Perhaps a simplistic summary of the 'should we let him go or keep him' argument so far is 'Cisse's useless because he's a one trick pony and has a bad attitude vs. Cisse is still finding his feet after injury etc. etc. and is the leading goal scorer amongst our strikers'.
For what its worth, I tend to agree that Cisse's attitude (on the pitch at least) does leave a lot to be desired however I am happy to overlook this provided he contributes in other ways by converting chances. I know that Rafa's ethos relies on every player working for the team by tracking back, closing down defenders and chasing apparent lost causes etc. however if there's one position that can be forgiven for not doing this it is the lead striker particularly if he's scoring regularly. I am sure that if we had a striker who'd already scored 15-18 in the league this season he wouldn't be getting much criticism for not doing these things.
So how then does Cisse rate comparatively with the league's leading strikers in converting chances? Are we being too harsh and not recognising the contribution he has made from the opportunities he's had?
WARNING - STATISTICS AHEAD...
Of course statistics do not consider the arguments of 'ah but Cisse played out of position for so many games' or 'those goals were against pi$$-poor teams' and so on but overall they are the best way IMO to make a comparison and have a sensible discussion based on quantifiable information.
So if you compare Cisse with the performances to date (26JAN06) of Crouch, Drogba, Henry, Morientes, Owen, Van Nistelroy and Yakubu (with Garcia thrown in for good measure) you come up with the following:
Total Goals (all comps)
Equal 1st Henry and Van Nistelroy on 18
3rd Yakubu on 15
4th Cisse on 14
5th Owen on 12
6th Drogba on 11
Equal 7th Morientes/Crouch/Garcia on 7
Total assists
1st Drogba on 6
2nd Yakubu on 3
Equal 3rd Crouch/Henry/Van Nistelroy on 2
Equal 5th Cisse/Garcia/Morientes and Owen on 1
Total goal Contribution
Henry/Van Nistelroy 20
Yakubu 18
Drogba 17
Cisse 15
Owen 13
Crouch 9
Garcia/Morientes 8
Interestingly, Cisse ranks equal or higher then all other Liverpool players in everything except for assists where big PC beats him by 1 (so much for his 'outstanding link up play' some might say)
Of course these stats can be misleading as each player has played a different amount of games against different teams which of course means different level of opportunity.
Lets then look at some measure of ranking that takes into consideration amount of time played.
Firstly minutes between shots (taken from actual minutes played)
1st Henry 1 shot every 26.3 mins
2nd Crouch 1 shot every 34.2 mins
3rd Van Nistelroy 1 shot every 35.2 mins
4th Cisse 1 shot every 36.6 mins
5th Drogba 1 shot every 37.96 mins
6th Garcia 1 shot every 41.0 mins
7th Morientes 1 shot every 44.6 mins
8th Yakubu 1 shot every 49.8 mins
9th Owen 1 shot every 67.8 mins
Surprisingly (to me anyway) PC ranks 2nd on this table but on reflection this may simply indicate the kind of service provided to each striker by their respective teams. Not surprisingly, Liverpool, Chelsea Man Utd and Arsenal are leading the league in shots per game and this has a key correlation to the dominance of their respective midfields and possession held. You've got feel sorry and at the same time be impressed by Owen's 1 shot every 67 minutes which has still returned a healthy personal tally of 12 goals. What he'd give for some decent service! - but that's another topic.
This then leads me to discuss the accuracy of those shots and conversion rates. As some have said before on these boards -it's no good saying a player (or team) has had 50 shots if 45 of them were from the half way line and had no hope of going in!
Firstly then a general overview of accuracy with the percentage of shots on target:
1st Owen with 82.35%
2nd Yakubu with 69.77%
3rd Van Nistelroy with 64.86%
4th Morientes with 62.22%
5th Henry with 54.32%
6th Drogba with 48.94%
7th Garcia with 48.08%
8th Crouch with 45.16%
9th Cisse with 42.59%
The interpretation of these stats is up for debate... does it reflect the style of play of the individual's team ie Owen only gets a through ball resulting in a one on one with the keeper whereas Henry will shoot at any opportunity and from a much wider range of positions resulting in more wayward or blocked shots? Or does it really show that Crouch and Cisse couldn't hit a cows ar$e with a banjo?
Finally, conversion rate: Just how good is the striker at putting away his chances? I tried to think of what would affect the outcome of this stat and came up the quality of the initial ball, the quality of the opposition keeper and the style of play of the team (eg goals from open play or from set pieces). Anyway, here are the stats..
1st Owen converts 70.59% of shots
2nd Yakubu converts 34.88% of shots
3rd Cisse converts 25.93% of shots
4th Van Nistelroy converts 24.32% of shots
5th Drogba converts 23.40% of shots
6th Henry converts 22.22% of shots
7th Morientes converts 15.56% of shots
8th Garcia converts 13.46% of shots
9th Crouch converts 11.29% of shots
If you dismiss that Owen has not played many games (1152 minutes vs the average for this lot of 2008 mins) he still has an absolutely unbelievable conversion rate where he'll score 7 goals from every 10 shots! To throw the cat amongst the pigeons - Cisse comes in 3rd with one goal every 4 shots. I was staggered by this stat to be honest and had to recheck my figures but they are correct at least according to ESPN who show him as scoring 14 goals from 54 shots in all comps.
So what conclusion can be drawn from all this. Buggered if I know to be honest but I'll have a stab at it..
Firstly, I'll take a fit and firing Owen any day of the week - thank you very much! Secondly and more importantly, none of our strikers are really failing badly. Cisse's conversion rate hints at the potential he has. Perhaps more playing time in his preferred position will result in more confidence and lessen his desire to blast away as soon as he gets the ball. Maybe this will result in an improvement in the amount of shots he gets on target and more goals? Morientes % of shots on target and % conversion rate also hint at the man's underlying class and quality. You can see it's there desperately trying to get out and take the EPL by storm but again confidence and fitness (the bane of all strikers it seems) seem to be holding Morientes back. Crouch's stats show that he is both getting into position and getting the service to allow him to get a shot away but his frame and style of play do not lend themselves to accuracy and conversion it would seem. A bit of heading practice would certainly not go astray as I'm sure there have been a few headers missed so far this season where we've all issued a collective sigh of disbelief and disappointment.
Where to from here is again a difficult question. Perhaps a good solid run for one striker with no rotation would help but who do you pick as the most likely to benefit? Ultimately that's Rafa's problem but as supporters, there is certainly something we can do. That is to (perhaps) get off Cisse's back! Sure he missed a sitter (and against the Scum of all people) but in hindsight every one of these strikers has missed their share of sitters too. The stats show or can be used to show that Cisse is not demonstrably worse that any of our other strikers in fact he's leading the line in certain areas yet he seems to get more than his share of criticism. As the transfer window closes it likely that we'll not have a new player (or scapegoat as the case may be) to shoulder the burden so we might as well get behind what we've got and give them every chance being a success both personally and for the team.
poor side.