http://www.football365.com/news/21554/7033565/Downing-Could-Be-A-Moneyball-Buy
Downing Could Be A 'Moneyball' Buy At £19million, Stewart Downing would represent a significant risk, but Nick Miller reckons Liverpool have been looking at the stats and he might just be the surest buy out there...
Gleaning any impressions from the feedback F365 receives from Liverpool fans is a dangerous business.
However, while drawing conclusions is clearly highly unscientific and should not be taken as fact, the summer target that seems to have least convinced Liverpool fans is Stewart Downing.
Quite why, I'm not sure.
Downing is not an especially eye-catching signing. Well, apart from the £19million fee that Aston Villa are apparently demanding for his services. That would be very eye-catching indeed. Perhaps it would be more accurate to state that his arrival would not excite neutral fans like the signing of, say, Juan Mata.
Once a Twitter sceptic, I've recently come around to the 140-character world, and one of the key reasons was the ever-excellent OptaJoe. For stat fans, he's basically opium. And this bottomless pit of statty joy recently informed the world of the following:
'135 - Stewart Downing has completed more crosses in open play than any other player in the Premier League over the last three seasons. Whip.'
Then later...
'34.4 - Stewart Downing has averaged 34.4 appearances over the past five Premier League seasons. Reliable.'
And there, friends, is the reason Kenny Dalglish is so keen on the Aston Villa winger.
While nobody seems absolutely sure how Dalglish will line up his Liverpool side next season, an adaptable 4-3-3 with different players to suit different opponents looks the favourite. Perhaps the only attacking player that one imagines being a permanent fixture in that system is Andy Carroll, largely because at present Liverpool don't have another centre-forward capable of leading the line. Luis Suarez does his best work a little deeper, while Dirk Kuyt works hard, bless him, but isn't exactly a target man and David Ngog...well, David Ngog is David Ngog.
Therefore, much of Dalglish's strategy will be geared around exploiting Carroll's talents. It doesn't take a tactical genius to spot that much of Carroll's best work at Newcastle was done with Joey Barton pinging crosses onto his piratey head.
So who do Liverpool have that can perform such a role? 'Nobody' is the short answer. Their current widemen are either inconsistent (Maxi), rebuilding their own game (Joe Cole), makeshift (Raul Meireles) or bloody awful (Milan Jovanovic). They currently do not have a winger in the side who can cross the ball. Charlie Adam's set pieces will help (particularly as he'll take over from Steven Gerrard on corner duty - a relief for Liverpool fans everywhere), but most of his work in open play will be done from a deep, central position.
In some respects, Downing is a 'Moneyball' signing. Those of you that have read Michael Lewis's book will know that this approach is based on statistical objectivity, rather than subjective gut feelings or opinions. Instead of looking at a player's physical attributes, Billy Beane - the man around whom the book is based - would pay more attention to his statistics. Indeed, Beane would sometimes select players who his scouts actively advised against, as long as their numbers stacked up.
Beane adopted the 'sabermetrics' (a method of analysing baseball statistics objectively) approach with the Oakland A's, a baseball team towards the lower end of the financial spectrum in the MLB, because every dollar had to be spent wisely. Liverpool aren't exactly in the paupers section, but their resources are much more limited than many in the Premier League, so the same theory applies. John W. Henry and the Boston Red Sox won a couple of World Series on the back of that approach, and it looks like the theory is being carried over to Anfield.
In Downing, Liverpool are buying a statistically reliable footballer, who should in theory help get the best out of their current resources.
And in fact, here's another stat from OptaJoe:
'110 - Jordan Henderson, Luka Modric & Samir Nasri have all created 110 PL goalscoring chances since Aug 2009. Transferable.'
So as much as we mocked the money paid for Henderson, there was at least logic to the signing. Liverpool already believe they have at least one man to put away the chances, so they're buying up the players they think can create them. It's all very simple really.
£19million is an awful lot of money, but in many ways Downing represents a more solid, reliable investment than a man that offers more excitement. For a club whose support is so notoriously passionate, it's an interesting approach.
