That is why, EPL clubs generally recruit defensive or creative French players.
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That is why, EPL clubs generally recruit defensive or creative French players.
Gomis is a good example, no one in France will tell you that he is a good player, he is average but playing for Lyon makes a huge difference statiscally it's one of these teams that are very good at attacking, they can't defend or play with consistency but if you are an attacker for them you will have a boatload of opportunities in Ligue 1 and in Europe. The same was true with Lorient under Gourcuff, that's why we generally don't care about stats in France, you need to actually watch players play.
Lacazette is a good player but he is doing with Arsenal what he did with France and led to criticism from Deschamps (which the caf disagreed with), he continuously shows talent and promises but he needs to elevate his game beyond his preferential style, he needs to pull more than his weight otherwise he will never be an important player for a big team.
How are either of these good examples to my question? Lacazette is having his worst season in years whilst Gomis had the best season of his career when he went back to France, he went from 6 goals to 20!
If you are saying that it is because Lyon are a better side than Swansea and Arsenal, well they are better than the former but not to that extent of improvement and I don't think they are better than Arsenal, the difference between them and Arsenal is that Lyon play in a weaker league against weaker opposition.
I didn't say that Lyon were a better side, I said that Lyon were very good attacking wise and would inflate their attackers stats, I also didn't say that Ligue 1 wasn't a weaker league than the PL, just that you need to look at things with a little bit more depth, the team you play for is as important as the league if not more. Playing for Saint-Etienne or Lyon will lead to very different stats.
You use stats but you deliberately ignore some factors like "number of games", "number of minutes played", "the # of penalties scored", "the position of the team in the league".
Lacazette: first months abroad, you will be in a better position to assess him at the end of the year.
French League bashing useless and boring btw
Look at the goals per 90 minutes ratios for each players in those leagues and you will get the same results, a decline in productivity when going from the French league to PL.
@JPRouve
The position in the league means very little. That Gomis can start most games for one of the best French teams but can't win a starting spot for a lower mid table club in the PL tells you everything.
I do agree on Lacazette though, he does deserve longer to establish himself.
I'm not talking about the position in the league but the qualities of the team. For example Liverpool's strikers will score more than Atletico's striker.
Even so, the trend is so consistent I think it indicates a difference in the quality of the leagues.
That's not to say I would in anyway disregard players from the French league. I hope we are looking at this Fekir lad as his stats are amazing and he would be relatively cheap.
Which has been acknowledged, I just added that when you look at a player you need to put more weight into his game and his team, than the league. Because while the league isn't as good as the PL or Liga, it isn't bad either and it's definitely not worse than Serie A.
Let's see, players like Cantona, Henry, Vieira, Martial, Kante, Evra, Nasri, have all done as well or better once they transitioned to the Premier League. You could argue Henry/Vieira went through a spell in Serie A but Vieira had two games in the league before going to Arsenal, and Henry was played out of position. So that's just French guys. Hazard, outside of his last season in France where he was just on another planet, has consistently beaten his output from Ligue 1 after his first season in the Premier League. Some players take a season to adapt to any new league, for reasons beyond its level of competition such as language, culture change, new teammates, etc.
You also have guys like Fernando Torres who came from La Liga and tore the Premier League apart in his first season, he had a drastic increase in output. Mickael Essien was a beast at Chelsea, Umtiti is the best center back Barcelona have straight out of Lyon, there are countless examples you could name but if you're just looking at stats without any actual knowledge of how the players played, it's kind of pointless for me to keep going because there's a lot more than stats to take into consideration, this ain't baseball.
So in a debate about how it is easier to score goals in the French league in the present day you bring up examples from 20 years ago, defensive midfielders and a player from Spain?!
It seems that you are so obsessed with your 'arrogant Premier League' narrative you don't know what is being debated.
You decided to focus on how it's easier or not to score, I was always focused on the simple notion of dismissing a player's form based on the league he's in, whether that's an attacking or defensive player. Not my problem if you got lost in the debate, but I'm interested in more than just goals and stats. Read back if you want, you'll see you're the one who doesn't know what's being debated.
Well we are talking about two different things then. I certainly wouldn't dismiss a player from another league be it Scotland, France or Norway. I'm not sure many people would as it's illogical. I remain sceptical of given player's ability to transfer form from weaker leagues to stronger ones as it is logical to do so in my opinion. It's easier to look better when the standard is lower.
In general, not many goalscorers from France have moved to played in the PL in recent years. It is impossible and even unfair to attempt sweeping statements.
