 weeks. Noel's done all he can here.
jpr

Noel's Thanksgiving piece gives us Charles Graham Adam. The subconscious mind is a powereful influence on behaviour.

My shiny new 442 Stats Zone powered by Opta for Iphone has a graphical stat called "player influence" that shows a pitch with the players names. The size of the letters represents the relative influence on the game for each teams players. The location on the pitch of the name I'm assuming is the average position. The last three games have Adam's name with the biggest, baddest letters.

I'm backing Bellers to get a hat trick against City. The fiery Welshman will be out of his mind to stick it to Mancini. He'll do things to Mancini that Napoli only dreamed of. Mancini's big knock at Juve was that he never did much in the CL.
Latortillablanca

no htc?
jpr

no, i'm giving it up for t'giving. it's BIG LETTERS CHARLIE for me. i'm on board.
Latortillablanca

Charlie Adam is one of the top 5 destroyers in game today!!!!!!! ;) hyperbole aside, the boy's improving. the whole side is. they'll need to improve from last weekend to top citeh.

Anyone catch the citeh/napoli game? kinda hard to draw tactical comparison's cause napoli has such a distinct 343 situation that basically only fits their personnel/coach; however, i do think its inneresting that immediately after both their goals, they seemed more than happy to sit back and allow city to attack them and then just hit them on the break. they didn't change anything about the way they defend, in particular with gargano who destroys everything that crops up from zonal positioning. no man marking in otherwords. then lavezzi was the outlet more often than not.

now, can we do that? whether we've scored or not, we've created a lot of early game chances. lucas' best defense comes from zonal marking and just sniffing shit out. and we do have downing and suarez who could be effective on the break, not to mention our fullbacks willing to get forward quickly. but that gameplan basically entails allowing silva to pick and choose his spots in the zone, and giving them plenty of the ball. im not sure i like either of those scenarios, but if we can be clinical, it may just work.

or maybe the biggest lesson we should take is that napoli played to their strengths and set out like they always do and were just more competitive on the night...

either way, happy turkey day folks!
Moevawda

we just need to play the same team and formation as last week
napoli are a brilliant side
Jordan

we wouldnt have scored the first goal if it wasnt for Adam, stats dont always tell the whole story.
Noel

Right, except that makes it in as one of his successful tackles.
Tony

That tackle is one of those that would have coaches' heart pop out of their mouths. He timed right. Credit to him. What happens if that Chelsea bloke deluded Adam? It would have been 8 on 6 the other way. This is one of those times a coach would high five his player for a great tackle and then behind closed door gives him a stern face, "what the bloody hell you were doing that deep?"
On 2nd goal, good pass to GJ. And GJ got lucky. Where the hell was Asshley Cold?
Latortillablanca

haha, 'that bloke' was john obi mikel. no word yet on what sort of Delusions he was under during the play, but had he successfully Alluded adam, it wuda been the first positive play of the year for the nigerian napper. plus, johnson 'got lucky' - really? really? if he had 'messi' on the back of his shirt we'd have shaka hislop talkin bout how it was goal of the year.

please, get it together holmes...
Latortillablanca

an if i cud type 'Elude' that post wuda been much more biting and funny. lol! as u were.
jpr

The first goal was something that was discussed and worked on in practice. Not a spur of the moment decision by Adam. There were 3 Liverpool players surrounding Mikel and Maxi ready to come in on the left. That was a coordinated effort to attack Mikel, nick the ball and drive to goal. Petr Cech deserves a lot of the blame for not recognizing the danger. His rollout to Mikel seemed almost second nature, no thinking needed. The coach's deserve a lot of the credit for that first goal. T'was a Clarkey sepcial.
Seanster

Aye!
Latortillablanca

yes. +1
Noel

Early in the week we looked at it — http://liverpool.theoffside.co... — and he was covering Dirk Kuyt's run from the right. Had to track farther inside than he should have because John Terry was himself shifted too far over, creating the hole Kuyt ran into. Still, Cole largely recovered and should have just kept Johnson to the outside instead of trying to get the ball and giving Johnson the chance to nutmeg him, so he still takes a lot of blame even if his positioning wasn't actually an issue.
Jake_LFC

Exactly. Stats include a lot the things we see on the pitch. The real question is how do you value. The average successful tackle is generally less valuable than this particular one of Adam's. In baseball they've figured out how to convert everything done at bat into something called runs created (a run is a point in baseball, for those who don't know). It's suggest that football statisticians are still quite a ways away from getting there, if it is even possible.
Jake

Bad grammar brought to you by my iPhone.