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Extended Clip - Rafael Leao: Does He Have A Goal Crisis At AC Milan?
1.1k Plays2 years ago
After a season where Rafael Leao's goal scoring has noticeably gone down, Nima Tavallaey and Carlo Garganese do a statistical and tactical analysis of what has happened before discussing if the AC Milan star really has a goal crisis.
This is an extended clip from this weeks free Monday episode of The Italian Football Podcast which is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google podcasts.
To listen to this & all other full episodes of The Italian Football Podcast (with no ads), go to Patreon.com/TIFP OR now also available on Spotify to become a Patron for only $2.99 USD per month (excluding VAT).
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Transcript
Rafael Liao's Goal Drought in Serie A
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Italian football podcast.
00:00:06
Speaker
Rafael Liao's goal crisis. We discussed this on Monday's show briefly about Rafael Liao's goal draw this season. Liao has scored just three goals in Serie A this season, and he hasn't scored in Serie A since September. He's coming up almost five months since his last goal in Serie A. And worst of all is the stat, which I read out on Monday that's been doing the rounds a lot, which is that Liao, Rafael Liao has only nine shots on target this season. It's 10 now after the Napoli game.
00:00:35
Speaker
which is astonishing. It's a stat which you think has to be wrong and then you check it and it's not wrong.
Analyzing Liao's Performance Struggles
00:00:44
Speaker
So Nimmo requested that he wants us to do a little bit of a deep dive on this to produce a theory on what is going on with Liao and his goal-scoring problems, what is the cause of it. So Nimmo, tell us your theory of Liao.
00:01:01
Speaker
I've been looking into this, I've been thinking and mulling it over about what it is that has changed because something has clearly changed about Rafael Liao. And I started diving into some of the underlying statistics on a site called xvalue.ai. No, but what have I done to you? No, you haven't done anything. I like statistics. Look what they said to my boy.
00:01:29
Speaker
no no listen i'm a i'm a scientific i'm an academic i love science okay and what i don't like is when stupid people use statistics as some sort of magical well the numbers say so it must be this no statistics are
00:01:44
Speaker
like any science, a tool to help us describe and better understand reality. And so what I did was I started looking into more in the build-up phase, and if you look at his stats this season compared to that season, especially what is known as expected threat,
00:02:02
Speaker
An expected threat is calculated by basically you lay a value surface over a football pitch and you divide it into grids or zones.
Expected Threat and Performance Metrics
00:02:09
Speaker
And each zone has a value assigned to it based on how likely a goal is to be scored from that zone. And then players can be credited for moving the ball from zone to zone, right? So and it's a cumulative as well. And if and I'm started looking then into
00:02:28
Speaker
Liao's underlying in the build-up phase. His expected threat is this season, and again it's accumulative. Last season it was 5.88, this season is 3.64. His expected threat from passes is 1.96 this season to 3.21 last season.
00:02:48
Speaker
His expected threat from passes, meaning the threat that he poses when he gets a pass and moves between the grids, is 1.96 compared to 3.21. His expected threat from ball carries is 1.68 to this season to 2.67.
00:03:08
Speaker
Now, if you compare that to other players in the Serie A in terms of expected threat carries when he's carrying the ball, he's first in the Serie A this season at 0.1, and he was second in the Serie A last season on the same number, 0.1. His expected threat passing, he's second in the Serie A this season, he was third last season. His expected assist, again, these are
00:03:35
Speaker
accumulative is already at 5.04 to 6.63 last season. His expected assist from open play is 5.03 this season already to 6.61 last season. But his expected goals
00:03:54
Speaker
As in, it's the same as his expected goals non penalties, meaning without penalties. Last season was 11.66. This year it's 3.52. And his shots total and also on target, 41 shots taken, 10 on target. This season, 92 shots taken last season, 29 on target. But,
00:04:22
Speaker
If you compare Liao to Liao, his chance creation per 90 minutes is the highest it's been in the last six years. His assists per 90 minutes is the highest it's ever been these last six years. Attempted passes per 90 minutes, highest it's ever been in the last six years. Past success ratio, highest ever in the last six years. Attempted crosses per 90 minutes is the highest ever it's been
00:04:48
Speaker
in the last six years, and it's double that of last season. His cross success ratio is the second highest it's ever been. His dual success win ratio, highest it's ever been. His aerial success ratio, highest it's ever been in the last six years. There is definite growth here. His attempted dribble per 90 minutes, it's the third highest it's ever been.
00:05:13
Speaker
shots but then again dribble success ratio fourth highest shots per 90 second lowest ever shots on target lowest ever shot success ratio lowest ever goal conversion ratio lowest ever goal per 90 minutes lowest this season of the six season span
Milan's Strategy for Liao's Development
00:05:33
Speaker
To me, it's after 23-24 games in the Serie A, it's no longer just a pattern. It's a clear pattern here. This isn't an issue of Milan attacking down the right more than previously. This is not an issue of Liao having a bad season in front of goal. It's clear as daylight to me what's going on.
