Statto

With City becoming the first team to fail to beat Burnley at their home ground this season I wondered how Mark Hughes isn’t being tipped for the sack while first class idiots like Paul Merson and Graeme Souness are calling for Rafa’s head simply because his decimated team have had some disappointing results in some tough fixtures.

Liverpool have taken 6 points from their last 5 games (Man Ure have only taken 7!). City have taken 5 points from theirs. Liverpool’s last five opponents were Hull (h), Chelsea (a), Sunderland (a), Man Ure (h) and Fulham (a). City’s were Villa (a), Wigan (a), Fulham (h), Birmingham (a) and Burnley (h).

In two years at City Mark Hughes has spent £241.5m, recouped £33.3m and has a net spend of £208.2m. During the same period, Rafa Benitez has spent £77.5m, recouped £73.9m and has a net spend of £3.6m. In six seasons (including this) at Liverpool, Rafa Benitez has spent £228.5m. During the same period, Man City (under four different managers) have spent £304.1m. City’s current squad cost £269.6m. Liverpool’s cost £158.7m.

The spend figures are taken from the website www. soccerbase. com while the current squad costs are quoted from Paul Tomkins website.

If Rafa’s preferred forwards are injured or absent, he has David Ngog, Andrily Voronin and Nathan Ecclestone in reserve. Mark Hughes’ preferred forwards are unknown but he can choose from Emmanuel Adebayor, Robinho, Roque Santa-Cruz, Carlos Tevez and Craig Bellamy. Liverpool’s entire back four in their last league match cost £7.1m. Mark Hughes has a pair of centre halves who cost £38m between them.

For some reason, Rafa is expected to win the title whereas Hughes would be applauded if his side managed to finish in the top four. For some reason, Rafa’s position at Liverpool has been widely questioned by numerous people in the media while Hughes’ has not.

Here’s a few other stats that I found quite interesting. In their last 10 games, Liverpool have fielded 10 different combinations of defenders in their starting XIs. In the whole season (16 games), only one combination of defenders has been used more than once. Johnson, Carra, Skrtel and Insua have started as a unit on 8 occasions. 8 other combinations have been used once each. In 16 games, 11 different players have started at the back for Liverpool: Johnson, Degen, Kelly, Carragher, Skrtel, Agger, Kyrgiakos, Ayala, Insua, Dossena and Aurelio.

With that in mind, is it any wonder we have conceded so many goals this season? With Torres and Gerrard being hampered by injuries and with Aquilani taking longer than expected to recover from injury, we have been unable to consistently field our strongest or a settled defence, midfield or attack this campaign. Is it any wonder we have had so many disappointing results?

Here’s some more stats: Liverpool have never beaten Birmingham in the Premiership under Rafa Benitez. Liverpool have not won when playing on a Monday night for over four seasons. Therefore, I consider it a nailed on certainty that we will beat Birmingham on Monday night as both those records are ridiculous!