That’s an equivalent of a goal or assist in less than every 120 minutes played, which I think is actually pretty spectacular for a winger.
For reference, here are Salah’s statistics in the PL and CL, bearing in mind he’d be most people’s pick for a winger with goal/assist output, and is on penalties:
Which is a goal or assist every 114 minutes.
Of course Salah’s playing in the champions league against stronger opponents, but I actually think Pepe’s teammates are a bigger handicap to him than the opposition when compared with Salah and Liverpool.
I agree with this to an extent but I put the blame on Arteta. The players seem afraid to make risky passes and that’s reflected in the movement of our front players and also how often a dangerous pass is overlooked for a safer one.
I don’t believe that ESR and Odegaard can’t spot dangerous passes but l completely believe they’re discouraged from making them due to risk of turnover
Of course, I wasn’t trying to imply Saka, ESR, Odegaard etc are bad players, was more talking about the relative quality of the 2 teams as a whole, and of course Arteta is partly responsible for that also.
If this is a player you like it’s not “stat padding when the season is over”, it’s the fact that he’s picked up good form or improving his game. Which coincidentally happened when he was given a run of games that didn’t include 10 minutes off the subs bench.
He can’t be a top player in this team as long as he’s targeted by the opposition as happened in a lot of games I watched. Which they can afford to do while we have a lack of quality elsewhere on the pitch.
I think he would be a top player under Klopp at Liverpool, personally I think Mane was a lot more inconsistent at Southampton than Pepe has ever been here.
If he’s being “inconsistent” now in almost matching Salah’s output per minute what kind of player is he going to be if a decent coach makes him consistent?
Klopp rolls with players who are at it all day every day, players with the dog in them and go out to kill the opposing team and bring that energy in every game. Pepe doesn’t have that.
And you can use your per minute stats all you want but for me it flatters to deceive because he is a hugely frustrating player with poor decision making and suspect mentality oh and the habit of being anonymous in games by letting them pass him by.
And it is also a myth that he only got consistent minutes towards the end of the season, he was getting his fair share of game time.
Like I said stat padding, he can’t talk to either Mane or Salah. Why was it he was routinely outperformed by Saka and ESR by the way in spite of a crappy coach?
Xhaka was our best midfielder last season.
Mari didn’t receive consistent gametime and whatever he did was down to Arteta’s bizarre affection for left footed defenders
Willian was quickly reduced to squad player by October. He earned his gametime based on reputation and lost it based on application.
What did Pepe do more to get gametime ahead of Auba & Saka in 2020?
Apart from injury/illness, he actually started every premier league game (bar 1) until January
Similarly, excluding injuries (of which there were a lot) and a couple of games after returning from the injuries, he played 90 minutes in most premier league matches
What people are failing to see is that our play is very lopsided, very slanted to the left side of the field for long stretches; this the players on the right side barely get involved for the most part except for when defending because it’s our weakest side defensively. We don’t switch play effectively, we don’t utilise our midfield properly it’s very static.
Edit: the no10 aren’t always aware of the runners behind the defence and pass backwards or to the nearest player infield
Also Pepe hasn’t built a relationship with any of the RB, there is no understanding between any of the players on that side, which is down to the manager.
Good research and largely agree. The starts/subs is important but it’s a reasonable take and appreciate the detail u got into with opponents. For me Pepe is an ok to above average winger in EPL now. Problem is he has taken a while to get just there and we paid an amount you have to expect more from.
