Aston Villa News 24/7We’re struggling for goals at Villa right now. In fact, we have been for a while. What we need, then, is a striker who can bang in 20 goals a season, right?
Well, it would be a good start to have a player capable of that feat, but a lack of goals is just a symptom of our problems, it’s not necessarily the cause. With the right opportunities, we may even already have that striker.
I half joked that we could have had Didier Drogba leading the line against Birmingham last Sunday and the result wouldn’t have been different. I’ll go further now and will be entirely serious: you could put Didier Drogba in our side all season and he wouldn’t rack up 20 if we don’t start carving out a greater number of opportunities.
One of the names that’s cropped up of late as a possible target for January is Roque Santa Cruz, a player so clearly surplus to requirements at Man City it’s painful.
Santa Cruz scored 19 league goals for Blackburn in 2007/08, a record bettered that year only by Cristiano Ronaldo (31), Emmanuel Adebayor (24) and Fernando Torres (24), given the extra factor of difficulty in achieving that record at Blackburn, surely he could be our 20-a-season man then?
Not so fast, he only scored four league goals the following year and his overall strike rate in the Premier League is 26 in 59 starts. He’s a one season wonder then! Rubbish!
As ever, you need to dive a little deeper to get a better picture.
2007/08
I had a look at all 19 of Santa Cruz’s league goals from 2007/08 and there are a few interesting points to consider.
Firstly, seven were set up by David Bentley who lead Blackburn’s assist table that season with 11. To put that another way; Bentley was the provider of 37% of Cruz’s goals and Cruz the finisher on 64% of Bentley’s assists. Something of a symbiotic relationship it seems.
Further, the next most prolific provider of finished chances at Blackburn that season was Cruz himself with seven, closely followed by David Dunn and Jason Roberts with six each.
Cruz’s strike stats were naturally pretty impressive in 2007/08 – he scored a goal on average every 168 minutes, he averaged 2.06 shots per game, his shooting accuracy was 60% and he scored with 42% of his on target shots.
That form didn’t continue into 2008/09, but did he become rubbish during the summer, or is there more to it than that?
2008/09
As you may well recall, David Bentley reportedly snubbed Villa Park in favour of White Hart Lane during the summer of 2008 and has barely been heard of since.
Without Bentley’s crossing ability, where would Blackburn find a supply line? It wasn’t David Dunn, he had his own injury problems and only started seven games without a single assist.
It was actually Morten Gamst Pedersen who lead the assist charts at Ewood Park with seven. The next best were Stephen Warnock and Christopher Samba with three each, if you can believe such a thing.
Santa Cruz missed much of the season with injury of course, but his statistics reveal that his attempt rate increased whilst his completion rate went down. It smacks a little of desperation, perhaps.
During ’08/09, Santa Cruz scored a league goal every 372 minutes, he averaged 2.30 shots per game with a shooting accuracy of just 37% and scored with only 29% of those shots on target.
He scored four goals, but if he’d replicated his scoring rate from 2007/08 he would have scored 8 or 9 during his 1,489 minutes on the pitch. Arguably half as effective then, but with the supply valve also not operating on 100%, what can be reasonably expected?
Brad Friedel
David Bentley wasn’t the only one heading for the exit door between the ’07/08 and ’08/09 seasons, we also managed to tempt Brad Friedel into coming to Villa Park and this may well have been as detrimental as any personnel change that season, if not more so.
You only have to look at Blackburn’s overall performance in the Premier League table to see the effect.
| Season | Pos | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts |
| 2007/08 | 7th | 15 | 13 | 10 | 50 | 48 | 2 | 58 |
| 2008/09 | 15th | 10 | 11 | 17 | 40 | 60 | -20 | 41 |
Yes, they scored 10 less goals in ’08/09 than the previous season, but they conceded 12 more, a 22 goal swing in goal difference which is why they placed where they did.
To put Brad Friedel’s contribution to ’07/08 into perspective, he made an astonishing 227 saves. His replacement, Paul Robinson, made just 86 the following season and Brad himself needed to make only 124 during his first season at Aston Villa.
