A few myths..

[RedReet]

The stats aren't 100% accurate. I've noticed a few things have been missing after watching matches. Not saying that particular one isn't though.

[RedReet]

The Carra passing stats for this year are very interesting. People are complaining a lot about how he's suffering, but if you check his positions when passing it's obvious that he has a seconday role as a full back this year, having to support the attack (Bar Chelsea). Hopefully when Agger is fit, he'll take over that role and just leave Carra to the defending.

[Redspin]

Yeah, I'm sure there was a stat last year which showed Alonso's completion rate for passes over 35 yards was 100%, that's absolutely phenomenal if true and will be playing a massive part in how we've started this season.

If he made dozens and dozens of such passes it would be phenomenal. However, I imagine that he actually made relatively few. People remember the good long passes by any players because they are relatively rare. I know he occasionally made a decent long pass, but I'm struggling to think of any occasion when he actually did it - and I see all our games - and I'm struggling even more to think of such a long pass leading to a goal

A fact about Alonso that is always overlooked is that he did very little in the attacking third, with just 3 assists all last season out of a total of 77 goals scored by the team. It's very easy to over-romanticise the contribution of former players like him in the face of such unimpressive statistics

[Exiled_red]

The thing with these passing stats is that they are heavily biased towards defensive players as they tend to get the ball more, and when they do so they are less likely to be under pressure than a player in a more attacking area of the pitch. Attacking players are more likely to have lower pass success because they try more "risky" passes which are more likely to result in loss of possession, you don't want you defensive players playing risky or compliacted passes.

I'm not saying Mascherano isn't a good passer just that you need to identify the role his role and hence the type of passes he makes

[Rich]

If he made dozens and dozens of such passes it would be phenomenal. However, I imagine that he actually made relatively few. People remember the good long passes by any players because they are relatively rare. I know he occasionally made a decent long pass, but I'm struggling to think of any occasion when he actually did it - and I see all our games - and I'm struggling even more to think of such a long pass leading to a goal

A fact about Alonso that is always overlooked is that he did very little in the attacking third, with just 3 assists all last season out of a total of 77 goals scored by the team. It's very easy to over-romanticise the contribution of former players like him in the face of such unimpressive statistics

Are you understating the influence that Alonso had on how the team played per chance?

[JohnDoe]

Out of those 472, how many are futile passes backwards/sideways to a defender?

[Rich]

Passing statistics in my opinion aren't worth the pixels they're written in.

[Exiled_red]

Passing statistics in my opinion aren't worth the pixels they're written in.

[Joe King]

Passing statistics in my opinion aren't worth the pixels they're written in.

If we had passing statistics which shown the amount of times a player passes more than ten yards ahead of play then it could be useful. I would expect managers and Opta stats people to have those sort of stats of course.

[andrewces38]