Andy King 'on trial' ?

[LAprice_]

There's no denying that Danny Drinkwater idolises Paul Scholes but it may be slightly premature to call him a 'carbon copy'

 

Drinkwater is 24, when Scholes was 24 he had played about 120 games for United, scoring about 30 goals, not to mention, a handful England caps. Drinkwater is brilliant but Scholes was something else.

 

As for King. I've said my bit, I can't emphaise enough about how great he has been (and still can be!) for the club. He's always had a look in at international level, (Yes, I know Wales aren't the best team in the world) there have been 'bigger names' than Andy King and yet he still features regularly. He's also versatile. I remember him playing left-mid for Wales once because some Gareth guy was injured. And also, as mentioned before, he is the only player at Leicester to survive the last 8 managers (Pearson x2). Don't know what the point in that stat is but I just think it's testament to the attitude of the player. So many have come and gone and he's still here.

[fuchsntf]

Pearson, our Nige, is a genius...King hasnt played so many games this season, because he is our secret weapon for the premiership.After so much TV time the last couple of weeks, NP said to the players, ok get drunk, and play lousy against the seagulls, then the PL teams wont start yet to study us. Then we will spring our DJK schuffel and ropa dopa trick, and let loose the dogs of war.

If you think about it, its pure genius, King will be majestic, Drinkwater the ace , and James the wild card, 3 card brag that will trump the midfield of the jokers next season....

then having Vardy to raise , Knocky will show his Hand, Mahrez will call, leaving Nugent to take the pot.

NP will clear the table, and the fans will risk it and go blind (faith).

The defence will double up, and Kasper will pick up anything going loose. Hey LCFC its a Majong of a rummyclub, and the owners have played a 3 card trick on the opposition.

[MC Prussian]

Pearson, our Nige, is a genius...King hasnt played so many games this season, because he is our secret weapon for the premiership.After so much TV time the last couple of weeks, NP said to the players, ok get drunk, and play lousy against the seagulls, then the PL teams wont start yet to study us. Then we will spring our DJK schuffel and ropa dopa trick, and let loose the dogs of war.

If you think about it, its pure genius, King will be majestic, Drinkwater the ace , and James the wild card, 3 card brag that will trump the midfield of the jokers next season....

then having Vardy to raise , Knocky will show his Hand, Mahrez will call, leaving Nugent to take the pot.

NP will clear the table, and the fans will risk it and go blind (faith).

The defence will double up, and Kasper will pick up anything going loose. Hey LCFC its a Majong of a rummyclub, and the owners have played a 3 card trick on the opposition.

Too much of the liquid stuff tonight? 

[fuchsntf]

Too much of the liquid stuff tonight? 

Do you think I could write such poetry ............sober, plus the meds takes one a bit further

[Thracian]

Over his 20 year career Scholes scored an average of 7.75 goals a season. Danny's scored 7 this season so far. Looks to me like he's on target for that.

 

So you want to talk about Scholes over 20 years (at top level) and Drinkwater over one season in the Championship. Very convincing! I should look at the stats again!

Twelve goals in 170-odd games for Drinkwater over six seasons compared to 107 goals in 499 games over 20 years for Scholes. Not wishing to seem unkind  it's like comparing Arkle with Dobbin.

 

Indeed, Andy King's record breaking 54 goals in 270 appearancesis much closer to the 1 goal in five average of Scholesand way ahead of Danny's one goal every 14 games,for all that he seems to be improving. 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Drinkwater

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Scholes

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Drinkwater

[Hirsty The Blue 94]

Can see Deano getting more time in the Prem than Kingy in a 3 man midfield doing the holding role. Sad for him because he has been a great servant for us, and probably deserves promotion more than anyone at the club. Will he be happy sitting on the bench in the Prem? Who knows.

[AdamN]

Big post time!

 

I found this handy little site when looking into the statistics I was longing for earlier. Hadn't seen this one before but I'm sure some of you have:

 

http://www.whoscored.com/Teams/14

 

Anyway, I thought I'd look into King and see how he fares statistically this season against our other CMs. Lets start with what are widely regarded as his strong points:

 

Attacking:

 

King

Appearances: 20(5)

Goals: 4

Assists: 2

Goals per game: 0.16

Shots per game: 1.6

 

Drinkwater

Appearances: 39(1)

Goals: 6

Assists: 2

Goals per game: 0.15

Shots per game: 1.4

 

James

Appearances: 26(6)

Goals: 1

Assists: 4

Goals per game: 0.031

Shots per game: 1.2

 

As he's considered to be our biggest goal threat from central midfield, it's not really surprising that he averages the highest goal:game ratio of our main three central midfielders, although it's probably a bit more surprising that Drinkwater isn't far behind this season. With that said, Drinkwater has made nearly twice as many starts, whereas a fifth of King's appearances have come off the bench. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a stat for minutes played, so we can't really see if Drinkwater's time on the pitch would give him much of an advantage over King in regard to this. Matty James falls behind a fair bit, but does make up for it somewhat with the same amount of assists as Drinkwater and King put together. King does have the most attempts on goal per match, which again would tie in with the idea that he's good at getting into goalscoring positions.

