Statistical Analysis on Robbie Keane's LFC Career:
As Keane has now gone - thought it would be interesting to see how well (or badly) he's done statistically.
For starters, it is common knowledge that Rafa treated him badly. Keane has made 27 appearances this season in the PL, CL and FA Cup. Only Gerrard (31), Riera (28), Alonso (29), Arbeloa (29), Kuyt (32), Carragher (34) and Reina (32) have made more appearances than him.
Excluding Degen, Cavalieri has only made 2 appearances this season in the above competitions. It is a fucking disgrace. Why is Rafa treating him like that?
Yeah, but how many of Keane's appearances have been ones where's he's been hooked? Out of his 27 appearances, he's been substituted in 18 of those. That is proof that he has been treated badly. Bad, bad Rafa. Does this man know how to man manage? Surely he must have something against Keane for hauling him off in so many matches?
Hang on. Albert Riera - how many times has he been subbed? He has been subbed off a total of 20 times. That's more times than Keane for fuck's sake! Surely, surely this means that Albert Riera is being treated like a piece of shit? Riera's confidence must be fragile, Rafa is destroying him. This is wrong, so wrong. Wait a minute, why haven't the press picked up on this? Why has nobody noticed this? Something is seriously wrong here.
Of all our forwards, only Kuyt and Gerrard have played more minutes this season than Keane. Given that Gerrard has played in centre midfield quite a bit, and Kuyt has played on the right hand side nearly all season, it looks obvious that Keane has had more minutes up front than anyone else.
Looking now at his goals. Keane has scored 7 goals. Those 7 goals came in 5 games. 1 against PSV, 1 against Atletico, 2 against WBA, 1 against Arsenal and 2 against Bolton. Not the best, but I suppose it could have been worse. Credit should be given to him that his goals against PSV, Atletico, WBA and Arsenal were the first goals of the game - the most difficult goals to score. Out of those 7 goals, 5 came in the first half and only 2 (against Bolton) came in the second half. Robbie Keane has played in a total of 27 second halves this season. Only one of those matches he scored in.
His goals per 90 minutes ratio is 0.35. Which means he scores one goal every 3 full games. That ratio doesn't seem that bad really. But it's telling that David N'gog (the player who has been taking his place on the bench recently) has a higher ratio than Keane. N'gog's is 0.39, and he has only 1 goal to his name.
I have Keane down for 4 direct assists. One against Boro, one against Everton, one against Spurs and one against PSV. The Boro and Spurs assists were both arguably slightly fortuitous.
His direct assists per 90 minutes ratio is 0.20, a total of 1 direct assists per 5 full games. That's a smaller ratio than Benayoun, Lucas, Torres, Gerrard, N'gog and Pennant. He is on a par with Kuyt, Aurelio and Babel.
I think a lot of people would have been happy with Keane if his assists made for his lack of goals - or vice versa - his goals made up for his lack of assists. But it seems that he suffered on both counts.
Having a look at his goal contributions, he ended up with 6. As 4 of them went down as direct assists, that means that he only contributed to 2 other goals. Once against Everton (in the build up to Torres' second goal) and once against Man Utd (the ball may have hit his arse in the build up to the own goal). This is quite a surprise to me. For someone who is apparently a good footballer, why is he not involved in many goals?
His goal contribution per 90 minutes ratio reflects this. The only players who have a worse ratio are defenders.
Just to show that I'm not picking on him, he has done well in terms of goal faults. He hasn't been at fault for any goals.
The Team Scored per 90 graph shows that Keane was one of our worst performers. Only Dossena and Arbeloa (surprisingly I think) have lower figures than Keane.
Ending on a positive, he tops the Team Conceded per 90 graph. This means that when Keane plays, we are statistically less likely to concede a goal than when any other player is playing.
So there you have it. Statistically, Robbie Keane has not been very good. Statistics don't tell the whole story though, so you have to form the whole picture by watching him play.
And for all those who believe that Rafa Benitez has destroyed Robbie Keane - have a look at what he's done to Albert Riera. Next time you claim that continually subbing him destroyed Keane's confidence, ask yourself why it hasn't destroyed Riera's confidence. Maybe you should also consider the fact that even though Riera has been withdrawn more times than Keane - why is that you can only remember Keane's disappointed reaction, and not Riera's? I'll tell you why. Because the TV cameras want to create a sensation, an agenda, a big story. And you bought it.
A bit more:
In a total of 3090 minutes this season, we've scored 54 goals. Keane has played 1777 minutes and in that time, Liverpool have scored 27 goals. Without Keane, Liverpool have played 1313 minutes and scored 27 goals.
Therefore, Liverpool scored a goal every 65 minutes when Keane was playing.
Liverpool scored a goal every 48 minutes when he wasn't playing.
