CroJack
Key Player
Mate, I needed a thread to answer your questions, and that's because I had to post a lot of images in order to explain things. I hope, you can forgive me 
.
@Victoria Swan wrote:
"Hmmm ... So, according to Sofascore and WhoScored pretty well the rest of the Swans were sublime then as they all played far better than Korey?
Not sure what you saw in slomo(tion) @CroJack - you didn't actually describe what led you to your idiosyncratic judgement in your post -- but in real time I was left with the impression of a player who pulled off few tackles and no key passes. Surely tackles and key passes are what a defensive midfielder is all about.
Smith's stats: Touches 46, Tackles 1, Passes 42 (78% accuracy), Key Passes 0.
Grimes' stats: Touches 67, Tackles 1, Passes 56 (89% accuracy), Key passes 2. (BTW Gibbs-White had 5 key passes).
I'd like to see Fulton given a chance. Then (and only then) can we see if you are correct when you say he "wouldn't have changed anything"."
Ok, here we go:
1. I wouldn't put too much into the SofaScore and WhoScored ratings.
I use their ratings more as an orientation, not as the Bible. Actually, their ratings are pretty poor, and here is why:
An assist can be an easy assist (someone else did all the work by providing a fantastic killer ground pass, great cross, a difficult long diagonal pass, etc.), and, as you know, a goal can be an easy goal, a tap in. All these sites don't rate the quality of passes, they don't rate forward runs with the ball, and they definitely don't rate something what is more and more used in modern football statistics, and that's a participation in build-up play. This last metric is called pass-chain, and @jackodiamonds used pass-chains to calculate how much our players contributed to goals and assists in season 2018/19. He used to call them "first, second, and third assists". And many were surpised when he concluded that Barry McKay was one of our most creative players under Potter.
But what @jackodiamonds did in season 2018/19 is not enough. There are many more build-up pass-chains that lead to chances than to goals. Therefore many players get overseen when it comes to ratings. Here is an example: Player A provides a fantastic through ball that completely bypasses opposition midfield and defence, then Player B passes the ball to player C who shoots, but his weak shot is easily saved by opposition goalie. Player B gets awarded a key-pass and player C a shot on target. Both players get a higher rating then the Player A who gets this:
. Nothing. He creates everything and he gets a finger in reward.
SofaScore and WhoScored don't rate off the ball play, and they don't downrate selfishness, lack of focus, poor positioning etc. either.
According to many, Ayew was our best player against Wycombe. In my opinion he was our worst player (I exaggerate, I know ). Yes, he contributed so much in the build-up play, he scored one, and assisted one. But he was criminaly selfish in front of goal. Had he not been so selfish and lacked the focus we could and should have scored at least four more goals. He looked like a child who uses many hours to build a sand castle and then destroys it in a second. An error in attack is equaly bad as an error in defence in my opinion. But time after time we somehow fail to criticise attackers for what we normally slaughter defenders and goalkeepers.
2. Key passes are not what a defensive midfielder is all about. Matt Grimes key-passes numbers are inflated because he takes a lot of free-kicks and corner-kicks for us. A defensive midfielders job is to protect the back three, he has to be a good tackler and a good passer. And he has to participate in build-up play together with wing-backs and both central and attacking midfielder. Matt Grimes and Fulton are good defensive midfielders, and I like them a lot. After the first two games I asked the same question about Smith "What is he contributing with in attack?". Yes, he made some forward passes and a couple of good crosses, but that was it. To be fair to him none of our midfielders and attackers contributed in attack much more than he did. We scored 1 goal in two games and we didn't deserved more. But that was none of our players fault. That was Steve's tactics. We didn't attack through the middle, and we were totally absent in the attacking midfield. Here I've drawn some random arrows just to illustrate the way we attacked against Preston and Birmingham:
Then everything changed against Wycombe. We attacked through the midfield as well and we created I don't know how many chances.
