West Ham’s big money signing is supposedly the striker we’ve all been after. But at the expense of Arnautovic, can the Hammers expect an improvement in the coming season?
Whilst Arnautovic certainly wasn’t at his best towards the end of last season, he was our main striker option before his China move. With the signing of Haller West Ham fans are expecting a more consistent presence up top, in addition to the super sub abilities of Chicharito. But do the stats back that up?
I’m going to take a look at ‘expected’ goals and assists over the past couple of seasons, excluding the times that Arnie was played in a wide or deep position to help with fairness, to see what kind of change we could expect as the season opens. What kind of striker does Pellegrini have at his disposal?
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Using understat for the last two seasons (4531 minutes for Haller and 3718 minutes for Arnie), most of the stats map over each other fairly well but there is one weird disparity. Despite scoring the same number of goals per 90 (0.48) Haller does so far more efficiently. Haller takes only 1,9 shots per 90 compared to Arnie’s 2.9. The inference is that Haller waits his opportunity more and is more effective when he does decide to shoot!
For the most part, their stats do tend to match up, although Haller does outperform Arnie when it comes to the boost he gives the side in the build up play (XAssist90 (0.22-0.19), XGBuildup90 (0.18-0.12)). However there is a caveat to that. For the past season, Haller has been playing with Jovic, a player who has just joined Real Madrid for a fee around 60m. So the chances laid on had an improved chance of being converted, and he was also sharing the attention of defenders with a striker in top form. Can he match these numbers when being the No.1 man?
In short Haller was a good replacement for Arnie, because he can match the play we used ther Austrian for. However to get the most out of Haller we’re going to need to get players up in support of the new front man, and allow him to drop into the middle to link the play. If we expect him to just score goals on his own constantly…we’ll be in for a long and torrid season. How Pellegrini gets players to work with him will decide our season from an attacking sense.