SamSports looks at Lucas Leiva's performances earlier this season, during the Roy Hodgson era. How has he done? Why should his performances be classed as impressive? Where can he improve? All those questions answered in this article.
Last updated: 5th April 2011
Another update to this article for you all as it's received such good feedback. A week makes a massive difference in football and as you can see, from the stats below. Darren Bent has been the main beneficiary thanks to his two goals, against the bitter blues of Merseyside, this weekend. He further improved his stats because the two goals were his only shots in the game therefore improving his accuracy as well as minutes per goal ratio.
The Under-18’s prepared for their FA Youth Cup showdown with Manchester United in the best possible way, coming back from a goal down to hit Blackburn for five.
All of the stats from last night's game are attached below. The passing breakdown displays forward, backward, left and right passes. We have also included the passing zones for the whole team and then individual players also. We are running short on time at the moment so will display the stats for you but add some context later in the day.
Liverpool went down to a 1-0 loss in Portugal earlier this evening. a penalty conceded by Soto Kyrgiakos decided the game in the first half. A lacklustre performance really and it's quite surprising that our pass total was quite high once again. We made around 582 passes and it seems to me that we always seem to pass the ball when we are losing and chasing the game (I guess it's obvious really).
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Jamie Carragher is a player who needs no introduction. In his lengthy career there is only one trophy that has eluded him; he has racked up over 650 appearances for the club often playing more than 50 games a season. He has made 137 European appearances for Liverpool (as of 24/02/2011) which is a British record. Never one to shy away from a challenge or quietly go about his business, in fact there is barely a match that goes by when you can’t hear him barking out orders to his team mates even when playing to an audience of tens of thousands, he has come in for criticism, been labelled not good enough an overlooked for England but has still remained a first choice defender for Liverpool for over a decade.
But now in his 33rd year as he approaches the final stages of his 15th campaign he is finding himself under the microscope more and more often. So what do the stats actually say about Jamie? Is he overrated or underrated, wrongly or rightly overlooked?
A brief introduction: I’m Conor Dowley, and while I’m a Yank through and through, I’m also a huge Liverpool supporter. My best friend grew up just blocks from Anfield, so when I started getting more and more in to the sport and it came time to choose a team to support (five years or so ago), Liverpool was the natural choice. It helped that I loved watching them play; Steven Gerrard was then and is still now one of my favorite individual players to watch.