FanPost

Schürrle: Should he start?

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Schürrle celebrates one of his 3 goals vs. Fulham - Jamie McDonald

First of all, thanks to everyone who read, commented, and voted on my previous post on Oscar. I got far more responses to the poll than I expected, and as of the time of writing, Schürrle is currently edging out Willian by 2 votes. This post will concern primarily our German no.14, but any argument over whether he should start is bound to include analysis on Willian, who he is in competition with, so part of my "why Willian is underrated" argument will also feature here.

Andre Schürrle was signed from Bayer Leverkusen in June 2013, and in his first season at Chelsea, he featured in 43 games. However, only 23 of those appearances were starts and his 2065 minutes on the pitch was 4th among attacking midfielders – Hazard, Oscar, and Willian were the top three, in that order – and he lagged over 1000 minutes behind all three. Perhaps influenced by a contagiously ambitious and eager attitude, as well as a strong showing at the World Cup with Germany, fans have increasingly begun to call for Schürrle to be included in next season’s first choice XI. I will try to provide a stats-based analysis on whether or not this should happen.

WHO IS HE IN COMPETITION WITH?

This is a recent quote from Mourinho when asked about the Victor Moses situation:

"Victor is from a position where we have many solutions. We have Hazard, Willian, Salah and Schürrle. Victor’s best position is from the sides…"

It appears that we are looking at a situation where there are 4 players for 2 spots. It might not be as simple, however, as both Hazard and Willian are also capable of playing in the middle – whether Mourinho is simply listing all players who he could potentially use on the wing or players he plans to use exclusively on the wing is unknown. This quote from Eden Hazard post-game vs. Norwich in October 2013 provides insight:

"… me left winger, this is my position, I know what I do."

It seems that his affection for the no.10 is really limited to just squad number and that has been blown out of proportion by the media – Hazard’s trickery is best utilised as an inverted winger off the left-hand side, a la Cristiano Ronaldo (albeit with much less shooting).

The problem at the club, which it has been for some time now, is that Chelsea do not really have anyone whose primary position is on the right-wing. Over the years, this position has been filled by either mediocre players (Kalou, Wright-Phillips, Moses, Salah (?) etc.) or players being played out of position (Anelka, Oscar, Willian, Mata etc.). But for now, let’s begin with a look at the stats for the aforementioned four players – including Hazard, even though he is almost untouchable at this point.

2013-14 SEASON STATS (ALL COMPETITIONS)

Name

+/-

S/90

Drb/90

TO/90

Tck/90

Int/90

KP/90

Ast/KP

Crs/90

AC/90

Eden HAZARD

+0.91

2.06

4.25

1.94

0.71

0.62

2.56

7.1%

2.10

0.37

WILLIAN

+1.01

1.75

2.05

1.96

2.05

0.83

2.83

6.3%

4.58

1.37

Andre SCHÜRRLE

+1.13

3.53

1.87

2.57

2.14

0.96

1.79

7.3%

3.31

1.05

Mohamed SALAH

+0.83

3.47

2.64

1.65

1.16

1.16

1.49

11.1%

1.82

0.33

Note on Stats: +/-=Difference in Goals Scored/Conceded with player on pitch, converted to per 90 minutes, S=Shots, Drb=Dribbles, TO=Turnovers, Tck=Tackles, Int=Interceptions, KP=Key Passes (Passes that led to shots), Ast=Assists, Crs=Crosses, AC=Accurate Crosses

The preference for Hazard and Willian from this group appears to stem primarily from key pass rate, basically equivalent to chance creation. Although the key passes stat can be slightly subjective, both Opta and Squawka had the two in the league’s top 10 – Opta had Willian at 2nd and Hazard at 8th, Squawka had Willian at 1st and Hazard at 6th (see now why I think Willian is underrated?). Schürrle does lead the group with a +/- per 90 of +1.13, but I believe that is skewed in his favour due to sub appearances that occurred with Chelsea chasing the game. What is often said about Schürrle’s playing style is that it is "direct" – and the stats seem to back this up. His 3.53 S/90 trailed only Samuel Eto’o and Demba Ba at the club, while the high turnover numbers appear to suggest that he runs at the defence often, although I would like to see an improvement in his Drb/90 numbers if he is to sustain that. Also indicative are the 3.31 Crs/90 and 1.05 AC/90 numbers – his 31.6% cross accuracy was the highest of the four, and his crossing ability provides a different dimension to the team’s attack (Willian’s cross numbers are misleading as he took corners regularly – I did not have access to data that differentiated between crosses from open play and from set-pieces). Essential for a Mourinho team, Schürrle is also capable of doing the defensive work, with his 2.14 Tck/90 and 0.96 Int/90 adding to 3.10 defensive contributions per 90, the highest of the four. It must be noted however, that again Schürrle has the advantage here because possession changes hands much more often late on in a game when players are tiring and a team may be chasing the game. The underlying stats do confirm that Schürrle is a player capable of starting for most teams – hence the interest from Atlético – but Chelsea are absolutely stacked with attacking midfielders and the German has so far been limited in his playing time.

