Alexis Sanchez, the Red Beast of London: By the Numbers

Alexis Sanchez secured Arsenal three points and the club’s third League win with a brace at the Stadium of Blight today. The goals were Alexis’ 4th and 5th League goals and brought his total to 8¹ for the season in all competitions. But more than just score goals (not that there’s anything wrong with that) Alexis Sanchez is a hyperactive player with an iron will to win, a “demon on the pitch” and fills exactly the role that Luis Suarez was supposed to fill when Arsenal bid for him two years ago.

Like Suarez, Sanchez is a game winner. His goals against Besiktas and Sunderland were outright game winning goals and he put Arsenal in front with goals against Leicester, Man City, Southampton, and Hull. Not one to give up, his assists also earned come from behind draws/wins  against Palace and Hull. This is exactly the role Suarez played for Liverpool last season, saving them points when their defense went Keystone Cops and earning them wins against lower table opposition.

And more than just getting goals, Sanchez, like Suarez, is a perpetual motion machine on the pitch, a constant threat to the opposition back line with his ability both on and off the ball.

In the summer of Arsenal’s interest in Suarez I devised a method for measuring a striker’s total contribution to a team. By combining all of their stats and looking at them on a per90² basis I was able to come up with an “Actions per90” metric. I didn’t account for every action, for example I left off passing, but rather just the things we want strikers doing: dribbling, shooting, scoring, assisting, creating shots for others, drawing fouls, and winning aerial duels.

When I compared Luis Suarez to other top strikers like Messi and Ronaldo, the stats were clear: Suarez was a monster on the pitch.

He attempted 187 shots, 255 dribbles, and created 90 chances for his teammates. Those three numbers alone totaled more than either Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. In fact, he was the second most active forward of all the players I measured (not an exhaustive list) just behind CRon — .08 actions per90 behind Ronaldo. That’s an infinitesimally small difference between the two players. It’s no wonder Arsene Wenger wanted Suarez and why Barcelona eventually stumped up Alexis plus £40m to land him — despite a rather long rap sheet of transgression.

Suarez, as you can see, from both the stats³ and from the constant biteymcracism, is a beast.

If we separate out the negative actions (turnovers, failed dribbles, shots off target, etc.) Suarez comes down to earth a bit. His negative outweigh the positives about 57-43%. But still, you want a player like this on your team because he’s such a menace whenever he has the ball. He may dribble into a blind corner, but makes up for lack of quality in sheer volume.

Sanchez is still finding his feet in the Premier League but already most fans are impressed with his tireless work rate.  Never one to shy away from the ball, Alexis is a similar type of smash-mouth footballer as Luis Suarez (except without the biting and the racism).

If you’re paying attention, you’ll notice that I included tackles in this set. That’s because Sanchez, well, Sanchez tackles… a lot! He had 6/8 successful tackles today against Sunderland — three up front and three in the back/middle and it’s crazy that Sanchez is both Arsenal’s leading goal scorer, leading playmaker (2 assists and tied with Özil for key passes), second leading dribbler (2.3 per game) and fourth on the team in tackles per game. So, I felt I had to include Sanchez’ tackles.

The tackles do bump him up above Suarez in the actions per90 category but he still compared favorably without them coming in at 22.84 Aper90 versus Suarez’ 25.27 Aper90. His percentage positive and negative is favorable versus Suarez as well. Not quite at the 50-50 mark of great forwards, he is 54-46% negative over positive.

Personally, I love the work rate of Sanchez, especially tracking back to tackle, though it would be nice if he had players behind him tackling freeing him to concentrate his efforts on playing as a forward. But overall his contributions this season so far have made him nigh impossible for opposition defenders to contain. He’s the beast in the box that Arsène tried to get when Arsenal bid on Suarez two summers ago. Or as Wenger put it, the demon on the pitch:

Suarez is the dream player. An angel in training and a demon on the pitch.

Everything I’ve read indicates that Sanchez was recruited by Arsenal specifically because he is such a delightful person off the pitch. Everything I’ve seen from Sanchez this season indicates that he will be a delight for Arsenal fans on the pitch. A demon in red. There’s no wonder why Liverpool wanted Sanchez to fill the void left by Suarez’ inevitable departure, like Suarez, he’s a beast.

And he’s Arsenal’s beast.

Qq

¹Besiktas, Leicester, Man City, Southampton (CC), Galatasaray, Hull, Sunderland (x2). He has also assisted in the following matches: Palace, Galatasaray, and Hull.

²This isn’t too complicated. Not every player plays a full 90 every time they start. Since we tend to think in concrete terms like “games played” we like to find a way to prorate stats on the basis of the minutes that a player played rather than games they played. For example, Sanchez currently averages 2.6 shots per game over 8 games (21 shots). But we know Sanchez hasn’t played all 90 minutes of all 8 games (720) and instead has only played 603 total minutes. If we want to imagine how many shots he would take if he played a full 90 every game we would simply divide his minutes by 90 (6.7) and then divide the total shots (21) by that number of imaginary full games and arrive at a per90 of 3.13.
³These are League stats only.