Upgrade complete .. Crouch to Adebayor!

Crouch v Adebayor .. An upgrade making a difference

Although ‘only’ 30, I am old to enough to remember when we didn’t all walk around with mobile phones that were not smart, and small, and able to do just about anything. I remember distinctly my 18^th birthday .. I went out and got the latest mobile phone. It had no colour and a single line as the ‘screen’. It worked, it was functional. Now, I upgrade every 18-24 months and you can clearly see the benefit in the new features. Harry Redknapp is twice my age but when he upgraded from Peter Crouch to Emmanuel Adebayor in the summer, it must have felt like he had gone from the original, functional mobile phone, to one of these super smart phones .. and then some!

If you type “Peter Crouch donkey” into google, you get 3.8m pages in 0.28 seconds.

If you type “Peter Crouch kills” into google, you get 480k pages in 0.22 seconds.

To be fair to Peter Crouch, he will always be remembered for that header against Manchester City which afforded us a place in the 2010/2011 Champions League. However, it is far easier to remember his ineptitude in front of goal and his inability to hold up the ball. With half of the season gone and Emmanuel Adebayor playing in a team that is comfortably third, it is clear for all to see what a difference a top striker makes.

Crouch – Attacking Statistics 2010/2011

Goal Attempts

Adebayor – Attacking Statistics 2011/2012 (up to an including 4^th January 2012)

Goal Attempts

As a comparison, looking at statistics for a full season for Crouch versus the first 19 games of a season for Adebayor would seem unfair. However, it is quite staggering that it immediately highlights that Adebayor has scored more than double the goals Crouch scored in the whole of the season (9 for Adebayor v just 4 for Crouch). Adebayor has also had more than double the attempts on goal as he has hit the target 34 times in the games he has played thus far while Crouch only hit the target 16 times in the entire season. Damning statistics for the beanpole striker. Adebayor is aided by the fact that he hits the target six out of ten times but will be disappointed with a chance conversion rate of 16%. This does not compare favourably even with team mate Jermain Defoe (22%) or Robin Van Persie (22%) or Newcastle United’s Demba Ba (31%).

Crouch – Assist/Chance Statistics 2010/2011

Adebayor – Assist/Chance Statistics 2011/2012

Of course, the modern day striker does not just have to score goals, he has to bring his teammates into the game also. Peter Crouch was often seen as someone that would bring his teammates into a game however, comparing the assist and chance creation statistics again favour the on loan striker Adebayor. In the whole of last season, Crouch created six goals. He was also able to create 22 chances for his teammates. Adebayor however, has surpassed that already this season! With six assists to go with his nine goals, he has shown that he can bring others into the game as well as taking chances himself. Moreover, he is creating a chance once every 42 minutes in a game. With 30 chances for his teammates thus far, Tottenham’s attacking prowess has increased considerably.

If you were to compare Adebayor and Crouch in terms of their passing, it would also be Adebayor that comes out top. Almost 80% of Adebayor’s passes hit the target but Crouch delivers a pass to a teammate just 65% of the time. However, the value of Crouch was in his defending .. strange that, for a striker!

Unfortunately for Peter Crouch, it seems he has been played out of position his entire career! Impressively, his tackle success is north of 83%. He also wins more than half of his ground 50/50’s and almost 60% of his aerial 50/50’s. Poor Adebayor cannot get near this tackling successively just 45% of the time, winning only a third of his ground 50/50’s and and just under half of his aerial 50/50’s.

With Tottenham sitting third in the league, just three points behind Manchester United with a game in hand, Harry Redknapp can look back at his ‘upgrade’ in the summer and smile. It would, at this stage of the season, seem a shrewd piece of business.

Peter Crouch is 31 this month. He is an England International and has scored 22 goals in 42 appearances for his country. Is he a misunderstood genius .. or a defender? You decide!