That’s why Friedel is not just a game saver, he’s a game winner.
With Friedel and Bentley gone, Dunn and Santa Cruz injured, there wasn’t a great deal of hope then.
2009/10
Mark Hughes was obviously convinced of Santa Cruz’s quality and was willing to spend in excess of £17m of the Abu Dhabi Group’s money to bring him to Eastlands where it’s fair to say he’s been less than impressive and clearly hampered once again by long term injuries.
I didn’t intend to look at 2009/10 in any detail, there isn’t much to see, but then I remembered a data file I had from an unfinished season review project which contained information on every player in the Premier League last season.
I sorted the data by goal rate and would you believe it, Santa Cruz just happened to be right in there with John Carew and Gabby Agbonlahor. (Besides Santa Cruz, the other players between Carew and Gabby in the table were Yakubu, Chuka, Vela, Arshavin and Carlton Cole).
| 2009/10 | Carew | Santa Cruz | Agbonlahor |
| Goal every X mins | 211 | 213 | 237 |
| Shot every X mins | 32 | 34 | 47 |
| Shot Accuracy % | 39% | 37% | 55% |
| Efficiency * | 15% | 16% | 20% |
| Deadliness * | 40% | 43% | 36% |
* “Efficiency” = goals per shots ratio, “Deadliness” = goals per shots on target ratio.
Santa Cruz may have made 19 appearance for City in 2009/10, but 13 of those were from the bench and he finished on the pitch in just two of the six games he started for a total of 638 minutes. Carew played 2,107 minutes last season and Gabby 3,081.
The bottom line
Under ideal conditions, a quality provider in midfield, a strong defensive back line keeping games alive, no injuries, Santa Cruz can score goals, that’s not up for debate, it’s proven, albeit three seasons ago.
The question is whether those conditions are repeatable at Aston Villa and at 29 years old, with a long history of injuries, that seems unlikely.
If conditions are not ideal for Santa Cruz then, as was the case at City last season, as it was at Blackburn the season before, he doesn’t seem to offer us much that we don’t already have.
However, it’s not impossible that he could remain injury free for a couple of seasons with the right treatment, he could thrive on the sort of delivery that Ash, Downing and Marc Albrighton serve up and could rack up an absolute hat full of goals at Villa.
But what we see here is that you can not simply look at a player at one team and be assured of what he will do if dropped into another one, it’s far more complicated than that and the 20-a-season striker at one place could be nothing of the sort somewhere else. In short; it’s something of a myth.
Ultimately, Villa’s problems lie in creating opportunities and Santa Cruz has also demonstrated that he’s no more able to score goals without supply than anyone else is. Ironically, the player we hope can be the creative force at Villa, Stephen Ireland, is also beginning to look like a one season wonder himself.
The prospect of Ireland and Santa Cruz recapturing their best form in a team supported by the likes of Ashley Young, Stewart Downing and Marc Albrighton is quite tasty though, I can’t deny. But is it likely?
The prospect of watching two talented players failing to live up to their potential is the very definition of frustration, but when there are no guarantees available in any case, will fortune not favour the brave?
That’s what the managers get paid the big bucks for.
[As always, all statistics in this post are based on league appearances only]
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17 Comments to “Roque Santa Cruz and the myth of the 20-a-season striker”
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you do need a 20 league goal a season player, those players are well outside our scope, we need someone who will score 15 alongside a fit gabby and compliment him, easy
nope
you do NOT need
We may need or not need a 20 goal a season striker but we still need to find replacements for heskey and carew (love them or hate them) they are past their best (if heskey ever had that).
so if santa cruz wants in then why not… and why not darren bent aswell…
20 goals from one player? nope not gonna happen for a long time down villa but we still need at least 3 strikers who can score more than 10 in one season.
Just for stat sake dan exactly how many goals have we scored this season from any player on the pitch in all comps?
not sure i get the stats question, bob.
like the avatar btw.
Darren Bent ??
mate we have no cash or wages to buy him
Says who?
