Tale of the tape! Sterling versus Coutinho!!!

[Stonigut]

Yet coutinho takes more shots that sterling in less games, explain that one?

[Mosiah]

How many minutes played by each?!?

[Peter R]

It's the way they play... their respective positions aside, my own amateur observation tells me, and I am most open to correction, that Sterling likes to get close to goal before taking a shot, and therefore he runs out of room and runs into defenders while Coutinho is more likely to take a shot from distance. It's as simple as that IMO.

BTW, this also explains IMO why Sterling's shots on on goal ratio is better than Coutinho's.

[Mosiah]

Also, how do you really make sense of those figures when Sterling plays forward, midfield (?) and defence, and Coutinho plays midfield? Should the midfielder be taking more shots than the forward? Is there a comparison for when they both play midfield? What are their functions in those positions?

Gwaan mek di stats dem heng yuh!

[Mosiah]

There are these and all sorts of other variables and intangibles that were not or cannot be accounted for. But Stoni won't let those stand in his way as he reaches his conclusions!

[Stonigut]

Regardless at the end of the day each man must make a decision of when to pull the trigger and then must get judged for the result thus coutinho 99/33/5 and Sterling 84/33/7, coutinho clearly has visions of grandeur that pays off twice in 99 shots, some people would call that poor judgement, he is taking more shots that the lone striker p front, something wrong with that picture, but in the court of public opinion, not even a yagga Rowe stroke could be as beautiful as that 2 goals of 99 attempts, two of 99, some people in jamaica call that buckups!!!

[Peter R]

Stoni, erm.. are you re-writing the stats? Your original post said he scored FIVE goals, not two...Coutinho 5 in 99 vs Sterling 7 in 84 c ..5% success vs 8% success, IMO, not a hell of a lot of difference.

[Mosiah]

Up to now Stoni don't tell me how many minutes they played.

[Stonigut]

Sorry, I actually jumped ahead and focused on the two super brilliant strikes that at last count still only counted as two goals, that made him go from ordinary coutinho to..... SuperCoutinho!!! Amazing what lightning in a bottle can do when you get it 2.0% of the time! you can actually almost win Epl player of the year, wait I wonder if Tuffie get a little run in the Epl and lick up two super shot if he could be in contention for Epl player of the year, hmmm???!!

[Stonigut]

Stats tell the real story, no romanticism, no dreamy views of the Pedro plains while thinking about Hampton friends!!!!

On a more serious note, more stats

Sterling 3050 minutes coutinho less minutes at 2709 but still worse as he took more shots and more poor shots in less time than Sterling, poor judgement and decision making.

They both had 17 interceptions.
Sterling won 47.8 % of duels versus couts 46.3
Sterling won 239 duels versus couts 213 so much for the how much work couts doing in the back theory.

Sterling has better passing accuracy at 81.1 percent and couts at 80.5, Sterling had better passing percentage in opponent half than couts as well.

One stat that couts is clearly better in is number of passes at 1546 passes versus 1133 for Sterling but that is due to position mostly!!!

[Peter R]

You never addressed my question regarding the intangibles.

What do you think of Coutinho as a player and his value to the club, stats aside?

[Assasin]

neither Liverpool or the Brazillian national team nuh think it is poor.

[Stonigut]

Truthfully, I think he is ok, he does not excite me at all, I don't really notice him, except on those two stunning goals. I keep wondering what is it that other people are seeing that I am not seeing.like I get excited to watch Sterling (even though his finishing is awful) or Sturridge, Emre Can or Sanchez or Ramsey even Karl's fave Walcott also love how Cazorla play and I always find it interesting to study Ozil, his movement and direction always seems unusual to me, hey it sounds like I am turning into an Arsenal fan!! Bolassie has also surprised me recently, not super productive but his confidence was way up in the Liverpool game, he was so confident and aggressive with his dribbles, it was cool watching him challenge the defenders multiple times face to face.

[Jangle]

Lambert should have also been one of their top contenders too.

[Stonigut]

Stats don't hide poor judgement, he takes too many shots, conversion rate is too low and his assist rate is pathetic for a so called creative midfielder, actually pathetic so much so that the striker has more assists that leads to goals than he does. Ultimately we judge him on that, look at fabregas with 18, etc etc, he is 28th, 28th, twenty eighth, James ward prowse from Southampton is ahead of him and he is not even getting regular game at Southampton, you cannot cover that up with no amount of slick talking. Stats is fact and talk is talk!