Berbatov's season thus far: some facts

Treble

We have signed Berbatov in order to help us retaining the titles in the Prem and in the CL. We haven't paid some 30m pounds in order to win the CC or the FA cup. Therefore, I think it's good to see how he performs in the league and in Europe.

He's had 27 starts in those competitions thus far (23 Prem., 4 CL), scored 12 goals and assisted for 8 goals (according to Actim stats he has 9 assist in the league). This makes 20 (or 21) contributed goals in 27 starts.

Those stats aren't particularly impressive but are they worse than those of the other forwards in the same compets?

Ronaldo: 29 starts (23 Prem, 6 CL), 13 goals (2 from pen.) and 6 (or 7 accord. to Actim st.) assists: 19 (20) contributed goals in 29 starts.

Rooney: 24 starts (18 Prem, 6 CL), 12 goals and 5 assists, i.e. 17 contributed goals in 24 starts.

Tevez: 16 starts (13 Prem, 3 CL), 4 golas, 3 assists, i.e. 7 contributed goals in 16 starts.

To put it otherwise,

Berbatov has contributed to 0,74 (or 0,77 according to Actim stats) goals per started game
Ronaldo: 0,65 goals per game (or respectively 0,69)
Rooney: 0,70 goals per game
Tevez: 0,43 goals per game

If you calculate the ratio between contributed goals and played minutes, then Berbatov's would be even better as he had only 3 subst. appearances whereas for instance Tevez had 8-10 appear. as subst.

Hence, in terms of goals plus assists Berbatov has been our most productive forward in the most important competitions thus far even though he plays deeper than the other forwards. Surprise?

There is a myth that Berbatov does not contribute enough defensively wise, that he is carried by his team-mates, i.e. that he is lazy. This myth rests only on a misinterpretation of his languid style, it isn't based on any relevant data.

Yesterday Pogue posted the stats about the defensive work of most of our midfielders and forwards. Here are some interesting facts:

Tackles Attempted
Success %
Interceptions


Darren Fletcher
28
75,0%
25



Dimitar Berbatov
22
86,4%
28

Wayne Rooney
10
80,0%
21

Carlos Tevez
8
75,0%
5

Berbatov played more games than Rooney and Tevez but you can establish the following:

won tackles and intercepted attacks per start:

Berbatov 0,82 won tackles, 1,21 intercepted attacks
Rooney 0,44 won tackles, 1,16 intercepted attacks
Tevez 0,46 won tackles, 0,38 intercepted attacks

Berbatov attempts more tackles than Rooney and Tevez and wins more tackles, he intercepts more attacks as well, at intercepting attacks he has been three times better than Tevez. Shocking?

But those defensive stats are only about the Prem, what about the CL when Berbatov is a "passanger"? Well, we haven't conceded a goal in the CL with Berbatov on the pitch, not bad...

In sum: stats show that in terms of goals and assists Berbatov has been our most productive forward in the most important competitions thus far and in terms of tackles and intercepted attacks he has been our best forward defensively wise. Notice that his defensive stats are in some respects better than Fletcher's: this says everything how accurate the theory about his defensive work is.

Fergie said after the Boro game at home that Berbatov ran further than Rooney and his stats were exceptional. Most fans didn't believe he was serious. But he was serious, Berbatov's stats are pretty good. This is why he is the third best player in the league according to Actim stats. Well, this may be dabatable or wrong but one thing should be perfectly clear. Most United fans do not give him enough credit for our successful season thus far and SAF has been right to start him in the most important competitions.

A popular objection is that Berbatov's individual stats might be good but the team hasn't improved and play worse than last season because he slows us down etc...Well, the truth is that with Berbatov in the team we won 8-10 points more from the corresponding fixtures than last season. The team has won 6 points more than last season but Berbatov didn't play vs Villa away and Newcastle home when 4 points were dropped. Hence, we won with him 10 points more from the corresponding fixtures...

