This was the o.p. It highlights his similarity to certain other players in impact, but underlines that goal scoring is the lacking ingredient. Safe to say that skillsets are fluid.
The next bit was really interesting.
Look at players in terms of a skillset rather than production. For a team to be effective, it needs a healthy mix of a variety of skillsets. For me, the most crucial one is players that can operate in tight spaces, offer penetration and an ability to destabilise a low block. We have lots of players who can score goals. Mane, Salah, Firmino, Sturridge, Origi, Solanke, Ings, Gini, Lallana, Coutinho - they all look good for 7+ goals per season. However, in terms of players who can link the front 3 to the rest of our team in a low block, we have Lallana, Coutinho then who?
...Thus we end up needing to go around the block everytime ...but the second your attacks have a distinctive pattern, you are easy to stop as we demonstrated with Lukaku above.
Oxlade Chamberlain is something we don't have. A Lallana/Coutinho type player with that penetration in midfield coupled with pace. It is that little burst of pace that makes Coutinho more effective than Lallana in terms of playing through the lines of a team. Lallana has the skills to beat people but not really to then burn away from them ...he still has that skillset we are sorely lacking in, and a unique approach to it that we lack. Keita offers that same skillset (and a fuckload of others) also. We need to add as many players as we can like this into our squad rather than finding reasons to just dismiss them, talk about signing DM's, more goalscorers, etc. Those things will not dictate how effective we are in the league. Our ability to break down a low block will. As Pep showed last season, and throughout his career, there are certain types of players who will help you in this pursuit. They look a lot like Chamberlain.
His rankings in each column of the table below are drawn from his time at Arsenal. It'd be interesting to contrast that with his time since he arrived here. He was already near the top of the charts on each column highlighted before Jurgen got a hold of him, and doing that while spending a lot of his time at wing back and so forth. Arsenal used to stockpile players in the positions where we use him now.
Part 2 - Can he unlock sides with creative passing?
I want to show the statistical output of Arsenal & Liverpool players in terms of their creative passing.
Key Passes(KP)/90 = This shows the number of goalscoring chances created per 90 minutes played. A goalscoring chance ranges from laying the ball off for a Coutinho shot 35 yards out or Firmino's cross to Can against Hoffenheim. Both = 1 Key Pass
Expected Assists(xA)/90 = This is the value of all goalscoring chances created per 90 minutes played. Effectively this is the likelihood of creating a goal every 90 minutes played. Laying the ball off to Coutinho to score a 35 yard screaming = xA 0,01. Firmino's cross to Can = xA 0,91.
xA/KP = This is the average value of the chances a player creates. A high score can mean the chances a player creates a typically good goalscoring chances. E.g. Welbeck created the least chances on this list, however the very few he created were good goalscoring chances. This should be looked at in conjunction with KP/90.
Assists/90 = This is actual output. How many assists were created on average per game played.
Anybody scoring orange/red in most if not all categories is a player who is highly involved in the teams creative output. Anybody who is red in multiple categories is showing an elite output. Anybody scoring very high in one category and low not in any others is likely an outlier and can be dismissed.
| Player | Key Passes(KP)/90 | Expected Assists(xA)/90 | xA/KP | Assists/90 |
| Mesut Özil | 2,88 | 0,26 | 0,09 | 0,28 |
| Philippe Coutinho | 2,33 | 0,25 | 0,11 | 0,28 |
| Roberto Firmino | 2,05 | 0,23 | 0,11 | 0,21 |
| Alexis Sánchez | 1,9 | 0,25 | 0,13 | 0,28 |
| Sadio Mané | 1,57 | 0,18 | 0,11 | 0,2 |
| Daniel Sturridge | 1,52 | 0,19 | 0,13 | 0,12 |
| Jack Wilshere | 1,48 | 0,13 | 0,09 | 0,09 |
| Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain | 1,44 | 0,26 | 0,18 | 0,4 |
| Alex Iwobi | 1,42 | 0,14 | 0,1 | 0,18 |
| Aaron Ramsey | 1,39 | 0,32 | 0,23 | 0,29 |
| Adam Lallana | 1,34 | 0,16 | 0,12 | 0,27 |
| Granit Xhaka | 1,19 | 0,08 | 0,06 | 0,07 |
| Jordan Henderson | 1,19 | 0,11 | 0,09 | 0,17 |
| Emre Can | 1,18 | 0,08 | 0,07 | 0,08 |
| Santiago Cazorla | 1,16 | 0,12 | 0,1 | 0,29 |
| Olivier Giroud | 1,06 | 0,15 | 0,14 | 0,23 |
| Georginio Wijnaldum | 1,03 | 0,16 | 0,16 | 0,27 |
| Divock Origi | 0,8 | 0,1 | 0,12 | 0,19 |
| Francis Coquelin | 0,76 | 0,03 | 0,04 | 0 |
| Theo Walcott | 0,51 | 0,12 | 0,23 | 0,09 |
| Mohamed Elneny | 0,39 | 0,02 | 0,04 | 0,13 |
| Danny Welbeck | 0,36 | 0,14 | 0,39 | 0,24 |
Also wanted to show Dribbling on it's own because it's usually the most important element to breaking down a low block.
| Player | Dribbles/90 |
| Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain | 3,51 |
| Alexis Sánchez | 3,04 |
| Philippe Coutinho | 2,81 |
| Sadio Mané | 2,73 |
| Jack Wilshere | 2,72 |
| Roberto Firmino | 2,02 |
| Daniel Sturridge | 1,99 |
| Theo Walcott | 1,92 |
| Alex Iwobi | 1,72 |
| Aaron Ramsey | 1,46 |
| Santiago Cazorla | 1,31 |
| Adam Lallana | 1,27 |
| Divock Origi | 1,17 |
| Mesut Özil | 1,01 |
| Georginio Wijnaldum | 0,91 |
| Francis Coquelin | 0,91 |
| Emre Can | 0,8 |
| Granit Xhaka | 0,69 |
| Mohamed Elneny | 0,39 |
| Danny Welbeck | 0,36 |
| Jordan Henderson | 0,21 |
| Olivier Giroud | 0,15 |
So, statistically speaking, he is perfect for our system in that Lallana/Coutinho role. Or in a wide forward role as a creative hub rather than a goalscorer. Which is fine as we have fucking tonnes of players who can finish.
Apart from he's now scoring goals. I think we can see now what Babu was hinting at.
Summary
I like him.
I want to be clear though, I am not saying he is like, or a replacement for, Coutinho. I was demonstrating how he is a FAR more well rounded player than people give him credit for and closer to the level of Coutinho in that regard than the likes of Ibe or Barkley that have been trotted out as comparisons of "other shite English players".
They look nothing alike in terms of how they play when you watch them, however, the net result in terms of what they provide on the pitch in terms of breaking through the lines, playing in tight spaces, committing players in a low block, and creating good goal scoring chances for team mates are very similar.
He is obviously not without his weaknesses but then that is true of all players. We aren't trying to sign a 24 year old Steven Gerrard here. It's just a player with a skillset we need that is sorely lacking so far this season who will be useful for us to have going forward. He could grow into much more for Klopp, in the way Kevin Großkreutz did at Dortmund as a versatile player who was used more often than not. Who knows. It should be fun finding out with more meep meep than ever before in this side.
It really was a nice post this one.
