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Steven Gerrard has been leading the Liverpool midfield for the best part of 15 years. He is the only footballer to have scored in an FA Cup final, a League Cup final, a Uefa Cup final and a Champions League final. But he won't go on forever.
Finding a player in the Gerrard mould is not going to be easy for Liverpool. Mikel Arteta and Luka Modric are unavailable for transfer and Andrea Pirlo is too old. But as Brendan Rodgers looks to continue the rejuvination at Liverpool, who should he try to sign to take over from his captain? First, some ground rules.
We are searching for players aged 28 or under. You can get away with having a slightly older limit here because this role takes a bit less of a physical beating than forwards, wingers and full-backs, and the age curve for midfielders runs longer. This role is a mix of thoughtful as well as physical.
We also have to remember that we are shopping for Liverpool, who are unlikely to be able to lure first-team starters away from huge clubs. We're shooting for realistic midseason targets here, so not ones that cost £50m or play for Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. We'll save that sort of shopping for the summer.
One of the things that makes Gerrard and Pirlo so difficult to replace is that they are good at almost everything. We are shopping for players who can tackle, have a high passing accuracy, hit accurate long balls regularly and still have the ability to rack up key passes (or in layman's terms, to play passes that put their team-mates in good shooting positions). Not many players have such a diverse range of talents.
To help add to the talent pool, I loosened the key-pass requirement a little. The players chosen will still post very good numbers, but they won't necessarily provide as many assists as Pirlo. One filter that should not be compromised on is the ability to hit long passes.
Liverpool really want a long passer to distribute the ball quickly to the wings, where Daniel Sturridge, Luis Suárez and Raheem Sterling will be waiting. Fast transitions are hugely important for this Liverpool team and a midfield general who could even improve that area over current personnel is a requirement.
Target No1: Ivan Rakitic, Sevilla
Wait. What? I go on about needing a player like Pirlo and the first target on the list is an attacking midfielder with nine goals and six assists this season? Trust me, there's a point to this. For starters, go to Rakitic's WhoScored page and look at the positions. He hasn't always played as an attacking midfielder for Sevilla this year. Additionally, Rakitic was one of only two players to fully match the similarity score test for his 2011-12 season, before I loosened the filters. He is perfectly capable of playing deeper in the midfield and still producing fantastic numbers.
Aged only 25, Rakitic is extremely versatile and capable of producing across the midfield. This is incredibly useful for Liverpool, as it would let him fill in for a number of different, more limited midfield players currently in the squad.
If Philippe Coutinho is out and you need someone to play in the hole, call Rakitic. If Gerrard is knackered and in need of a rest, call Rakitic. And if Jordan Henderson takes a knock and you need a player with stamina who can cover the middle of the park, call Rakitic.
Most people view his attacking midfield production as the thing that makes Rakitic most valuable. My perspective is, due to the paucity of players capable of playing a deeper playmaking position at his exceptional level, that will be Rakitic's most useful long-term role for almost any buying club.
He is having another great season, but it's almost certainly time for him to move to a bigger club than Sevilla, either now or in the summer. He will only have a year left on his contract in June, so all of the leverage will be with the player.
The cost will be an interesting one. Most clubs in Spain are known to have money problems, and good attacking midfielders aren't that hard to find in Europe. Deeper lying midfielders, however, are much rarer and more expensive. Given the contract situation, if he gets valued as an attacking midfielder, then £15m probably still makes sense. In reality, I could see him still having a lot of value even beyond £25m.
Target No2: Luca Cigarini, Atalanta
When I was writing about interesting players under the radar last summer, I discovered Luca Cigarini's statistics and described him as a "poor man's Andrea Pirlo". That was before I had multiple seasons of data, and also before I understood just how rare players who produce like Pirlo actually are. That "poor man's" slight doesn't seem nearly as apt now that I've done the research. This is a player who is so under-rated, the first highlight video for him on YouTube is six years old.
Cigarini is the other guy who matched the similarity scores before the filter was loosened, and he has three seasons so far of Pirloesque production. Of the players we are looking at, he also generally has the highest tackling numbers, but his passing accuracy has suffered a bit while playing at a lesser team (Atlanta).
He had a great start to the season this year and was tied for the league lead in assists with Francesco Totti for quite a while. He has since hit a dry patch, but he has set up as many goals as Kevin Strootman and Carlos Tevez – and more than Robinho and Arturo Vidal. Cigarini is for real.