Anduin

If he finishes the season with 16-18 goals and around 12 assists I'll happily take that. He obviously needed time to settle and I expect him to do a lot better next season. I just wish he would score most of his sitters, if memory serves me right he missed a couple of excellent and easy chances throughout this season.
Is that enough to justify the transfer fee? I don't know and in the end I don't care. Fergie wanted him, he chose to pay £30m and he's pleased with Berbatov's contribution, so it will be fine for me as well.

REd FUn DevIl

Forget about the transfer fee. If you wanna take players from lesser clubs is only gonna be like that, especially if the club dont wanna sell that was the case with Spurs.

He hasnt had a bad season so far but hasnt been on fire either.

I think he is gonna need to rise his game in the CL games cause he was almoust invisible in the Inter games and we are gonna need that bit of class if we want to retain the trophy.

Pogue Mahone

I'm a firm believer that stats can be useful an those stats show that Berbatov has been fairly effective, going forwards, and does much more defensive graft than people give him credit for.

What those stats DON'T show is the number of sitters he's missed or the fact he's been fairly anonymous in most (but not all) of our really big games this season. Hence, I think it's fair to say his debut season hasn't been a great success.

I think he's a class player, who will get better and better but he still has it all to prove.

Treble

He was good in the game away when we played our best football thus far and he should have had a penalty vs him and also a goal, had Giggs and Ronaldo passed to him on several occasions.

He wasn't good in the second leg, I think we may learn something about the possible causes in the next days, I heard he got a problem with his ankle before the game but SAF decided he could play.

Treble

I don't think he missed more sitters than Rooney and Ronaldo. I remember that Rooney missed crucial chances vs Arsenal and Villa away, Ronaldo vs Everton and Arsenal away etc. Rooney missed a sitter vs Fulham some days ago which no one would remember of as we won 4:0. I'm not sure it's right to single out Berbatov for missed sitters. After all, his goals per shots ratio is much better than Rooney's and Ronaldo's.

As regards the big games. His first two games were vs Liverpool and Chelsea away...And we scored 2 goals in those games and Berbatov played a crucial role for both goals...He wasn't good vs Arsenal away but we lost the game due to missed chances by Rooney and Ronaldo...And vs Chelsea at home he had an assits and a goal. And vs Inter away we played our best football, he wasn't missing, he was available but Giggs and Ronaldo missed to pass to him in perfect situations.

Brwned

You aren't actually trying to say Berbatov's better at defending than Tevez and Rooney, are you?

Colly

I think that's a pretty accurate summary. I'd agree with that. Still a lot to prove

MUFCgal

This is spot on. I think there's more to come, well I hope there is

Treble

You aren't actully trying to say that you know who is better at defending only by watching and perceiving their performances through your preconceptions of their ability to defend, are you?

Actually, those sttas do not give enough credit to Berbatov's defensive work as he is much more useful than Rooney and Tevez when we defend from set pieces...

Pogue Mahone

Rooney's played less football and his stats are similar so he's a more effective defender than Berbatov. Tevez, it seems, isn't.

I was surprised at those stats myself but I think they can be explained by Berbatov being a bit cleverer, in terms of movement, allowing him to make interceptions or nick the ball off un-suspecting defenders (a la Michael Carick). I've definitely noticed that he puts in a lot of very clean tackles most games he plays.

Tevez doesn't seem to be anywhere near as effective at winning the ball but those stats won't show the amount of times Tevez wins us the ball back by pressing defenders into making a mistake ( a la Darren Fletcher)

Rooney provides the best of both approaches.

Treble

I gave the stats per starts, therefore this isn't true, stats wise Berbatov has been better than Rooney defensively wise...


Berbatov 0,82 won tackles per start, 1,21 intercepted attacks per start
Rooney 0,44 won tackles per start, 1,16 intercepted attacks per start
Tevez 0,46 won tackles per start, 0,38 intercepted attacks per start

Treble

This is a good and important point.

