Paul Konchesky?! Who let you in?

[Vermilion]

Haha, you are not seriously judging someone based on a testimonial?

Okay, I'll carry on the farce.

Gary Mac played some very clever passes, we could do with that sort of vision. Sign him.

And Carra has to be our penalty taker from now on.

[Icon]

And Owen?

[Fernandinho]

The penalty he took was ingenius. that is the best way to take a penalty, dont think about it just do it

[little dave hedgehog]

Head to Head: Insua v Konchesky

by Mike Kennedy on September 5, 2010 · 0 comments
Post image for Head to Head: Insua v Konchesky

How does this season’s left-back compare to last season’s? We’ve crunched the stats and we think the results will surprise you.

Emilano Insua divides Liverpool fans. Some value his bold adventurous style while others see him as a defensive liability. Similarly, Liverpool fans have mixed feelings about Konchesky. Some think he’ll be a useful addition to the squad who will bring valuable Premier League experience, while others see his signing as evidence of a lack of ambition in the transfer market.

Konchesky’s signing didn’t excite us, but we felt sure he’d be a better left-back than Insua. However, when we compared their stats for the 2009-2010 Premier League season we found some surpising results.
Goals and Assists

Hardly the most important area for two defenders, but worth a look nevertheless. Both players scored once in the Premier League last season, with Insua weighing in with 5 assists and Konchesky contributing two.

Winner: Insua
Shooting

Insua had 24 shots last year only 2 of which were on goal, giving him a shot accuracy of 8%. Konchesky had 14 shots and 3 were on target, giving him a shot accuracy of 22%.

Winner: Konchesky
Fouls Conceded

This is an interesting one – Insua committed 48 fouls last season (1.6 per game), while Konchesky only committed 25 (0.9 per game). This is the areas we feel Insua is weakest in overall (he often fouls opponents because he’s trying to atone for a positional error) so we weren’t surprised to see Konchesky come out ahead.

Winner: Konchesky
Disciplinary Record

Both players received 5 yellow cards. Konchesky received one red card.

Winner: Insua
Passing and Crossing

Insua’s pass completion rate was 87% while Konchesky’s was 78%.

Insua attempted 102 crosses and 23 found a red shirt (23% cross success). Konchesky crossed the ball 69 times and found a team mate on 11 occassions (16% cross success).

Winner: Insua
Tackling & Interceptions

Insua attempted 169 tackles last season and 116 were successful (69% tackle success). Insua averaged 3.8 successful tackles per game.

Konchesky attempted 83 tackles and 49 were successful (59% tackling success). Konchesky averaged 1.9 successful tackles per game.

Insua averaged 2.3 interceptions per game and Konchesky averaged 1.9.

Winner: Insua

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So What?

Stats don’t tell the whole story of course, but these are interesting figures as they clearly imply that Insua is a better tackler, passer and crosser than Konchesky (something we wouldn’t have expected prior to digging into the stats). Have Liverpool really signed an inferior left-back to the one they had?

We used the full season data to produce this representation of a ‘typical’ 90 minutes for each player.

As you can see, Insua is the clear winner.

(For the record, here’s the table with all of the season’s data.)

How do you think Konchesky compares to Insua? Were you surprised by these stats and has your opinion been altered? Let us know what you think in the comments below, we’re keen to build a good reader dialogue here on MicroLFC so please feel welcome to get involved. (You can also subscribe to our twitter feed by the link at the top right or even subscribe by email.)

[Mostar]

Hey Dave do you have a link?

I'm sure Matt will like these stats

[Parm]

Prove me wrong Paul

hope he does.

Welcome Paul K

[BigChief]

Haha, you are not seriously judging someone based on a testimonial?

Okay, I'll carry on the farce.

Gary Mac played some very clever passes, we could do with that sort of vision. Sign him.

To answer your question, aptly today, yes I would have Gary Mac back. At his age and weight still one million times better than a young Lucas.

[DannyMan2006]

Debut today and I thought he did okay. A little nervous I thought at times but that will pass.

Birmingham were happy to chuck crosses in from deeper areas, but we'll see how he does against Nani/Valencia at Old Trafford next week, as well as Rooney who likes to drift out left and maybe even Giggs.

[banditos]

Thought Konch did quite well today and demonstrated that he definitely is an improvement on anything else we had at LB. Solid defensively and got forward well a couple times too.

Lets hope he's not too injured, particularly as that would mean Skrtel staying in at CB.

[Mostar]

Debut today and I thought he did okay. A little nervous I thought at times but that will pass.

Birmingham were happy to chuck crosses in from deeper areas, but we'll see how he does against Nani/Valencia at Old Trafford next week, as well as Rooney who likes to drift out left and maybe even Giggs.

I hope it's only first time jitters.

He was exposed few times in the box but did pretty good in the second half especially going forward until he got injured.

[Zapater]

I thought he was pretty good today, especially considering the circumstances. He may have played a couple suspect balls and have been caught out once or twice but overall when you're playing in a team that was as unstable as us at the back (and everywhere else for that matter) today then not being perfect is understandable.

I saw some positives, there's at least something there for him to build upon.

[JohnDoe]

Insua is a fresh turd, it can get really messy if you step on it, it's a flies' feast. It also smells pretty bad.

Konchesky is an old turd, it's solid, dried up and it doesn't smell much. Doesn't attract much attention.

[Exiled_red]

Insua is a fresh turd, it can get really messy if you step on it, it's a flies' feast. It also smells pretty bad.

Konchesky is an old turd, it's solid, dried up and it doesn't smell much. Doesn't attract much attention.

[Neil Young]

I thought he was pretty good today, especially considering the circumstances. He may have played a couple suspect balls and have been caught out once or twice but overall when you're playing in a team that was as unstable as us at the back (and everywhere else for that matter) today then not being perfect is understandable.

I saw some positives, there's at least something there for him to build upon.

I was no more impressed than I expected to be. If anything, he was slightly worse than anticipated because, while we can make allowances for him being new, and with another new player in front of him, he didn't do the one thing I think we can reasonably expect of a full back of his age.

I remember Lee Dixon saying once that the job description of the full back is to stop crosses coming in. Well, Konchesky didn't manage that. And I don't think it's offset by his attacking play - one decent second half tackle in the Birmingham half, followed by a run and cross, was all I really remember. As for that miscued second half clearance

I don't think people would have been happy if Insua had put in that performance. While Konchesky is new and might improve a bit as he becomes more familiar with teammates and the team pattern, I don't see how that really helps him with the basics of being a full back. It's not like he lacks experience.

Still, it's early days and let's hope he (and everyone else) gets better.

[Scratch]

These crosses that came in from his side, were they from deep within our half, or near the halfway line? I can't recall...i seem to feel that they were from closer to the halfway line...is that not Jova territory, or is Konchesky supposed to defend the halfway line and leave the CB's exposed to threats down the wing?