It may surprise you to hear this, but with Liverpool FC having played 33 games this season, with only 5 games remaining, Lucas Leiva is still Liverpool’s top tackler. With a total of 68 tackles attempted this season, out of only 12 games the Brazilian has featured in, only now has any other LFC player threatened that statistic. With Jose Enrique having attempted 65 tackles to date, it looks like Lucas’s tackle stat is finally about to be surpassed. But that doesn’t tell the whole story.
Top 5 LFC Tacklers
Think about it. 12 games Lucas featured in, with 33 now played. That gives every other LFC player possibly 21 extra games to match him. In fact, Liverpool as a team had attempted 279 tackles in those 12 games, with Lucas responsible for 68, or 24.4% of the team’s total. This is both a reflection of those other players, and a reflection of what exactly the team has been missing this season. A timely reminder, of the importance of Lucas.
TOP TACKLERS
So let us take a little more in-depth look at those tackles stats and put them into some sort of context. Currently of all the players in the Premier League this season to have played the average amount of games, Alejandro Faurlin makes 4.5 tackles per game, more than any other player. Before Lucas got injured he was averaging 5.7 tackles per game. If Lucas had continued at that rate he would have around 216 tackles attempted for the season. In fact, when you look at the last 2 full seasons that would have put Lucas at having attempted nearly 50 tackles more than his nearest rival.
Premiership Top Tacklers 09/10 & 10/11
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN?
When you look at those numbers in a broader team sense it gets even more remarkable. Compared to the previous three seasons, Liverpool is having a poor season when it comes to tackling quantities.
Total Tackles Attempted By Season
With 5 games to play we have attempted 637 tackles, which average’s at 19.3 tackles per game. So we are on course to attempt about 733 tackles for the season. With Lucas on course to make 216 tackles for the season that would have meant he would have been responsible for 29.5% of the team’s total. That is an incredible amount if he hadn’t got injured and continued at that rate.
WITH OR WITHOUT LUCAS
Percentage Record With/Without Lucas
So in terms of points how has Lucas’s injury possibly affected us? Our record with Lucas playing those 12 games was W6 L2 D4, and without him it, W6 L9 D6. So we have won 6 games in 12 with Lucas, and won only 6 in 21 without him.
That gives us a 50% win rate with Lucas and only a 28.6% rate without him. That is a remarkable 21.4% difference. Furthermore, we only lost 16.7% of all games Lucas featured in compared to a terrible 42.8% of games without him. In terms of points with or without Lucas this is a 16 point difference over a 38 game season.
Possible Points With/Without Lucas
You can see from the table what our record this season would have been with or without Lucas if we had maintained those win, lose or draw rates for a whole season. 70 points was enough to take fourth place last year, and tie for fourth with Spurs in 09/10 season. Whereas 44 points was enough to see us only in 15th position last season, just ahead of Blackburn Rovers.
On the Next Page: The Importance of Lucas continues on Page 2 (click below right or top right) with passing analysis with other Liverpool players.
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Categories: EPL, EPL Index Featured Article, EPL Index Player Profiles, EPL Index Statistical Comparisons, EPL Opta Stats, Liverpool
Tags: english Premier league, EPL, epl opta stats, EPL Stats, LFC, lucas, Lucas Stats, Opta Stats, premier league, Premier League Stats
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Excellent article – unbelievable that despite playing 12 games this season he’s still leading the attempted tackles for Liverpool – for now.
Thanks mate. Yeah it’s unbelievable that he still tops that list. We are on course to put in our lowest amount of tackles for a number of seasons. I wonder is it a tactic not to go to ground more that’s being employed, or players just aren’t putting in the effort in some games.
Wouldn’t we get a better idea how Spearing is doing in replacing Lucas with comparing Lucas’s stats from 08/09 or 09/10 season seeing Spearing has only played in 32 league matches in total against Lucas’s 161 games with Gremio and Liverpool. I know you are not bashing Spearing but he has only just started his career where has Lucas has had the time on the pitch to become the player he his now.
this is not about Spearing! this is about Lucas
Probably! But as Franks says it is a Lucas article. I think Spearing is whole other article!
The strange thing is that we seem to give the ball away less this season with more passes 13148 (12905 09/10) and a higher passing accuracy 80.8%(77.1%) so it might be the reason why there are less tackles needed from the team with 3823 unsuccessful passes last season and so far 3126 for this season.
