Parker or Sandro? Statistical Analysis

There has been much talk about the impact of Sandro’s injury on Spurs’ season, with the general consensus being that if Sandro had remained fit, we would be 3rd right now. Let’s see if this is true..

The Stats

Record (inc. Cups): Sandro 13-6-5 – losses were: Newcastle (A), Arsenal (A), M City (A), Chelsea (H), Everton (A). In only one of those losses was Dembele also on the pitch at any time.

Parker 9-9-4 – losses were: Leeds (A), Fulham (H), Liverpool (A), Inter Milan (A). However, the amount of draws is the startling statistic.

So Sandro’s win % inc. Cups (in the tougher half of the season, arguably): 57%

And Parker’s win % inc. Cups (in arguably the easier half of the season): 41%

The Facts

It is neglectful merely to crunch numbers and look at the results without examining reasoning behind results. As it says above, Sandro has only lost one game for Spurs this season when he has had Dembele next to him in central midfield, showing the strength of their partnership. Parker’s results have been with a couple of midfield partners – Dembele and Huddlestone – but even with the former, the results haven’t been as great as they should. There have been too many draws whilst Parker is in midfield, which is probably explained by his lack of creativity and his general ‘headless chicken’ approach when going forward. We saw earlier this year that Sandro was becoming a much better player offensively than last season’s just-defensive midfielder.

If we duplicate Sandro’s pre-January league results into the second half of the season, then Spurs would be on 78 points. That would put us level with Manchester City. However, if you extrapolated Parker’s league results into the first half of the season, we would be on 65 points, or 4 points worse off than we are now. Factor in that Dembele was missing for more of the first half of the season than the 2nd, and you can understand how important Sandro is to our team.

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