Pogue Mahone

Fair enough. With regards to Rooney, then, I guess we need to take into account he plays in a more advanced role than Berbatov.

Chirag

Nice post Treble..

Treble

Another interesting stats:

Berbatov won 44 fouls in the league vs 11 for Rooney.

Per start this means: Berbatov has won 2 fouls per game, Rooney - 0,6.

Berbatov has won for us nearly three times more fouls than Rooney (given their starts).

Brwned

The stats are obviously quite suspect though, as there's no chance Darren Fletcher has only attempted 28 tackles.

It's nice to see that he's an effective tackler though. But we both know he's the worst at defending from the front out of our three strikers, regardless of the stats.

Brwned

Simple question, is Berbatov a better defender than Tevez or Rooney?

Pogue Mahone

We might think we "know" something but that doesn't mean we're right.

Treble

Some simple questions may be stupid, if you don't lay down the relevant criteria.

Your argument amounts to the following: fuck the tackles, fuck the intercepted attacks, fuck the defensive work when defending from set pieces, it's obvious that Rooney and Tevez defend better. Pathetic argument.

Treble

no, you do not know, that's a mere hypothesis which is probably false

Brwned

Righto.

That didn't answer my question, at all.

Is Berbatov a better defender than Tevez or Rooney?

Treble

I answered your question but you failed to get the answer.

Brwned

No, I know.

So does every other person on here who doesn't base their entire argument around stats and actually has some sort of understanding of football, too.

Brwned

What about if I limit the answer criteria to a simple A), B) or C)?

Is Berbatov A) A better defender than Tevez B) A better defender than Rooney or C) a worse defender than both of them?

Treble

myths may be widespreaded and in this case you just share a widespreaded myth which isn't supported by any relevant data

to appeal to the opinion of majority doesn't help in this case, as the majority may be deluded

football is something much more compex than most fans realise, it's naive to think that you may may form sound opinions only by watching football

Pogue Mahone

That's a bit of a spastic question without the words "in your opinion" in there somewhere. You've asked it three times now without attempting to adress why the stats give a very clear, and completely objective, answer.

Brwned

I don't, I use stats to back up my argument whenever necessary.

in this case, it isn't necessary. Tevez and Rooney both defend better than him.

Treble

no offence but that's not serious, better say that you hold to your opinion and express some respect to the contrary opinion than trying to rubbish the latter

My position: there are no relevant data which suggest that Berbatov hasn't been more useful than Rooney and Tevez thus far (defensively wise).

Fergies Formula

treble, i like your style, facts cant be argued with even when looks can be deceiving. Nice work

Treble

thank you mate, nice to see that someone appreciates it

Brwned

It's not though, it's a really simple question with a really simple answer.

The stats don't take into account how much work Tevez and Rooney do closing down defenders, snappping at their heels, putting them under pressure and eventually it leads to them just clearing it up the pitch and losing it.

It's pretty clear that Tevez and Rooney are better defenders than Berbatov.

But clearly this is going nowhere, so i'll happily leave it at that.

it's pretty clear Treble doesn't have any sort of opinion of his own, and just uswes stats as his entire argument,

Fergies Formula

there is no proving that though, the only thing which we know they do more of is closing down space

Brwned

A lot more, which is what defending from the front is all about.

It allows the rest of the team to push up and close the space as well as making it very difficult for the defenders to play it out from the back accurately.

Treble

Brnwed, I agreed with Pogue that this is an important point. But Berbatov closes down defenders, too, but this remains unnoticed due to his languid style.

We don't have genuine stats about Berbatov's running. SAF has and he said that Berbatov ran further than Rooney vs Boro. I read after the game that Berbatov appeared lazy again, that his movement wasn't good etc. Yet it turned out that he ran a lot but this remained unnoticed. He runs much more than people give him credit for. Take the Newcastle game away: Berbatov was everywhere on the pitch, defended from deep positions, intercepted attacks etc and was at the same time in the box to convert an easy chance. His fantastic movement remains unnoticed as he appears lazy.

amolbhatia100

Ok a topic i'll obviously get some slack for giving my opinion on but...

