I see a lot of xG xA stats thrown around like it's the definitive factor who's great and who's poor. Gattuso would have had 0 on those scales back in the day and he was the dynamo of AC Milan for almost a decade. Doesn't translate with me as a football fan and what my eyes see on the pitch.
It's like waking up in the morning and check the box scores of NBA games. Wow somebody got a tripple double, but with abysmal percentage and turnovers.
Exactly, I am fucking fed up of it - I discussed it in another thread yesterday at length I think.
What is even the point of watching games if we only count up stats? Like you say we might as well just check the score at the end of the game and see who got the goals and assists - any idiot can do that. Where is the insight? Where is the analysis?
Like you say Gattuso and other defensive midfielders are legends, but because they don't get goals and assists they don't win individual honours. Look how fucking angry the plastics got when Modric and Rodri had the audacity to win the BD as midfielders.
Stats can be important but only very deep stats that cover all sorts of things - G/A are as superifical as they come. Look at garnacho at Man United - he's getting good stats but everyone can see he's shocking and they are papering over terrible performances, especially as most of his stats come against poor teams.
According to stats lovers Ronaldo must have played well in the 2014 CL Final - he was shocking and scored a penalty in the last minute of etxra time when the game was won.
I posted something in the Bruno Fernandes thread - some guy was telling a kid he knew how amazing Iniesta was - the kid googled him (having been too young to watch him) and said 'meh, half the stats of Bruno Fernandes in double the games' - this is what football has come to - Americanisation of it with stats about point scoring. Anyone with sense knows Iniesta was miles better than Fernandes and Haaland, even if Fernandes stats piss on his and Haaland scores more goals in a season than Iniesta does in a career.
You need to look at far more than G/A to compare Bellingham, Pedri and Olmo - you need to watch them, and you need to dig into all sorts of deeper stats too. Then you have to look at context of the g/a stats - has one scored more important goals, is one scoring more against weaker teams?
I like Tempt a lot but graphics like that piss me right off (when in football mode) and he knows that by now. They are so misleading.