Hello all and welcome to this new article! Today, we will be looking at a interesting idea involving the new feature of footedness. A question that is sometimes asked by people is what is better, 2 footed players or 1 footed players? In this thread, we will look into the effect the 2 have in a team, and how they affect team results over the course of a season. Let's begin, shall we?
Initial Idea:
The idea for this experiment is simple. I will holiday 2 seasons in separate saves looking at the same club, Everton, but both saves will be different. Save 1 will be the usual Everton squad, just simulating a season. This will see what effect the 1 Footers have, their stats and how they perform in all competitions. Save 2 however will have every single player in the Everton squad be able to use both feet efficiently, meaning we can see just what effect it has compared to normal results.
What Are We Trying To Prove?
With this idea, I am trying to find out just how effective being two footed is in the game compared to the normal 1 footedness, and what effect it has on the overall team performance in all competitions. This article will consist of two parts:
Part 1: Going over how Everton did in both saves, with one Footers and 2 Footers.
Part 2: Going over the player statistics, going over stats, figures and what we have learnt.
Save 1 - 1 Footed Players - Club Season
Experiment 1 saw us test the average Everton squad, just to get an idea of what the 2 Footers are competing against. So how did they do?
League Table
Everton have a shocker of a year, finishing 8 points above the drop with a GD of -17. This poor season saw Koeman sacked before the new year, and young manager Chris Weale come in to steady the ship.
Competitions
EFL Cup
A heavy defeat in the League Cup to the hands of The Saints.
FA Cup
Another defeat to an average team leaves Everton trophyless this season.
Save 2 - 2 Footed Players - Club Season
Experiment 2 was the more interesting one for me personally as it was the one with the most change, and let us see some scenarios in action.
League Table
Everton secure a solid 9th place, massively improving on the poor 16th from before. Interestingly, they only conceded 6 less goals, meaning the defence may not have been comfortable with the footedness change. Despite this, 9th is 9th, and a decent finish at that.
EFL Cup
Absolutely smashed by United, and knocked out at the same round as the 1 Footers.
FA Cup
And the Two-Footed Toffees are defeated yet again by United, this time in the 6th Round of the FA Cup. Interesting as they progressed 2 more rounds than the Save 1 Everton.
Part 1 Conclusion
I think from the information we have gathered, we can clearly see that the Two Footers had a better season than the normal Everton Squad. However, we did find some interesting information in this part of the experiment. Firstly, the TF (Two Footers) had a very leaky defence, and conceded just 6 less goals than the Save 1 Everton despite finishing 7 places above them. Also, the TF seemed to concede a lot more in the Cup Competitions, albeit it against United and other tough opposition. Is it possible that the TF’s confused each other and caused defensive fragilities? Or is it a one-off, and they would be fine in any other test?
Part 2
Save 1 - 1 Footers - Player Stats
So, we flip back to the 1 Footers to take a look at how the individual Everton players performed in their shocker of a season.
Goals
Lukaku leads the line as expected, picking up 20 goals in all competitions. Players like Barkley and Valencia back him up with 14 between them.
Assists
The highest assist count is a measly 5 by Bolasie, Gueye and Lukaku. A positive is that several players got 4,3 and 2 assists, with many of them being both Left and Right footed player. This shows that the variety of different sided players worked well for Everton.
Average Rating
Lukaku dragged the team through such a poor season, earning the top AVR for the season, but is closely followed by Gueye.
Save 2 - 2 Footers - Player Stats
So, the main event. I think this is the most interesting part of the experiment, judging and analysing how effective having both feet was for all of the Everton
Goals
This is interesting. You could argue Lukaku had a better chance of scoring in Save 2 because of the versatile players around him, bit in fact he scores less goals than his one footed counterpart. You could also argue however that Lukaku played 5 less games, but you would think that wouldn't matter. Substitute striker Tarashaj buried 8, whilst Schneiderlin grabbed 7.
Assists
Another interesting set of stats as the two CM’s grab the most assists with 8 and 7. It would be interesting to see what role Koeman utilised these players in, which we will go over later. Still quite a range of assisters, with the two CB’s grabbing 6 assists between them as well.
Average Rating
It seems Koeman made the most of the TF Midfielders in this save, with them grabbing the top 2 AVR’s, as well as contributing to 30 goals this season between them. They are closely followed by McCarthy, as well as defenders and Lukaku.
Part 2 Conclusion
Well, what we gather from this part of the article is interesting. Firstly, the TF Lukaku struggled to hit the same numbers as the OF Lukaku, which is surprising considering he had the option of both feet and his head, was personally expecting a 30 goal season. Next, the TF’s CM’s seemed to perform much better than the OF’s, this is likely because of their versatility in passing with both feet. One thing to ponder over is that both teams achieved similar AVR’s, meaning in theory all of the player played similarly. The TF’s CB’s also were a more creative force, laying on 6 Assists compared to the OF’s 3. Overall, we can see that for creative purposes, TF’s are a lot better. It all depends on if you want a set blend of sided players in your squad, or if you look for those 2 Footers to carry you home.
Overall Conclusion/ Points To Ponder
I'm hoping through this article you have learnt a lot. I certainly have. Firstly, we found that the TF’s concede A LOT of goals. I feel this may be due to defensive confusion between the players there, may be due to not being limited to one side they are invading the other defenders space. More testing would, of course, be required to confirm this. Next, we learned that Lukaku failed to score more goals than his his OF counterpart. This could be for a similar reason to the defensive fragility, or for the fact that he played less games than the original Lukaku. Either way, would need more in-depth testing. I think with both tests we can tell that that the TF’s are a lot more successful with creativity, and also scored 12 more league goals than the original Everton. This proves that having 2 feet is a lot better for creative purposes in certain scenarios. We also discover it is best to have one footed players in defence, as that way they are not confused or invading each other's space.
I hope you enjoyed this article, thanks to @Ashez for his incredible help, and please leave some feedback is this is my first of this type of article. Cheers!
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