Because randy refused to give Mon money? or because he knew Mon was off?
Has randy actually said the club or himself personally have no money?
As far as i’m aware randy is being an astute businessman and cutting back during strong economical problems in the US and UK.
he’s being cautious.
don’t let cautiousness fool you into thinking we are broke.
If randy and his advisors thing a signing is a viable investment then he’ll sanction and pay for it.
and to be fair Bent was just an example… i really don’t care who we sign as long as i never see Heskey play football again.
The general has said on numerous occasions wages are the issue since MON left
unless that is a lie and I don’t think so, then Bent on around £70-80k a week if not more would mean a lot have to leave to afford him and get the wages down
this is probably one of those posts where the point is lost in the length.
what i was trying to say is that it doesn’t matter right now who you drop in at the top of the pitch, whether they’re a so called 20-a-season man, 15-a-season, whatever, it doesn’t matter, they won’t suddenly solve our goal drought because the problem is in creativity.
that said, carew and heskey’s geese are long since cooked and need replacing, that’s a perfectly valid point, someone needs to replace them.
I agree with what Dan is trying to say. We need to create. We lack belief. I think Heskey is capable of 15 goals in a season with the right supply (as is Carew, although I don’t think his heart is in it any more). Whatever you think of MON he did instill belief in many players. After all, we are now thinking that our decline is due to the loss of Milner and the replacement with Ireland. 2 to 3 years ago, we were all moaning about Milner (just a grafter, no quality, cant cross) and looking with envy at what Ireland was doing for City. MON made Milner. GH needs to make these players. The ones we have. We have enough. Someone needs to make them believe, make them play.
Show me the shoots …….
(Good to see you Bob, how’s life?)
Valid point dan.
All good nan hows you?
Heskey 15 goals???
He has been the most frustrating player to watch for the last 15 odd seasons as he has so much potential and i do believe he has ability… but he’s now to old to show what he should have been doing all that time.
I still think we’ll see a different set up after jan and GH’s football will see results. This is now another learning season. We are taking stock and building.
Time for blooding the youngsters is now going past us again they need to be put on that pitch over heskey and carew if as the general (laugh) says we have no money the we need to utilize the youth now win, loose or draw.
belief and confidence are vitally important.
coming back to the santa cruz / david bentley example, as a striker, if you believe that someone like bentley is more often than not going to be whipping in a ball you know you can bury you’ll put in 100% to be in there to take advantage.
if you don’t, your manager will be asking a lot of questions. probably with the volume up high.
but…. if you start thinking that maybe bentley could take a little tumble, maybe he’ll beat his man, but his delivery will be 10 feet over the heads of everyone in the box, then maybe it’s a 90% effort to get in there.
and no one really notices because the delivery, if there was one, was awful anyway.
Spot on Dan. I wouldn’t be busting a gut to get on the end of a Young cross (or Milner’s for that matter).
Heskey will score 10 this season.
I’m good Bob, thanks.
If he does good we just now need to find one more player to add to Heskey and Gabbys 10 etc.
He’s having a good start to the season but for me he’s still Heskey and well he’ll fade back to Heskey as we all know soon enough i hope im wrong. i want to be wrong and he pushes on and scores that 10 or even more i still stick by what i’ve always said.
Valid points about bentley n cruz… tbh i wouldn’t if i knew what webcam was doing.
I’m all for cruz if GH can find a Beckham. (maybe webcam would be best playing upfront with gabby?)
to reference your Drogba point he wont either he’ll be as pants as Heskey in our set up as he is with his national team.
if Heskey played for chelsea in Drogba’s role he’d still be shite though.
I’ll stop my ramblings on how much i dislike Heskey as a player. the ifs and or buts about him will only go away when he retires (not to far away yay.) for now lets support what we have been left with and see how things develop.
here’s a little factoid for you then…
there’s only one team in the premier league with a pair of strikers with at least 10 goals a piece the last three seasons running.
i’ll save you guessing the team and the pair of strikers… it’s villa, carew & gabby.
Hey, let’s sign that pair. They sound great.