With Swans supremo Huw Jenkins confirming the club are involved in talks with Liverpool regarding the acquisition of the one-cap England midfielder, how does he compare to the Swansea midfielders?
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| Jonjo Shelvey looking chuffed to be involved with the England squad |
This is a bit of a mad one isn't it? Most fans seem a bit perplexed, but there are those who rate the Liverpool central midfielder, so I thought I'd have a look at some stats from last season to see how he squares up. Worth mentioning is at this point in time, Jonjo Shelvey has an England cap and Leon Britton doesn't. The world is messed up sometimes.
Aged 21 (he's not 22 until February), Shelvey started his career at Charlton Athletic and made his debut aged 16, becoming the youngest player in the club's history (replacing Paul Konchesky in the history books), before also becoming their youngest ever goalscorer in an FA Cup match against Norwich, just before his 17th birthday. He went on to make 47 appearances for Charlton, scoring 8 goals, before he drew the attention of (amongst others) Liverpool who signed him for around £1.7million. He made 15 appearances for the club (although many were off the bench) in his first season at Anfield, but his starts included a full 90 minutes on his debut in the Europa League, along with other high-profile games.
The following season he found himself loaned out to Blackpool, where in all fairness he did really well - scoring 6 goals in 10 games (including his first senior hat-trick in a 5-0 win away at Elland Road), before being recalled by Liverpool due to an injury crisis. He made a further 16 appearances that season (2011/12) which brings us up to date, so now let's have a look at last season.
He made 33 appearances in all competitions, but for ease of comparison I'll only use PL statistics unless otherwise mentioned. He completed 81.7% of his passes (389/476 in total), giving him an average of 25.1 per game. For a Brendan Rodgers team, that is mental. Does he avoid the ball on purpose? Not the best start. He only plays 0.7 key passes per game, and 2.1 accurate long balls, so passing really doesn't seem to be the thing to look at if I'm to convince myself he's worth the rumoured £5million that's been mentioned.
He makes 1.2 tackles per game (about the same as De Guzman and Ki), and only makes 0.3 interceptions per game, and 0.6 clearances. Ok, he only started 9 games in the league (with a further ten games as a sub) but the stats pale in comparison when compared to any Swansea midfielder. It seems he may be a bit confused as to what job he's supposed to do in the team, because he doesn't seem to be carrying out any role particularly effectively.
In the Championship for Blackpool, and whilst playing for Charlton earlier in his career, he seemed something akin to a Frank Lampard - a midfielder who'd charge into the box before smashing one into the top corner, but it hasn't really happened yet for him in the Premier League - despite hitting a screamer against Chelsea (although it was a screamer into an empty net, so I'm not as enthused about that one as some people seem). Worth a watch though is this goal he scored for Liverpool U21's against Man Utd's.
Offensively, last season he scored one goal and got no assists. He loses the ball 0.7 times a game through poor touches etc, and is dispossessed with the same frequency, while he only attempts 0.2 dribbles a game - so it seems he's mugged in possession quite a lot. He does manage 1.8 shots per game (35 in total) - which given a lot of his appearances have been as a sub (and he only scored once) would seem to indicate he's not that great at hitting the target either. I haven't got stats for shots on target, so shoot me.
It's only fair to mention that his stats for European football are a lot better - pass completion rate of 87.5% and 45.6 passes per game - what's up with that? He also managed 1.6 key passes per game and scored 4 goals, getting an assist for good measure - all of this from just 4 starts and 3 sub appearances. Mad.
Actually, I've just checked and 3 of those goals were literally scored against Young Boys. I could score 3 goals against young boys!
Nonsense aside, I'm still not convinced he's worth the kind of money that's being talked about. I saw an interesting idea on SCFC2.co.uk guestbook earlier, where someone was wondering if perhaps Liverpool still owe us some money for the acquisition of Rodgers, Allen etc? It would make sense given the huge sums involved, and would possibly account for why we're in for him, as Huw does love a bargain.
£5million? Willing to be proven wrong, but I just don't see it right now.