He was allowed to make a permanent move to Atalanta this season, as Napoli decided they were not interested in full ownership of the player. This was baffling to me at the time, and given Napoli's struggles in central midfield, is even more baffling to me now. Any team looking for a deep-lying midfielder that can disrupt opponent attacks as well as make great attacking passes, should be looking at Cigarini.
His contract is up in in 2015, which means there will only be a year left on it this summer. He'll be 28 at that point, but this is a role where players can still thrive into their early 30s. He would probably be cheaper than Rakitic (and definitely would have been last summer) because you have to be a crazy football hipster or data geek to care about Atalanta midfielders.
Target Number 3) Ever Banega
People who pay attention to La Liga know who Ever Banega is. The stories that come with Banega are already legendary, and he's only 25. Back in 2010 Valencia tried desperately to get rid of Banega, but no one wanted him. Six months later, he was their best player.
In 2012, he suffered a broken leg when he tried to stop his own rolling car with his foot. Banega is complicated. He's also really good at football. Though he moves around the Valencia midfield quite a bit, his best role is probably as a defensive or central midfielder. Back in the 2011-12 season, he put up these numbers in a fairly shortened stint:
The problem is that his defensive stats haven't even come close in the last two years. Seeing stats like that drop off after a major injury would give me serious pause in buying a player with such a colourful history. They might have collapsed due to a role change, but there's a statistical red flag right there. However, there's another Valencia player who has produced very well this season.
Target Number 3.5) Daniel Parejo
Originally part of the Real Madrid youth system, Parejo first appeared extensively in La Liga for Getafe. Valencia bought him in 2011 for a rumoured €6m, but seemed to quickly fall out of favour. Still only 24, Parejo has seen quite a bit more playing time in the last two seasons, and this year has put up these stats:
Tasty. His defensive numbers were similar last season, but it's the key pass numbers that have pushed him into consideration. It's an open question of whether he can continue this for an entire season, but Parejo is young enough to still be improving, and his past production wasn't far enough removed from this that I'd be worried about a huge drop off.
He's signed until 2016, so there would be no player leverage for a move, but he's practically unknown as well, meaning he could go fairly cheap. Valencia signed him for around €6m, so a move in the £10m range could be possible. It would be a gamble, but not a huge one.
Conclusion
Replacing Andrea Pirlo or Steven Gerrard is difficult. After comparing midfielders from across the top five leagues in Europe since the 2009-10 season, we ended up with a single digit number of guys who fit the profile required.
Statistical production doesn't provide the final verdict on any player, but they do provide a really good starting point when doing transfer shopping, especially when you have some idea of the production you are trying to replace.
The first step is finding interesting targets. The second step is spending an awful lot of time getting to know those players on film, and learning whether they are good risks or not. If you are looking for the full package of production and also looking for players who can be fixtures in a midfield for the next five years, I'd make a run at the players listed above.
However, there are other young players I would definitely take a closer look at if you want to loosen your offensive creation requirement. Guys like Udinese's Allan (23) or Feyenoord's Jordie Clasie (22) should be intriguing options for the right team. But for Liverpool – right now – these would be the ones.
Data
This is the list of potentials I looked at when compiling this piece:
Notice Vidal putting up jawdropping defensive numbers at Leverkusen aged only 23, on his way to becoming one of the most complete midfielders in the world. Eternally under-rated Borja Valero is there (now at Fiorentina), as is Bayern's Tony Kroos (all of 22 that season). Then you hit the current season with Parejo, Fran Rico, Moutinho, Cigarini and PSV's Stijn Schaars (30) highlighted. I would place a fairly large wager that Moutinho has looked this good for years, but there isn't any Portugal data in the public sphere to prove it.
Data Appendix
P90 – Total minutes played in a season divided by 90.
NPG – Non-penalty goals
NPG90 – Non-genalty goals per 90
ShAcc – Shooting accuracy (multiply by 100 to get the percent)
Sh90 – Shots per 90
SOT90 – Shots on target per 90
GConv – Goal conversion rate (multiply by 100 to get the percent)
A90 – Assists per 90
GA90 – Non-penalty Goals + assists per 90. A better measure of overall scoring contribution
Drib90 – Successful dribbles per 90
KP90 – Key pass per 90
TB90 – Throughballs per 90
Pass% – Passing percentage
Tack90 – Tackles per 90
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