General wrote: ↑Tue Feb 04, 2025 2:54 pmOnce again, you are turning a straight forward factual point into a merry go round debate.Retro Gunner wrote: ↑Tue Feb 04, 2025 1:23 pmGeneral wrote: ↑Tue Feb 04, 2025 12:51 pmHavertz, Martinelli, Trossard and Saka have 24 PL goals between them. 27 if you add Jesus. Salah has scored almost 40% of their PL goals and created many more. I think Rodders said 75% if you combine goals and assists. That’s insane. He’s undoubtedly the difference maker.
I don’t think anyone is doubting that Salah is truly world class and would make a difference to any side.
However, for all those assists, you need strikers who can put the ball away. We have Havertz and Jesus.They’d soon fuck up Salah’s stats.
I also think that Gooner 265 was referencing central strikers, centre forwards, not wide attacking players, so his point was that we’ve replaced Auba and Laca with the duds Havertz and Jesus and failed to improve on that.
Any of Jota, Gakpo and Diaz can play through the middle and all are far more of a threat than our two. Even the flop Nuñez is no worse than our duffers. I genuinely find it embarrassing to watch Havertz. Doesn’t help that Chelsea supporters I know piss themselves laughing that we bought him (for 60 million ffs!!).
We can all agree that Havertz is not the elite striker we need if we want to win major trophies. This is not in dispute.
However, it is disgenenous to say that Liverpool have an array of talent upfront to nick the points when Havertz is outscoring all their central strikers. This is the point Gooner265 was making which I responded to. He then went on to state the goal output of Liverpool's strikers when our lads are matching their numbers if not producing more. Diaz and Gakpo have played more minutes but producing less than Havertz.
So despite benefitting from the services of a world class creator like Salah, Liverpool's strikers are producing less output than Havertz. Ergo, we are back to the original point that Salah is the difference maker and if you stick him in our attack, we'd almost certainly be comfortably on top of the league.
Ok, let's look at the stats and let's start with the league, which is the best measure. We'll ignore that Liverpool have played a game less, although the extra game could very well prove favourable for Gakpo and Diaz.
Havertz: mins played 1842, goals scored 9, so 1 goal every 205 minutes.
Gakpo: mins played 1304, goals scored 8, so 1 goal every 163 minutes.
Diaz: mins played 1436, goals scored 8, so 1 goal every 180 minutes.
So, your post above is simply wrong. Let's just say you made a mistake.
Ok, now let's look at the total for league, CL and League Cup, where in the latter two we've played the same number of games:
Havertz: mins played 2566, goals scored 15, so 1 goal every 171 minutes.
Gakpo: mins played 1937, goals scored 15, so 1 goal every 129 minutes.
Diaz: mins played 2022, goals scored 12, so 1 goal every 169 minutes.
So, your claim that Gakpo and Diaz had played more minutes is wrong, as is the claim that they produce less than Havertz. Once again, he's coming up short, particularly in the league and particularly compared to Gakpo. We should also remember that he's always played as our front man, whereas they are often out wide, especially Diaz.
None of this negates the impact that Salah has, which I've heard no one dispute, but how anyone can try to build a case for Havertz is beyond me. I didn't need the stats, my eyes tell me enough, but good to know the stats back my eyes up.