I like Lucas I have argued that he his being missed because he can take the pace out of a game as well has his tackling where as Spearing and Adam try to push forward but others argued he was to negative with his passing.
well put, the lad has the makings of a legend
Very interesting statistics. Hopefully the whole team gets a boost when Lucas returns
“Lucas only lost possession every 5.54 passes he attempted, in context, player of the year nominee Scott Parker loses possession every 5.99 passes, and Michael Carrick only every 7.25.” Sorry, I might just be tired but I would of thought that thw higher the number, the better, as you can pass more without giving the ball away? :s
Great article, just proves to the doubters that he really is a top player (and heavily underated on fifa!) :L
Yeah when meant ‘only’ I meant that as a good thing as he doesn’t lose possession that often. Maybe I could have put it better!
no doubt lucas played good football in past couple of years,but that took him 3 years to actually settle down…if u were to compare him with spearing and the time spearing has been on the pitch spearing could be a far more better player.lucas cannot take a shot at the goal like alonso,mascherano or spearing…he can’t take corner kicks,free kicks…his passing accuracy has only improved in 2010/11..the only thing he does well is to hold..but if liverpool were to win trophies it asks a lot more from a player of that position…actually its liverpool standard from a past couple of years which have gone down due to departure of alonso,arbeloa,masherano and benayon,and not that of lucas which has actually been very impressive..he is just overestimated…
Took him 3 years to settle down ? Stop talking rubbish. A 20 year old who moved half way across the world & came to Anfield as an ATTACKING Midfielder but was then asked to play a completely different role – i.e. DM. An established, world class player at his peak (Alonso) left the club & people expected Lucas to step in & do the same job as Xavi as well as protect the back 4 at the same time. He had to deal with a section of LFC support turning against him & the idiot Hodgson trying to sell him. (Lucas turned down Inter). He was LFC’s player of the year 10/11 and he was our best player until his injury this season. His performances against the top 5 or 6 teams in the PL last season & this were nothing short of fantastic. Over-estimated ? I don’t think so and there is no way Spearing will ever be as good as Lucas. Any season ticket holder at Anfield will tell you the same thing.
I really like Lucas and appreciate what he did for our midfield (impressive number of tackles, a solid midfield) but I think people overestimate his importance. First of all, Lucas is our best defensive midfielder because he is our only defensive midfielder – so when we lost him, we lost all of our dm-s which means we suffer from being without a dm, not from being without Lucas.
Secondly: Lucas can easily keep possession, because he rarely participate in attacks: most of his passess are easy ones – I have to emphasize again: I am not against Lucas, I’m just saying, he is good at something (defending), at not good at other thing (attack).
Thirdly: Look at our matches we lost since loosing Lucas. You’ll find out, that in most cases we lost points not because of leaky defending but because of poor chance converting. (I say most cases, because there were matches where a good Lucas/dm would have been required). I think Lucas was pretty irrelevant (but not completely) in the decrease of our PPG.
Liverpool need Lucas back and a new dm because Adam is as poor player as a bag of potato and Spearing is just a converted dm forced to play in that position.
Very good point. This is the first serious injury that Lucas has had and in the past Liverpool had Mascherano in there with Lucas as back up. Since Mascherano has left there has been no back up for Lucas and Liverpool really felt the pinch of the lack of a specialist defensive midfielder this season.
While agreeing that Lucas is our only specialised defensive midfielder I cannot agree that his distribution is lacking. He has improved this aspect of his game tremendously in the last season or two. He is an intelligent player who knows when to play it short and when to play a crossfield ball or a long pass.
If you are looking for assists you should remember that Alonso had very few direct assists for Liverpool but he was involved in a lot of the moves that led to goals.
We play much better and more controlled football with Lucas in our team. He is much more than a destroyer.
I didn’t say Lucas’s distribution was lacking my friend. Perhaps you took me up wrong somewhere? Also, regards to assists, I probably wouldn’t read too much into assists when it comes to defensive midfielders. Also find it a stat that can my a bit misleading, as its a two way thing. Supplier of assist and someone to finish it off. Downing has created more clear cut chances (10) for LFC this year than any other player, yet doesn’t have an assist.
@scouser Do you not think that Jay Spearing is classed as a defensive midfielder? I always thought he was more defensive midfield than attack midfield. Maybe I’m wrong.
While I agree with you that it’s obviously easier to keep possession playing short passes I don’t agree that most of Lucas’s passes are easy one’s. Only Agger & Enrique have a higher percentage of forward passes than Lucas this year. Yes forward passes can sometimes be easy too but a majority of them are more difficult to execute. In fact over 55% of all of Lucas’s passes are in the attacking half. Which is not bad. And for a central midfielder to lose possession less than a central defender is still pretty impressive.
I think yeah I partly agree with you on your third point. A lot of games we lost or drew was because of poor finishing. However in the last 9/10 games our defending has been pretty awful, and if having Lucas in the team meant we won 4 games rather than drew 4 games say, it’s still a difference of 8 points. I’m not saying Lucas is the answer or the solution to all our problems and if he was in the team things would be perfect. Just that his influence has been sorely missed.
Thanks for reading and thanks for your well thought out comments.
I wrote a piece about Lucas a month ago (for a Hungarian Liverpool-blog), so it was an easy one for me.:) Since then we really felt the absence of a dm (especially a so good one like Lucas – I agree with you in that point.
BUT: I think he is a -1 on the pitch when Liverpool dominate the game and try to press and force its game – it’s more of a problem of tactics than a defect of Lucas: it isn’t his job to create chances.
