Sky Sports Focus – Fantasy Football Scout League Details

Another community article just published - aquishypotatos look at the lessons fantasy managers can take away from the World Cup. http://www.fantasyfootballscout.co.uk/2014/07/15/what-the-world-cup-may-teach-us/

From a FF persepctive, I'm not sure whether i'll be investing in Liverpool, and i'm a fan. Without Suarez, we're gonna suffer. I like Rodgers and I very much hope he is a true managerial great in the making. Whether that is the case I think this coming season will show us. Last season he used his resources well playing fantasy football that let's face it, it was a bit unusual!! However, there is a bit of a question mark over how much of last season was down to Suarez and how much was down to Rodgers.

I know many argue that we will be fine without Suarez, and depending on the success of this window we might be, but we should not underestimate the impact Suarez had last season.

Looking at the brilliant whoscored.com stats which measure over 200 factors on how a player influences a game through dribbles, shots, goals, passes (forward being better than sideways or backwards!), tackles etc, you can see that last seasons top players in Europe (globally really!) were:

Suarez 8.43
Messi 8.42
Ronaldo 8.25
Ribery 8.24
R. Rodiguez 8.02

These were the only players that scored over 8.0 and Suarez rated as the best player of all, above Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar, Bale and all... Our next highest player was Gerrard on 7.74 - actually the second highest rated player in the Premier League. From an LFC perspective our notable players were:

Suarez 8.43
Gerrard 7.74
Skrtel 7.45
Sturridge 7.43
Coutinho 7.4
Sterling 7.39
Henderson 7.2
Johnson 7.12
Lucas 7.07
Flanagan 7.05
Sakho 7.04

which largely seems like a reasonable ranking of our players that mostly contributed to last seasons success.

But looking at the impact of Suarez and comparing with the Opta derived strengths of LFC last season we can see the following (LFCs 'Very Strong" strengths are bullet pointed and key Premier League wide facts about Suarez' performance last season are listed below them):

LFC strength: Finishing scoring chances
- Suarez: Scored the most goals (31)
- Suarez: Had the most shots on target from inside the box (35)
- Suarez: Scored the most goals from inside the box (24)
LFC strength: Creating scoring chances
- Suarez: Scored the most clear cut chances (17)
- Suarez: Created the most clear cut chances (22)
- Suarez: Had the most assists from open play (11)
- Suarez: Had the most shots that hit the woodwork (9)
LFC strength: Counter attacks
- Suarez: Scored the most goals from counter attacks (4)
- Suarez: Had the most shots from counter attacks (9)
LFC strength: Creating chances using through balls
- Suarez: Made the most accurate through balls (16)
LFC strength: Creating chances using individual skill
- Suarez: Had the most shots on target (81)
- Suarez: Won the most penalties (3)
- Suarez: Picked up the most MoM awards (14)
- Suarez: Attempted the most dribbles (237)
LFC strength: Shooting from direct free kicks
- Suarez: Had the most attempts from direct free kicks (28)
LFC strength: Attacking set pieces

I'm sure most of us recognise those LFC strengths, good to know that what our eyes, heads and hearts would have told us are statistically backed up!! So bar Attacking Set Pieces (which mostly comes from Skrtels 7 goal haul last season) there is a massive correlation between LFCs key strengths and the "Best in League" performance of Suarez. He was massively important to us.

Of course he is not irreplaceable and the club will go on, but without doubt we would have been better off adding to a team with Suarez in it rather than trying to replace him. Fact is that overall we were good last season but we had very clear key weaknesses and they weren't attributable to Suarez being in the team.

The Opta derived key weaknesses of LFC were:

LFC: Stopping opponents creating chances
LFC: Avoiding individual errors
LFC: Protecting the lead

Again, these are pretty familiar. Although we believe in defending from the front it is hard to make a case that these weaknesses were anything to do with Suarez. More likely these weaknesses were driven by:

Lack of leadership and organisation in defence
Lack of organisation and power in midfield
Lack of defensive quality at full back

Now if we had kept Suarez, this summers transfer activity and team restructuring would have centred around:

Adding a quality leader at centre back
Adding a midfield powerhouse to compliment Gerrard and Henderson
Adding a quality left back
Adding two back up attacking players

Solving these issues would have left us with Allen and Lucas as midfield back ups and with Suarez, Sturridge, Sterling and Coutinho plus two newbies fighting for three attacking places. As it is we are going to have to do all that AND restructure our attack to compensate for the glaring hole left by Suarez. That is not ideal. Rather than adding three players into the first choice team to enhance what we had we are going to have to more radically restructure which is a shame. Of course I understand that Suarez and Barcelona drove his transfer and all the club can do is get the best fee it can and move on, but it is still very disappointing and a massive impact.

Yes we are getting around £75m for Suarez, but that in itself presents serious questions of our ability to spend it wisely.

Last season our success was based around roughly 13-14 players. If you consider our 14 top rated players from last season as successes and others not (ie they failed to perform at a level that impacted on our core of 14 best players), then FSG/Rodgers success in spending money is not good.

FSG spent roughly £211m on senior players prior to this summer, but only Suarez, Sturridge, Coutinho, Henderson and Sakho (£77.5m) are rated amongst our top 14 players. That's a spending success rate of 36.7% with the other £133.5m contributing very little.

Similarly Rodgers has spent roughly £89.8m on senior players prior to this summer, but only Sturridge, Coutinho and Sakho (£38.5m) are rated amongst our top 14 players. That's a spending success rate of 42.9% with the other £51.3m contributing very little.

So while last season's performance gave much cause for optimism, it is very clear that a large chunk of it was driven by Suarez' performance and while we are getting serious money for him, we are demonstrably poor at spending money. Which gives more than reasonable grounds for concern this summer.

Faith in Rodgers goes a long way but this summer is crucial and at the moment there are no guarantees of repeated success next season.

So far out of LFC, ManC, ManU, Chelsea and Arsenal we are the ONLY club that has had a major loss.

City's title winning team is still intact and they have added a couple of players. United have got rid of the Moyes liability and added a proven manager who should suit the club and the PL. They have also added Shaw and Herrera for £56m. Chelsea should have solved their striker weakness with Costa and have boosted midfield with Fabregas for a combined £62m and have only lost the disaster area that was David Luiz. Arsenal have lost little of great significance but added Sanchez who we desperately wanted...

So while I have faith in Rodgers, and the proof will only be in performances next season, I currently find it very difficult to believe that we haven't moved backwards right now compared with others who have clearly moved forwards.

That is not being negative, it is a realistic analysis and appraisal of what made us good, what we have lost, the level of change we are being forced to make from last seasons successful team and how good we have been recently at effecting change and spending money.

It is not meant to be gloomy and negative, just realistic about our current status.