The Dossier: Rooney & Van Persie not fit to lace Suarez & Sturridge’s boots While the Liverpool duo have proved to be the perfect foil for each other, tearing defences apart, the Manchester United strikers are operating on worryingly different wavelengths. ANALYSIS: En route to Premier League glory last season, Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie together netted 38 goals – attacking firepower that was then unmatched in Englands top-flight. But while the Manchester United duos relationship has deteriorated, Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge have burgeoned into the dominant force in the division. The Liverpool frontmen, who visit Old Trafford on Sunday, have already netted 42 times this season, occupying first and second spot in the scoring charts. It used to be Rooney and Van Persie who finished each others sentences and drew envious glances, now they are heading towards divorce while the Anfield outfits devilishly clinical SAS steamroller opponents. What has become increasingly clear is that Rooney and Van Persie are two separate entities, loosely compatible strikers that merely play for the same club and inhabit the same attacking unit, so often passing by like strangers on a train – or, as was the case against West Brom, tumbling into one another in a pratfall that might have been amusing were it not so tragic. Sturridge and Suarez, though, are a partnership, a marriage of movement that blend and work for each other and mimic the unity, telepathy and tethered talent of Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole, whose pass-and-move goal against Barcelona at Camp Nou in the 1998-99 season remains the very zenith of what a strike partnership can and should be. UNITED STRIKEFORCE? ROONEY & VAN PERSIES PL SEASON SO FAR... MINUTES PLAYED TOGETHER(1068) TOTAL GOALS(22) TOTAL ASSISTS(13) ASSISTS FOR EACH OTHER(4) CHANCES CREATED FOR EACH OTHER(10) PASSES TO EACH OTHER(100) MINS PER PASS TO EACH OTHER(10.68)..... .....The breakdown in Rooney and Van Persies dynamic, if it ever truly existed, has been most obvious in recent weeks – and may or may not have coincided with the formers new bumper deal which made him the clubs highest earner, and main man, once more. The signs began against Stoke at the start of February, as Van Persie made just three passes to his strike partner, all of which were from kick-off. More recently, in yet another low point of Uniteds season against Olympiakos, the Netherlands international found Rooney with just one solitary pass – which, inevitably, was from kick-off. Since losing at the Britannia, 28.2 per cent of all passes between Van Persie and Rooney have been from the restart, and they have laid on just two chances for each other. Over the same period, Sturridge and Suarez have a significantly more active partnership; their 9.2 passes per game represents a 41.5% increase on the Roooney-Van Persie combination (with only 10.8% of those from kick-off) while they have created nine chances for each other in just five games. Across the season as a whole, the Anfield duo have made 28% more passes to each other than Uniteds two forwards, averaging fewer minutes per pass (their 8.8 minutes per link-up is the best among the Premier Leagues established strike partnerships), and created a total of 24 chances for their wingman (split exactly 50/50) compared to just 10 for Rooney and Van Persie (split 70/30). Liverpools SAS work in harmony, always showing a tremendous awareness of each others whereabouts, and while Sturridge still has occasional blips of blinkered selfishness, his presence and intelligence has brought out the best in Suarez and underlined the Uruguayans brilliantly selfless play. Both clearly perform better when partnered by the other, though that is perhaps no longer true of their United counterparts. UNSTOPPABLE SAS SUAREZ & STURRIDGES PL SEASON SO FAR MINUTES PLAYED TOGETHER(1330) TOTAL GOALS(42) TOTAL ASSISTS(15) ASSISTS FOR EACH OTHER(6) CHANCES CREATED FOR EACH OTHER(24) PASSES TO EACH OTHER(128) MINS PER PASS TO EACH OTHER(8.83)
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 11:17:02 +0000
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