Bingo.
It's admirable how relentless the anti-Mignolet propaganda in this thread is. I felt it was due a change in direction. This is a team sport.
I'd have Firmino up front for us all day over Benteke. Doesn't mean I'd have him up front all day over someone else though.
He's not particularly creative or involved for a '10'. Fewer than 30 passes per game and 2 key passes per game. Compare that to an actual 10 like Ozil and he's essentially at 50% of the productivity rate with a significantly lower pass completion rate.
I'm saying his conversion rate isn't good enough, though this is nothing new. What is new is that his passing/creativity - which made said conversion rate more excusable - has taken a pretty sizable dip from last season.
The problem is that when you keep talking about Firmino as a striker, comparing him to strikers and focus on numbers that you look at to quantify strikers, it makes me think you don't know what Firmino is, his role in the side and how we should be trying to measure his contribution.
Then the highlighted part tells me you know exactly what the problem is with his game so far this season - which is fair criticism and I have been saying so much myself. Although comparing him to Ozil is strange too as you are then comparing him to a pure #10. A player than does nothing but link and create. The players to compare him to would be those who do a lot of both. I guess that is players like Hazard, Ramsey, Erikson, Sanchez. Ozil will tend to have elite creative stats. A pure goalscorer will have elite shooting stats. Firmino - and players like him, will (hopefully) have a bit under elite in both stats. So he will never score like Lewandowski, or create like Kagawa, instead you want him doing a high amount of both like Reus.
Just comparing Firmino's shooting stats to strikers is like comparing Pirlo's defensive stats to Makelele's. Or Makelele's passing stats to Pirlo. Sure, when you put the team down on paper, they occupy the same space but they are not really comparable in terms of their role in the team, the output you would expect from them and how you would measure their contribution. Firmino would be more like Edgar Davids in that comparison. Far better on the ball than Makelele. Far better off it than Pirlo. He wasn't elite at either side of the game but a very high level player in both areas.