I've made a graph with the players who participated in the attacking pass-chains, and you can see Smith's involvement:
And here are all our attacking pass-chains against Wycombe (it's better if you click on the images) :
.@Victoria Swan wrote:
"Hmmm ... So, according to Sofascore and WhoScored pretty well the rest of the Swans were sublime then as they all played far better than Korey?
Not sure what you saw in slomo(tion) @CroJack - you didn't actually describe what led you to your idiosyncratic judgement in your post -- but in real time I was left with the impression of a player who pulled off few tackles and no key passes. Surely tackles and key passes are what a defensive midfielder is all about.
Smith's stats: Touches 46, Tackles 1, Passes 42 (78% accuracy), Key Passes 0.
Grimes' stats: Touches 67, Tackles 1, Passes 56 (89% accuracy), Key passes 2. (BTW Gibbs-White had 5 key passes).
I'd like to see Fulton given a chance. Then (and only then) can we see if you are correct when you say he "wouldn't have changed anything"."
Ok, here we go:
1. I wouldn't put too much into the SofaScore and WhoScored ratings.
I use their ratings more as an orientation, not as the Bible. Actually, their ratings are pretty poor, and here is why:
An assist can be an easy assist (someone else did all the work by providing a fantastic killer ground pass, great cross, a difficult long diagonal pass, etc.), and, as you know, a goal can be an easy goal, a tap in. All these sites don't rate the quality of passes, they don't rate forward runs with the ball, and they definitely don't rate something what is more and more used in modern football statistics, and that's a participation in build-up play. This last metric is called pass-chain, and @jackodiamonds used pass-chains to calculate how much our players contributed to goals and assists in season 2018/19. He used to call them "first, second, and third assists". And many were surpised when he concluded that Barry McKay was one of our most creative players under Potter.
But what @jackodiamonds did in season 2018/19 is not enough. There are many more build-up pass-chains that lead to chances than to goals. Therefore many players get overseen when it comes to ratings. Here is an example: Player A provides a fantastic through ball that completely bypasses opposition midfield and defence, then Player B passes the ball to player C who shoots, but his weak shot is easily saved by opposition goalie. Player B gets awarded a key-pass and player C a shot on target. Both players get a higher rating then the Player A who gets this:
. Nothing. He creates everything and he gets a finger in reward.SofaScore and WhoScored don't rate off the ball play, and they don't downrate selfishness, lack of focus, poor positioning etc. either.
According to many, Ayew was our best player against Wycombe. In my opinion he was our worst player (I exaggerate, I know
). Yes, he contributed so much in the build-up play, he scored one, and assisted one. But he was criminaly selfish in front of goal. Had he not been so selfish and lacked the focus we could and should have scored at least four more goals. He looked like a child who uses many hours to build a sand castle and then destroys it in a second. An error in attack is equaly bad as an error in defence in my opinion. But time after time we somehow fail to criticise attackers for what we normally slaughter defenders and goalkeepers.2. Key passes are not what a defensive midfielder is all about. Matt Grimes key-passes numbers are inflated because he takes a lot of free-kicks and corner-kicks for us. A defensive midfielders job is to protect the back three, he has to be a good tackler and a good passer. And he has to participate in build-up play together with wing-backs and both central and attacking midfielder. Matt Grimes and Fulton are good defensive midfielders, and I like them a lot. After the first two games I asked the same question about Smith "What is he contributing with in attack?". Yes, he made some forward passes and a couple of good crosses, but that was it. To be fair to him none of our midfielders and attackers contributed in attack much more than he did. We scored 1 goal in two games and we didn't deserved more. But that was none of our players fault. That was Steve's tactics. We didn't attack through the middle, and we were totally absent in the attacking midfield. Here I've drawn some random arrows just to illustrate the way we attacked against Preston and Birmingham:
I've made a graph with the players who participated in the attacking pass-chains, and you can see Smith's involvement:
And here are all our attacking pass-chains against Wycombe (it's better if you click on the images) :
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