As far as statistics go, Frank Lampard is a better player than
Steven Gerrard.
In England, a debate has been going on about Frank Lampard and
Steven Gerrard. These two are the golden Premiership midfielders,
the idols of millions. So who is the best?
Liverpool are not a patch on Chelsea domestically, but Gerrard has
broken record set up by Ian Rush for Liverpool goals in European
competitions.
And playing for England recently, Gerrard shone while Lampard
rather limped.
So is Gerrard better than Lampard?
Not so fast, my friends.
You can work out who is the best player, but the calculations are
rather complicated.
Let me share with you some work we've done on analysing the best
striker because, if you can follow that, you'll see how we reached
on Lampard and Gerrard.
We quickly encountered a problem in devising the best method of
calculation.
Using data for every on-field action by every striker in the
Premiership, we were able to compare the contribution made to a
side by a particular forward, compared with that made by the
average striker.
The statisticians simulated the entire season(so far) over and over
again, replacing each striker in each team by an average player one
at a time, to see how much difference the replacement made to that
team.
From this, one can calculate the numbers of points each striker has
added to their team.
Now, let me take Didier Drogba in order to illustrate to you the
difficulty we had.
Chelsea have a sensational defence. Scoring slightly a fewer goals
doesn't impack thair number of points all that much.
So even though Drogba scores freely, he doesn't add as many points
to his sides as players in less exalted sides.
There is a way round this: To get a crude measure of who the best
striker is, you simulate the season for an average side with the
different strikers in and out of the team.
Why crude? Because Drogba scored his goals for high-scoring
Chelsea.
Would he have been so impressive playing for, say, Charlton?
The two methods produce different results. When you use the average
team simulation, Drogba tops the strikers' list, and Wayne Rooney,
Louis Saha and Thierry Henry all figure.
Team data
But when you use the data from the teams themselves, former
Portsmouth star Nwankwo Kanu comes top despite the fact that his
contribution has been dropping off.
The performance of Blackburn Rovers' Shabani Nonda has been
extraordinary. He only comes second because he spent a great deal
less time on the pitch than his rivals.
Blackburn's Benni McCarthy is also right up there, while Bolton's
favourite El Hadji Diouf comes bottom of the entire 82-strong
list.
Bobby Zamora's contribution is also noteable given his relatively
scarce appearances for West Ham.
Comparing this season with last, Henry had one of the worst
campaigns in the Premiership and Jon Stead of Sheffield United one
of the best.
Now back to Lampard and Gerrard.
Fortunately, the dilemma evaporates. Why? Because for all the guff
about Gerrard, his domestic contribution is little better than made
by the average player.
I know that is difficult to believe, but it is at least partly the
result of the position Rafael Benitez plays him in.
Gerrard's stats bounce around. A couple of seasons back, he was
receiving best player accolades but out model didn't rate him at
all.
Last season, we raved about him, putting him right up there. This
campaign we felt he's little better than okay.
Lampard, on the other hand, is a super soar-away player. Year after
year, he comes top or nearly top of out table.
And this season is no exception.
He absolutely thumps Gerrard.
On one measure(the average team method), he is eight times better
than the Liverpool star while non the other, he is more than 10
times better.
Scoring 20 goals from midfield is an extraordinary achievement but
Lampard also adds his assists and his accurate passing.
Successful pass completion is a very important part of a team's
portfolio. If you don't believe me, as Arsenal's side of
invincibles.
So we can resolve the issue without to dispute about method.
Lampard is, far and away, the more valuable player.
From TNP 7 april 2007