 

Passing:

 

King

Passes per game: 38.4
Key passes per game: 0.8

Pass completion: 84.7%

 

Drinkwater

Passes per game: 64.8
Key passes per game: 1.3

Pass completion: 82.2%

 

James

Passes per game: 39.4
Key passes per game: 1.7

Pass completion: 84.8%

 

Drinkwater leads the way with average passes per game, ahead of Paul Konchesky of all people, and Ignasi Miquel (perhaps no surprise from an Arsenal loanee). Next in line it's James followed by King, with James averaging one pass per game more than King, which is a pretty insignificant difference. They're also very similar in their pass completion rate, with 84.8 and 84.7% respectively, with Drinkwater in third place with 2.5% less. He can perhaps be forgiven for this though, given that he does make ~1.6x more passes than both King and James. Sean St Ledger and Kevin Phillips apparently have the highest pass completion rate out of the entire squad, but as it's probably unfair to count them given their lack of game time, James ranks first out of the regular starters, followed by King. By comparison, Xavi has a pass completion rate of 93.3% this season, so they've all still got room to improve! 

 

Where King falls down here is his key passes per game (which I assume to mean a pass that creates a chance). Both Drinkwater and James outshine him here, although this, along with King's superior shots per game, plus his reputation as a 'finisher' rather than a 'creator', may suggest that he's more of one to get on the end of these chances, as opposed to creating them for teammates. Which could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. Not surprisingly, it's the likes of Knockaert and Mahrez that top the key passes table.

 

So in his strong areas, he's not too dissimilar from Drinkwater or James. All three have their slightly stronger and slightly weaker points, although Drinkwater probably edges it on sheer consistency. Again, nothing too surprising.

 

So how about King's supposed weak point, his defending:

 

King

Tackles per game: 2

Interceptions per game: 1.1

Fouls per game: 0.5

 

Drinkwater

Tackles per game: 2.1

Interceptions per game: 0.8

Fouls per game: 1

 

James

Tackles per game: 1.8

Interceptions per game: 1.1

Fouls per game: 0.6

 

It's hard to quantify things like 'defensive positioning', which is of course important, so we'll just have to take these stats on face value.

 

Well, well, well. What's this we have here? Andy King has actually made some tackles this season! Not only that, but he's actually got a higher average than Matty James, and isn't far off Drinkwater either. Perhaps even more interestingly, once again discounting Sean St Ledger, he actually averages the third highest amount in the entire squad, only behind De Laet and Drinkwater. Not too shabby for a bloke who apparently spends most of his time invisible and being overrun by opposition midfields. He also seems to be pretty good at getting the ball back through interceptions, averaging the same amount as James, ranking joint 6th in the squad. 

 

King also commits half the amount of fouls as Drinkwater, but I guess the positives/negatives of this will be divided by opinion. Personally I think it's a positive, especially with his apparently quite decent tackling record, but if the likes of Lee Cattermole and Emmanuel Frimpong are your bag (I'm looking at you, Col!  ) then I suppose this could be seen as a negative thing, suggesting he should probably get stuck in a bit more. 

 

So yeah, while I'm not going to start spouting that he's the next Steven Gerrard or that he's going to take the Premier League by storm next season, I think that, at least statistically speaking, he does measure up pretty well against the lads that are currently keeping him out of the team. Hell, I'm not even going to suggest that I think he should be in the starting XI at this point in time, but some of the stick he gets is entirely unjustified, and I don't see any reason why he should be made a scapegoat, especially for a defeat that was in no way his fault (at least, not entirely). I suppose you can debate whether he 'works' with Drinkwater or whether he 'works' with James, in the same way that, as has been mentioned, Gerrard and Lampard are both great individually, but have never really clicked when playing together, but even that would just leave him as a victim of circumstance, as opposed to it being a slight on his own ability. 

 

As you can probably tell, I'm fairly pro-King, so if anyone wants to disagree with any of the points I've made then feel free. 

[theessexfox]

I like King and its a good summary but 'there are lies, damned lies and statistics' springs to mind, I don't trust them or value them too much at all. Of course when it comes to goals scores it's indisputable but generally they're there to be manipulated. 

[AdamN]

I like King and its a good summary but 'there are lies, damned lies and statistics' springs to mind, I don't trust them or value them too much at all. Of course when it comes to goals scores it's indisputable but generally they're there to be manipulated. 

 

Oh of course, it's not all black and white, which is why I've tried to provide some explanation behind them too, as opposed to just "he score goal he good, he don't pass he bad". Some people hated Yakubu for his work rate, yet some loved him for his goalscoring record, so the stats aren't exactly the be all and end all of it. But they can provide a little insight into areas that are perhaps difficult to judge when you're concentrating on 11/22 different players at a time. As as I said in the post above, it's difficult to quantify things like defensive positioning or work rate, so the amount of tackles a player makes doesn't necessarily mean they're a brilliant defender, but it's somewhat surprising that, given the stick that King receives for supposedly 'letting the game pass him by', totting up tackles and interceptions, on average, he actually wins the ball back more than both Drinkwater and James - two players that have been praised in that department in the past. 

[C-man]

Oh of course, it's not all black and white, which is why I've tried to provide some explanation behind them too, as opposed to just "he score goal he good, he don't pass he bad". Some people hated Yakubu for his work rate, yet some loved him for his goalscoring record, so the stats aren't exactly the be all and end all of it. But they can provide a little insight into areas that are perhaps difficult to judge when you're concentrating on 11/22 different players at a time. As as I said in the post above, it's difficult to quantify things like defensive positioning or work rate, so the amount of tackles a player makes doesn't necessarily mean they're a brilliant defender, but it's somewhat surprising that, given the stick that King receives for supposedly 'letting the game pass him by', totting up tackles and interceptions, on average, he actually wins the ball back more than both Drinkwater and James - two players that have been praised in that department in the past. 

 

Maybe King doesn't get the credit for making tackles because he doesn't commit many fouls...