Each player is different anyway.
A few have and a few have gone the other way.
Zlatan, Lacazette, Gomis, Depay, Baloteli and Giroud.
Each player is so different in terms quality/age/team joined/team left.
No one is arguing that the Ligue 1 is a fantastic league but it is tiresome to see people say this or that player doing well is because the league is weak.
It is lazy analysis, the league isn't weak.
The problem with PL is that clubs have no clue how to develop talents and treat technical players like weird species that grow on foreign trees. It's almost as if they try their best to waste players, being lost how to use them, doing their best to break their confidence by benching them one after another, declare they're shit, sell them and repeat the cycle with new ones.
Players given trust from the start usually do as well as in France like Martial, Ayew, Payet or even Diafra Sakho straight from fecking Ligue 2. Some of them then get worse over time due to (again) poor management.
We can say players like Mahrez, Beckham, Barton, Clive Allen, Ray Wilkins and Tyrone Mears were unsuccessful or pure failures in France.
I guess you know why: the Premier League is a weak league.
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I complete agree with the idea that you judge a player on their individual merits and try to be as circumspect as possible about stats. I had heard alot about Depay and his stats in the Dutch league but the first time I saw him play for us I knew he wasnt going to make it. I have a very analytical mind and could instantly see he lacked the physical and mental attributes to be a player at a club such as ours. I was slated a bit for holding this immediate opinion, i.e. how could I know lets see, but in the same way it was apparent that Ronaldo had all the talent physically and mentally but needed time to fulfil his potential and mature. I could not care less if Depay puts up good stats in France now... he needed a system that suits him because his best attribute of shooting will shine through. But he will never be a top top player for a top top side, the closer he gets to that environment the worse he would look. The eye test is so important and even though it sometimes doesnt work it certainly is far more reliable that purely statistics.
Stats mean nothing in football. If they were what mattered teams wouldn’t bother with scouts and would just use data to get their transfer targets.
You do realise that clubs use statistics and data for many purposes including scouting right? This is how companies like OPTA make most of their money.
http://www.optasportspro.com/products/scouting-reports-and-data-feeds/
Even so, we are talking about the most rudimentary of stats here, goals scored. Are you really saying that goals scored is an irrelevant stat?
Fairly certain the scouts opinions > opta stats.
If it was as easy to tell how good a player was, half this forum would be scouts.
They use all sorts of measures including stats. Stats are a massive part of performance assessment in football at the very highest level, like it or not.
As I said before, we were only talking about goals scored mostly here anyway.
You didn't even mention N'Golo Kanté who won player of the year twice, the PL twice while being a nobody in France. The PL seems easy
You didn't even mention N'Golo Kanté who won player of the year twice, the PL twice while being a nobody in France. The PL seems easy
He only won it once but interestingly since 2010 only one PFA team of the year doesn't include a player bought from Ligue 1.
Edit: Also Spain and Germany have zero PFA player of the year and only one player bought from these countries won the award, Juninho Paulista.
Is the argument really about how good French football is because they sell most of their best players to England?
Does that not continually widen the gap?
Does that not continually widen the gap?
No, the league had a deep around 2010 where little talents were produced and the biggest club put its money in a new stadium instead of the transfers. Since 2012-2013 talents are produced again and several clubs have enough money to purchase players and keep some players if they want to.
Out for the Lyon match tomorrow apparently
I had the club's awards in mind and not the PFA ones but it still needs to be checked whether he was Leicester and Chelsea's player of the year tbh
He won the Chelsea player of the year award last season. Mahrez won Leicester's the season before that.
Right. What's with the badge ?
I said I'd prefer Man City to lose last weekend, going against the Redcafe hegemony that everyone must always want Liverpool to lose.
Sorry but his point is largely correct. It is much easier for England to sign France's best players than Germany's or Spain's because those countries have better leagues with bigger sides that offer them the level and financial rewards. Bayern, Real and Barcelona have the monopoly on the best talents from those countries.
But that's not my point nor what he was talking about. It was strictly about France and England, the current gap is due to french clubs badly failing in terms of management around 2010.
2 more goals
26 goals 16 assists in 24 games.
26 goals 16 assists in 24 games.
Ridiculous stats, but people won't really notice due to the league.
He won't win a Ballon d'Or simply on his L1 stats but of course people notice.
Damn. That's Ballon d'or stats there. Take PSG to CL Final, he might get that.
There is the option to use both?
You seem to suggest that they are either completely useless or the absolute truth replacing everything else.