Ferdinand and Vidic had great stats, Jones and Smalling have good stats, discuss

Lies, lies and damned statistics! But seriously, stats are a funny beast. Many times you don't need them to assess a player. A good pair of eyes will do. I don't think anyone needs stats to pass judgement on Mike and Phil. The collective sigh when fans see their names as a CB pairing is louder than when some small stadiums cheer a goal!

Didn't Otamendi have the most completed passes in the Prem a couple seasons ago? Yet even among Citeh's famed ball playing CBs, I doubt any one rates him highly.

adexkola said:

It's amazing how ignorant a lot of people are regarding statistics. No they don't provide the full picture. They do provide a lot of insight, especially for those who can't watch every single game, or just don't know how to watch the game while paying attention to every detail they say statistics misses

P.S. Ferdinand and Vidic >> Jones and Smalling

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Do they really in this case?
Pass accuracy by itself is almost worthless, because 90% completion on safety passes is a lot worse than 80% completion on very creative passes.

Tackles or interceptions per game by itself says next to nothing, because it depends greatly on how much possession your team has and how well they defend, they also depend on a player's role. Someone who plays as a stopper in a back 3 will probably be expected to have more defensive actions with lower success rate than someone who plays more in a covering role and has to sweep up behind him.
Statistics can be an important analytical tool, but not in such a superficial way.

I knew it, Jones is better than Maguire.

Where’s the stats on positioning, anticipation and defence leadership?

Also where’s the stats on the sample sizes?

All this just shows what an elite defender Van Dijk is. It annoys me that we let Liverpool have a free run at him.

Of course stats only does not tell us anything. We know that Rio and Vidic were left alone to defend on 2v2 a lot of times. I think there is a quote somewhere on that too. Can you imagine Jones and Smalling left alone 2v2 with anyone?
Yes Jose or Woodward was really stupid to let Van Dijk go to Liverpool. It also dragged for sometime and United only got interested after Liverpool made the bid to Southampton.

ManchesterYoda said:

If that's true how did I know what to expect from Wan-Bissaka before I saw him play for us? Before these 3 friendlies, the only time I've seen him is playing against us, MotD highlights and YouTube clips.

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Probably because everyone has been talking about him for the last 12 months. Stats are useful to support actually watching a player, not the other way around.

Just proves that nearly isn't good enough imo. But what about stats like blocks, standing vs sliding tackles etc. This graph doesn't show enough imo

I want to see the errors leading to goals, including the ones by bad positioning, own goals and clean sheets together now.

Stats

Jones and Smalling are both much better than they are given credit for, but people are entrenched in their views of them as mascots of our mediocrity. They are an easy target, and are held to a much higher standard by Utd fans than some of the players they would replace them with.

Not sure how much value there are in those stats, but better to have good ambiguous stats than bad ones. Koulibaly looks abysmal in those numbers while Lindelof appears as some perceive him, a defender without any exceptional defensive attributes.

Of course not. Jones and Smalling make two many mistakes to be solid CBs. Everyone makes mistakes but these two and of course all the current CBs make too many mistakes. Rio and Vidic do make mistakes too but rarely.

Amar__ said:

Jones' stats are always misleading because he plays so little football and it's mostly during the easiest runs in the league against worst teams.

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You made this up

Lindelof is shockingly overrated by us united-fans. He is decent, but nothing special. This stats back it up

Stats Schmats!

I'm sure if you looked at Fellaini's stats they'd be similar to Roy Keanes.
Djemba Djemba stats would probably be similar to Michael Carricks.

I think the way we measure and look at stats will evolve over time. I think a player rating score average out of 10 was, for every performance over a few seasons, should be included in star comparisons.
Keanes average player rating score would probably be around 8 out of 10. Fellaini's would probably be a 5

Champagne Football said:

Stats Schmats!

I'm sure if you looked at Fellaini's stats they'd be similar to Roy Keanes.
Djemba Djemba stats would probably be similar to Michael Carricks.

I think the way we measure and look at stats will evolve over time. I think a score rater of what the players game score average out of 10 was, for every performance over a few seasons, should be included in star comparisons.
Keanes average game score would probably be around 8 out of 10. Fellaini's would probably be a 5

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Of course they will. They definitely have, behind the scenes.