Martins vs Lemar vs Mahrez: Who should Liverpool sign?
Liverpool have been linked with the transfer of Gelson Martins, Thomas Lemar and Riyad Mahrez – but who should they sign?
Recent reports have suggested that the Reds have already agreed a bumper £80k-a-week deal for Martins, but are yet to thrash out a deal with his club Sporting, while the Express said Lemar was still Anfield bosses’ top target.
Meanwhile, Liverpool are still interested in Leicester City winger Mahrez – as per the Mirror – but the side are not willing to sell a key player in January.
So all three options are on the table for manager Jurgen Klopp and the Fenway Sports Group (FSG) board. Using statistics from 2016/2017, we’ve compared the three to see who they should go for.
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Martins, Lemar and Mahrez all played a similar number of games in the league last season at 32,34 and 36 and were on the pitch for over 2,500 minutes each.
The most striking thing to come out of the analysis is that the AS Monaco man blew his competition out of the water in what was probably his breakthrough year – which is almost certainly the reason for his massive price tag.
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Lemar lead the way in pass completion (84%), key passes (1.76 per game), chances created (2.06), goals scored (nine) and assists (10).
After that, Martins and Mahrez were pretty much running neck and neck for the second most influential player. The Portuguese international came out on top with his pass completion rate with 80% compared to 78% – but the Algerian made more key passes per game.
In terms of chances created, both playmakers ran similar numbers with 1.37 and 1.39 per game. Martins and Mahrez both scored six time, but the youngster assisted nine and the Foxes man just three.
Interestingly, when you flick to this season, things change around. Suddenly Mahrez comes out trumps and leads the way in every category except pass completion. That could indicate that last campaign was a rare poor one for the 26-year-old.
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Klopp thrives on youngsters and the raw information shows that Lemar and Martins both have the potential to do more than their Premier League rival. So it’s the Frenchman that wins this one, despite the price tag.