Midfield season review

Minutes Per Tackle

"Again it’s Lucas who came out top in this metric, attempting a tackle every 15.37 minutes he was on the pitch. This really is probably the most incredible statistic I’ve come across whilst researching this article. The closest Liverpool player is Martin Kelly, involved in a tackle every 22.95 minutes, nearly a full 8 minutes longer. And in fact, in the last 4 seasons, the only Liverpool player to come close (of all Liverpool players to start 5 games or more in a season), to that stat was Mascherano in the 09/10 season, when he was involved in a tackle every 15.48 minutes. In a Premier League context, of all players to start 10 games or more last season, (over 300 players), no player put a tackle in more often than Lucas.

For Liverpool, Enrique made most tackles last year with 69, he started 33 games. Lucas made 68 tackles, he started only 12 games. Based on that, it’s frightening to think how many tackles he would have made, if he kept up that rate, Lucas would have finished the season having made 215 tackles. The EPL’s top tackler last season was Yohan Cabaye, with 116 tackles attempted, and in the last four seasons no player has finished the season with more than 178 tackles made. I know I’m going on a bit, but it needs to be put into context how good a stat that is, and how much Liverpool missed Lucas last season. It will certainly be interesting to see how his statistics pan out when he recovers from injury for the start of the new season."


Really missed him last season. Lets hope he can regain the Boss form of the two years. I have an awful fear the injury could turn out to be worse than we fear. Just paranoid over my favourite player I suppose.