WHY WILLIAN IS BETTER (MOST OF THE TIME)

In short, Willian is the best two-way attacking midfielder in the league. As I mentioned earlier, Willian led the league in key passes per 90 at 3.33 KP/90 (according to squawka – my data from WhoScored had him at 3.44 KP/90). Of the players in the league’s top 20 in KP/90, only 4 make more tackles per 90 than Willian, and only 1 in the top 10 (Coutinho) managed the feat of topping our afro-haired Brazilian’s 1.88 Tck/90. If you add in Willian’s 0.91 Int/90 to give a total of 2.79 contributions per 90, only the following three equalled that contribution: Coutinho (10th with 2.21 KP/90) was exactly level, James Ward-Prowse (14th with 2.06 KP/90) was slightly ahead at 2.95, and Lewis Holtby (15th with 2.05 KP/90) was well ahead at 3.99. While this defensive contribution is impressive, keep in mind that these three lag more than 1.00 KP/90 in terms of offensive output behind Willian. Opta’s stats were even more flattering: they recorded 3.49 KP/90 (second to David Silva) and 3.38 Tck+Int/90 (first among top 10 KP/90 players). It is conceivable that Willian is a bit of a stat-stuffer – I don’t really conform to the opinion that Willian is the best passer in the league – but his position as the best two-way attacking midfielder is without doubt.

Another reason for Mourinho’s preference for Willian lies in the Brazilian’s ability to produce each week at a similar level. The following is a table of the standard deviation for each of the performance metrics of both Willian and Schürrle from game to game (each stat is converted to per 90 metrics apart from P%). Standard deviation is a measure of the variation from the average, and a bigger number indicates greater disparity and therefore less consistency. Only games in which the player played more than 45 minutes are counted, and 5 games in which Willian played through the middle, and 1 game in which Schürrle played up front are omitted.

Name

T/90

S/90

SoT/90

Drb/90

TO/90

Tck/90

Int/90

KP/90

P/90

P%

WILLIAN

14.19

1.72

0.80

1.54

1.76

1.74

0.96

2.10

11.07

0.06

Andre SCHÜRRLE

13.56

2.17

1.23

2.21

1.95

1.80

1.22

1.94

11.93

0.11

Although the differences in some categories are very small, Willian proves more consistent in eight categories, Schürrle in two (I deliberately omitted crosses, as the disparity between games in which Willian took corners and didn’t was not his fault). It must be noted that standard deviation is hardly the greatest measure of consistency as it punishes outstanding performances as well as terrible ones – Willian had two games in which he recorded 9 key passes for example, and Schürrle’s 8 shot day against Fulham on which he scored a hat-trick raises the standard deviation for his S/90. Worrying for the German, however, is that his inconsistencies lie in the areas that should be his strengths: Shots, Shots on Target, and Dribbles.

Once again, comparing situations from early on in a game to those late on when the game has changed entirely is hardly good statistical practice, but for the sake of comparison, let’s compare Schürrle’s performances from when he started to when he came off the bench.

Name

Mins/G

+/-

S/90

Drb/90

TO/90

Tck/90

Int/90

KP/90

Ast/KP

Crs/90

AC/90

START

242

+1.22

3.19

1.86

2.34

2.18

0.90

1.70

6.3%

3.67

1.12

SUB

186

+0.73

5.08

1.94

3.63

1.94

1.21

2.18

11.1%

1.69

0.73

It is possible to make the case that Schürrle is actually more effective coming off the bench than starting. While he crosses the ball less, his AC% actually rises from 30.4% to 42.9%, and while he turns the ball over more and tackles slightly less, there is marked improvement in all other categories. In particular, a 5.08 S/90 rate is incredible – only Luis Suarez bettered that number over the course of the season.

There is also the question of what the team needs – despite being led by a misfiring strike force Chelsea actually led the league in shots per game with 18.2. Yet somehow we contrived to score over 30 goals less than champions Manchester City and runners-up Liverpool (a Suarez-sized difference). The data doesn’t tell us whether we managed this because of the preference for Willian – maybe we would have taken even more shots on goal by starting Schürrle. 18.2 S/G is also pointless unless the shots are taken from meaningful positions (data which I am aiming to collect this season) and there is a time and a place for every tactic. I personally believe that having Diego Costa leading the line will alleviate many of our scoring problems and a change of personnel in attacking midfield is not necessary. Having said that, there are definitely occasions when Schürrle should start, occasions where he can be an impact sub from the start, for lack of a better phrase.

This post is getting a little long so this is where I will leave it for now. As always, any feedback is greatly appreciated and let me know what you would like to see next!

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