00:05:57
Speaker
purely is clearly ordering Liao and working with Liao to develop his passing, his read of the game, his understanding of the game, his creation, chance creation, his vision, his split vision to make him a much more complete player. And I think the end goal here is this season they develop his ability to understand and create more. And then next season,
00:06:23
Speaker
is to add the finishing to his game. That means that clearly, Milan think that Liao's biggest problem has been all of the things I mentioned. And I think it can be summarized as what they say, intelligence on the pitch. They think he is a raw and rough diamond. They want him to develop those other aspects, which they think will make him more of a complete player. So that next season, it's about applying everything he's developed this season with what he naturally has
00:06:50
Speaker
in terms of the drop of the shoulder going past and the finishing, which I think he has. Let's remember, Liao is not the finished product, just like Lautaro wasn't the finished product. It's taken Lautaro about three to five years to reach this level as a striker. Liao is a work in progress. I think starting next season is when Milan will try to marry the development from this season to the goal output from previous seasons to have that kind of Lautaro explosion, if I can call it that.
00:07:19
Speaker
And look, I'm not comparing Laotaro with Liao, I'm just using Laotaro as an example of a player who's undergone this journey, a percorso, and is ready now, whilst Liao maybe is one or two steps behind down Liao's own journey as a winger. Which brings me nicely to my final conclusion.
00:07:38
Speaker
Maurizio Sarri has to take over at Milan next season from Pioli, because the next step in all of this for Liao, with Sarri in charge, with the false nine, the triangulars and the geometry that Sarri plays, that will turn Liao into a goal-scoring monster, together with everything else that he does. That's my conclusion on this.
00:08:03
Speaker
Wow, yeah, very, very interesting. Very, very interesting
Implications of Decreasing Shot Metrics
00:08:06
Speaker
theory. The stats there are very telling, actually, and they definitely paint a story. So the only thing I would say in comeback to that is I think you're definitely onto something, for sure.
00:08:21
Speaker
Certainly when we look at the number of shots he's having and he's attempting to do other stuff rather than shoot and rather than attack and be so direct as he was in the past, he's trying to mould other parts of his game. So I think you're on to there. The only thing that doesn't really marry up is his shot's success rate, which has plummeted
00:08:42
Speaker
this season. He's not taking very many shots though, that's the thing. He's not taking as many shots. That's the thing, to me it becomes clear. I think the goal against Napoli is just so instructive. It's actually that that kind of made it all click for me.
00:08:57
Speaker
He had 3.41 shots per 90 minutes last season and 3.33 in the Scudetto winning season and this season he's having 2.33 shots. He is having fewer shots and the number of shots on target per 90 has gone from over 1.07
00:09:19
Speaker
last season per game, per 90, and 1.31 in the Scudetto season to 0.57. So, I mean, it's hard. So, there's definitely, there is definitely truth in that, but the shot success rate plummeting shouldn't really be, that's the only thing that doesn't marry up with what you're saying. Well, I think it does, because I think when a player isn't ready, and this is also another, like, this is my perspective, if a player is developing, and that's clear that Liao is developing,
00:09:49
Speaker
If a player is developing and you're wanting him to focus on another aspect of his game and you're basically working on that in training all around, I think it's only natural that other aspects will suffer. That is fair. That's fair. The only thing I would say is I'm looking at the graph and this is a fantastic website here. It is.
00:10:10
Speaker
Um, the shot success, roughly the old shot success rate has gone down every single year for the last four years. It was 46.5%. His shot success rate in 2020, 2021. Then it went down to the Skepta winning season to 39.1%. Then last season it went down to 31.5%. And then this season it's a joke. It's 24.5%.
00:10:33
Speaker
39% this season. So every single season, his shot success rate has gone down and that includes the last three seasons when this change of game that you're talking about wasn't present. So while I think your theory is definitely valid, I think they are trying to
00:10:56
Speaker
improve his other areas of the game. I do think that still that it's concerning that his shots success rate despite the fewer shots he's having and despite the fact that yeah maybe he is training less on that side of the game that's still concerning for me. I think that is very concerning and also
00:11:13
Speaker
we also maybe we do have if it is true they are I mean I think they are definitely trying to improve his other areas again maybe they're overdoing it because it shouldn't come to come at the expense or completely come at the expense of his of his goals but if you look at Milan it's very important but if you also look at Milan
Unlocking Liao's Potential with Sarri
00:11:31
Speaker
Look, Punicic is scoring more. Giroux is scoring on par with what you can expect. You're getting goals from other areas of the pitch. I think, again, Milan is a work in progress. I think it's clear that they're building him. And once they're working towards a target, I don't think they're there yet. Just like with Juva, they're further down in their project, but they're not there yet.
00:11:59
Speaker
And this is just another aspect of that. I think they're basically just working on him, grinding him to improve his intelligence of the pitch, to really be Milan's number 10 with everything that entails. And that's why I say that I've been flouting the idea of conte to Milan. And I do think Milan could play conte football, but then they have to sell Raphael.
00:12:25
Speaker
Rafael Liao, this Rafael Liao that they've been building this season and to where they want him to be, you bring in Antonio Conte with his culture vertical, a very rigidly controlled
00:12:39
Speaker
I have serious doubts whether that's worth keeping Liao for. Then you might as well just sell him and bring in players that come to once. Or, which is the conclusion I've come to, you go after Maurizio Sarri and you continue developing the project that you've been working towards for quite some time and Liao will be the
00:13:00
Speaker
the the chileginas willa torca, he will be he literally will be the cherry on that cake in the saree system running cutting in towards goal from that left flank then he'll be the only that we've all saw you know that you you were the first actually to say even before pioli i remember you said it you drew comparisons then he'll really be that player yeah and i think he will he will fulfill his potential i really really think that