All in all I think Lucas is a great player, one we certainly miss and one we can effectively use in situations where we need rocksolid defending or want to cut off a counter attacking team (his stats confirm it too he is one of the best dm-s).
I’m a little bit lost as to why tackles, ground duels, interceptions are compared in the terms of passes?
For example, Agger makes slightly fewer interceptions per game compared to Lucas (2.8 to 3) yet makes quite a lot fewer passes per game then Lucas (40-ish to 60-ish) this year. Naturally Agger is going to have a better interception to passes ratio then Lucas, yet Lucas is making more interception over all. What does this really tell us?
Would be great to get an explanation, I might just be missing something.
I’m also a little curious as to what is considered “Loss of possession” in this article?
Firstly, it’s a personal preference when it comes to dividing by the number of passes attempted. Secondly, Opta calculate possession in a game by total number of passes from both teams divided by number of passes by each team. If each team makes 500 passes and the total for the game is 1000 then it’s 50% possession for each. A simple example I know! I’d always assumed they just stop-watched each team.
I’m more interested in a players efficiency. The more passes they attempt, the more time they have on the ball, and the more possession they have for their particular team. Having said that perhaps ‘on the ball’ statistics would be a better divider with passes attempted rather than ‘off the ball’ stats like interceptions, as its seems slightly skewed in this case.
Just google Opta definitions for an explanation for loss of possession. The whole list is on the Opta website. Thanks for reading and thanks for your insightful comment.
no doubt lucas played good football in past couple of years,but that took him 3 years to actually settle down…if u were to compare him with spearing and the time spearing has been on the pitch spearing could be a far more better player.lucas cannot take a shot at the goal like alonso,mascherano or spearing…he can’t take corner kicks,free kicks…his passing accuracy has only improved in 2010/11..the only thing he does well is to hold..but if liverpool were to win trophies it asks a lot more from a player of that position…actually its liverpool standard from a past couple of years which have gone down due to departure of alonso,arbeloa,masherano and benayon,and not that of lucas which has actually been very impressive..he is just overestimated…
Amit are you serious Yaar? Simply put it took Liverpool fans 3 years to realise what Lucas Leiva is all about. If you go and find some Lucas articles on this website you will find that his stats are very similar to when he first arrived. There is not much change because his role isn’t to have a shot. It’s to protect and not take shots. Last I checked Spearing is yet to score a goal for the first team. I think Lucas is still vastly under-rated and misunderstood.
This is a really poor article. Really poor. Some comical stats there used to boost his stats. Lucas is a good player, not close to great. Liverpool have missed having a DM, not Lucas specifically.
It took you 2 mins to write a negative comment. It took me 4-5 hours to gather the stats and write this article. I think we both know which one is ‘poor’. I’m happy to be proved wrong though. So perhaps you could enlighten us all on what basis the stats are ‘comical’? Or maybe you’d like to write a piece yourself and we could critique it? Happy to debate if only you backed up your comment with fact rather than opinion.
How much did the Suarez furore and ban impact the season, or was it all Lucas? Gerrard’s only started 6 league games/is hardly at his best. There’ve been a lot of changes in midfield. Adam’ injury.
If we were rating players by win % we’d have old Lucas in 08/09 or 09/10, when we were apparently much worse with him than without.
PS, that’s just a bit of a silly way to rank the importance of players.
its not saying lucas is more important than suarez and stevie but the importance of having lucas on the team.
Having lucas there to protect the backline allows stevie to go forward, the other midfield player, and the fullbacks to go forward and join the attack without the fear that we will be hit with a counter attack.
lucas is important because it free’s gerrard to go forward, simple as. we all know gerrard is better in a more advanced role and currently the only player we have who can anchor the midfeild well enough to allow him that freedom is lucas. defensively you cannot fault lucas and to all those saying “he doesnt score” or “he doesnt assist” HE IS A DEFENSIVE MIDFIELDER YOU CLOWNS! its his job to sit back and protect while the other players go win the game. have a little look at the goalscoring stats of DEFENSIVE MIDFIELDERS, there are very few who are a regular goal threat with shots. lucas is missed and with a quality winger and finisher in the summer we will be well positioned for taking our seat in the top 4 back YNWA
correct. The importance of lucas is it allows stevie and the fullbacks to go forward and attack. The lack of goals is a result of the fact that stevie cannot go forward as much to score goals or to provide the final ball
spearing better thn lucas, not so sure about that and yes maybe it took three years for him to adjust but you must remember that he is still very young. Spearing was born and raised in liverpool and is used to english football
Lucas was doing 2 jobs before he got injured. He was our main DM and our main PLAYMAKER! He is fantastic on the ball, his distribution is second to none, and too many people just ignore this fact! He was setting the tempo for us, he just knows how to pick right pass and not to rush, unlike all other midfielder we have including Stevie. Every top team has a player who sets the tempo and you take that player out of the team and don’t have a right cover then you are seriously in trouble.
Our problem is far worse than just not being able to score.
he will be the captain of Brasil for 2014 world cup – bet on that..