We dont need stats to see that Berbatov isnt anywhere near Rooney as a player from what we've seen of him this season. Rooneys movement is better than his (by a mile), he makes much better runs stretches defences more and gets into more threatening postions, hes simply a smarter footballer in that respect. Rooney apparently scores as much as Berbatov as well which i didnt expect, and his finishing is getting better all the time. Also, from range although Wayne hasnt been at his best of late hes still a much bigger threat than Berbatov. Im not even debating whose the more creative footballer of the two. I dont need to look at those stats to know that Rooney is amongst the most creative strikers you will find. Based on their united form his vision and ability to pick out a pass or put in the perfect cross is on a different level to Berbatov's. Ill admit in his spurs days i thought berbatovs ability to pick out a killer pass to put Keane or someone else in was awesome, i havent seen that at all for us. Even if i did, i dont think it would be up with Rooney's whose passing is breathtaking at times.

Rooney can be compared to Torres and probably would come out on top but it could go either way. Both are top top players. Compare Berbatov with Torres and people will laugh at you, simply because he doesnt look anywhere near that good. Ronaldo's better than all three of course. And yes he was absolutely rubbish in both the games against Inter. Especially the second. He made Ibra look like a world beater.

All in all for me Tevez and Berbatov are both in the same boat. Both big names who need to prove they are of the same level or at least close to the level of the top players. The reason i tilt towards Tevez is because hes put in a few performances this season in which hes been genuinely brilliant, whereas i havent seen one from Berbatov. I know the teams Tevez did that too may not have been the very best but at least hes shown hes capable of doing that to teams.

Pogue Mahone

Well done. An attempt at debating, as opposed to stating your opinion as though it's not open to question.

I think that the closing down that Rooney and Tevez do should be taken into account (as pointed out above) and for this reason alone I think they are both better defenders than the stats above would seem to imply.

Are they both better defenders than Berbatov? I'm not sure. I always assumed they were, purely on the basis that they both work so hard. But I had noticed that Berbatov does win the ball back cleanly more often than most strikers (a good example being the interception that started our 22 pass goal) and this observation, combined with these stats, tell me that my assumption is open to being challenged.

That's the thing. I'm open-minded. If someone can come up with convincing statistics to make me question my own opinon then I'm willing to listen - and prepared to accept I might be wrong - rather than continue to repeat my opinion as though it's a fact.

You should try it.

Pogue Mahone

A "few"?

I can think of two. One of them against a team from the Championship.

I also think that two really good performances, along with a load of mediocre displays, is not as useful to the team as a player who puts in a load of "good" performances without ever being "brilliant"

Treble

this should not happen IMO, football would be utterly boring if there weren't many different opinions.

Personally, I have no problem with your opinion. But it seems to me that there is a tendency in your posts to be extremely critical of Berbatov's performances. Be more tolerant mate, more positive, give him a chance, we have been successful with him thus far. SAF decides who will play, he has made that great team, why not believe in his decisions?

amolbhatia100

I think two or three. I remember a couple being against premiership opposition but dont hold me to that.

I also think his mediocre displays are overrated or Berbatovs are underrated. I have seen lots of mediocre displays from the latter as well. And if Berbatov had to win Tevez's place you probably would have seen their stats reversed. I just personally dont see much in it between the two, if anything. But i do know that:

a) Berbatov is first choice right now, in the fact that he plays more and plays the more important games when all the big guns have to start, and hes been disappointed especially in the big games. His performances against Inter were utter rubbish. For that alone i'd drop him and give Tevez a run in the team linking up with Rooney.

b) At least Tevez has shown he has it in him to produce special performances. Where hes all over the pitch tearing the opposition apart. Yes it wasnt against the best teams (although Fulham away is not easy ever) but at least hes shown hes capable of it. Berbatov so far looks unable to go past a 'decent' level. Thats worrying for me.