Anfield Index

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.

We're pleased to announce that anfieldindex.com has agreed a deal with Opta Sports Data to provide detailed match statistics on Liverpool Football Club's Europa League adventure. We understand that there is a risk as it is now the knock out stages however we wanted to prove our passion and commitment to members of anfieldindex.com that we're continually looking to improve and ensure you get your money's worth.

The performance by Luis Suarez yesterday is summed up by the fact that his team-mate scored a hat-trick and he still walked off the pitch as the man-of-the-match by a comfortable margin.

Following on from our previous post with regards to match stats we thought we'd post some in depth breakdown on the passes made by each of the players that made the majority of the match. The passes are broken down in to forward, backward, left and right passes. Hopefully you'll be able to find some sort of correlation. However the obvious things you may notice are things like defenders passing a higher proportion forward and strikers laying off passes backwards a lot more.

Liverpool Vs Man United - Where the Game was Won   Payback is a b*tch and Manchester United's slaughter at Anfield yesterday was just that - Payback. After suffering two defeats at their hands this season the win was very welcome, as I'm sure every Liverpool fan didn't want to even contemplate a third loss, in...

Liverpool Vs Man United Stats   A fantastic win for Liverpool today with Dirk Kuyt, Luis Suarez, Steven Gerrard and Lucas Leiva really impressing. Whilst watching we noticed that the movement of the Liverpool players was excellent and a lot of passes were breaking down because it was all excellent one touch football. This is probably...

Anfield Index is now live! The Stats Centre is now available and to celebrate this we've got a special offer for This Month Only so that you could save 22.2% for the life of your subscription and if you choose the Writer option (£3.50) and sign up before the 1st April you will be automatically...

It’s always hard to rate keepers. You can’t really rate based on goals against averages or clean sheets, as they are not just decided by goalkeepers, but on how good defences are and how defensive coaches can be. Some keepers can look good...

A statistical analysis of Kuyt’s contribution to the Liverpool team in the first half of the 2010/11 Premier League season. Dirk Kuyt played 16 games for Liverpool in the worst start to a season in living memory. This article will look in detail at how he performed during those 16 games in relation to the...

It’s been all change at left back for several seasons now. Emiliano Insua, Fabio Aurelio and Paul Konchesky have all tried to fill the slot over the last two seasons, with fairly mixed results. Aurelio is a very good consistent performer, but cannot seem to stay fit. Paul Konchesky was seen by Roy Hodgson...

Daniel Agger struggled more than most in adapting to the tactics of Roy Hodgson. Daniel Agger made no secret of the fact that he was uncomfortable with the notion of hoofing the ball up the pitch at every opportunity, explaining his issues to a Danish TV station, "The manager has a philosophy that we're...

Everyone knows Steven Gerrard. Regardless of what corner of the world you are in, he is up there with the World-Class players of today. In terms of whoever he plays for, be it England or Liverpool, there are always debating points about him. First one is the age old ‘Golden Generation’ question of Can...

I think it’s fair to say that Raul Meireles is the only positive that can be taken from Roy Hodgson’s disastrous tenure as Liverpool manager.  It’s taken Raul Meireles half a season and a manager who immediately recognised his best position to get him firing on all cylinders, but did we really need him?  Should...

During the transfer window there were rumours flying about that Joe Cole would be heading out of Anfield on loan to Spurs.  Those rumours may have been wide of the mark but you can see why there might have been more than a little bit of truth in them, given that Harry Redknapp tried...

With their third of the week the young Reds made it eight wins on the spin, showing their grit to come from a goal down away at Crewe. After conceding a penalty and falling behind 1-0 within the first 5 minutes, the team rallied and drew level courtesy of a Toni Silva header. The Portuguese winger bundled home after a Krisztian Adorjan corner, grabbing the goal that certainly his performance earlier in the week against Huddersfield deserved.

The midweek game saw Huddersfield visit Kirkby and another confident performance from the young Reds, who took the lead in the 1st half after Adorjan & Sterling linked up once again. A long through-ball from the Hungarian sent Raheem through on goal, and the N0. 7 produced a neat finish to flick the ball passed the onrushing keeper.

After the FA Youth Cup drubbing of Southend & Raheem Sterling’s 5 star performance it was back to league action for the Under-18’s with 3 games in the space of 8 days. However, with the likes of Jack Robinson, John Flanagan & Suso now training increasingly at Melwood with the reserve squad and only playing for the U18’s in the FA Youth Cup, Academy League games offer an opportunity for some of our other up and coming players to make a name for themselves.

It’s always hard to calculate transfer costs. Transfer fees can be undisclosed, and additional costs such as agents fees and wages etc are even harder to guess. But despite these obstacles, guesstimates can be made. Looking at the stats we do have, the last four Liverpool FC managers, Gerard Houllier, Rafa Benitez, Roy Hodgson and now Kenny Dalglish, have between them laid out nearly £440 million in transfers, on 172 players. By my count, in total the four of them have laid out £10 million or more on a single player 13 times:

Whenever I see Kyrgiakos, I always think he should be in the film ‘300’ screaming at the top of his voice ‘This is Sparta!!’ rather than being a footballer. So probably playing Centre Half is very suited to him. His strength and aerial ability has been a useful asset in recent years.

Right, so recently Liverpool have signed Andy Carroll to replace the outgoing Fernando Torres. But what do we really know about the big number nine? Well be looking at his performances for Newcastle this season we can gain a real insight into his game and where he affects play the most on the pitch. Now you might be tempted to jump straight in and say that he is most effective in and around the opposition penalty area, but that is not necessarily the case.

Whether Roy Hodgson came to Liverpool with Raul Meireles in his little black book of decent midfielders or whether he was merely the grateful recipient of some good scouting from the Anfield backroom staff is a moot point. What is clear is that he has certainly been the most successful of the departed’s recruits.