With the return of the January transfer window, outrageous media gossip and fabricated grapevine talk is all that will dominate the Premier League right now. From strikers to goalkeepers, every club needs/wants someone to boost their squad. One man who has forever been linked with other clubs since his rise to fame may just be about to move. No it isn’t Edinson Cavani (it’s not going to happen. Stop trying to make it happen!) but instead another striker: Christian Benteke.
The man affectionately known as Bentekkers after a fantastic debut season for Aston Villa has been tipped to move for over a year now. Leading clubs in the ‘chase’ for his signature, if paper talk is anything to go by, appear to be Tottenham and Liverpool. The price tag being bandied about is a cool £20m, but do Villa expect to get this amount or is it simply a ploy to put off bids from bigger clubs?
Benteke’s performances this season have left a lot to be desired. Squawka shows a picture that disagrees with the price put on his services. Out of the 14 players to have played 10 games or more this season for Villa, his overall performance rating ranks him as their 4th worst player of the season. Similarly, of all forwards in the Premier League to have played 10 or more games, Benteke’s overall performance is 47th out of 61 qualifying players. Carlton Cole, Lazar Markovic, Victor Anichebe and Roberto Soldado all place above him.
However, of the three contributing stats to ‘overall score’ (attack score, defence score and possession score) only one really looks positive for the Belgian international: attacking score. So where does he rank of all forwards in purely attacking score? Marginally better at 43rd in our list, nicely sandwiched below David Nugent and above Jamie Vardy (two players who should certainly not command any fee above £10m).
So not everything can be measured in ‘performance scores’ but instead with raw data; goals being a good one to start with. To keep it fair and so as not to get too complicated, the data collected still only considered forwards that have played 10 or more games and scored at least one goal. Out of the 54 qualifying players, Benteke came 39th, with a meager solitary goal every 450 minutes of football.
More statistics can be pulled to tarnish Benteke’s reputation, but maybe it is the team he resides in. Villa haven’t been doing too badly this season, and they aren’t doing much differently to the previous couple of years, when Benteke has shown some promise (including that goal-filled 2012/13 season where he got 23 goals in 39 league and cup games). Perhaps it’s easier to see the effect the 24-year-old has on the team, rather than the other way around. Of the five wins Villa have picked up, Benteke has only played in two wins out of the five the club has so far and just three of the seven draws. In fact, Villa have only lost twice when Benteke has not featured (to Arsenal and Chelsea), compared to six times when he has. To make it a more comparable stat, they’ve lost 22% of games when he hasn’t played, but they’ve lost an incredible 55% of the games he has played in.
One thing that Benteke was praised for in his debut season was his strength and work rate, as his apparent hunger for goals spurred him on to drag defenders everywhere. He has won 57% of his aerial duels this season, which isn’t a bad score at all (Ron Vlaar has just 48% success for comparison). It equals that on his debut season and beats last season’s score by 1%. If consistency in the air over a number of years is what you need, Benteke could be the man for you.
He has made less than one successful dribble per 90 minutes, but has just under two unsuccessful dribbles in the same period. With tracking back not a strong point either, is this player really Bentekkers or more a Bentekan’t? (sorry)
Admittedly, it is hard to measure Benteke’s contribution to the side with his sly flick-ons and knock downs without access to more advanced statistics, but he has got one assist and eight key passes to his name. If his pass rate was a little better he could be a promising target man. Considering 48 of his 89 headed passes didn’t find a team mate, it is still an area to improve.
Benteke is of course still fairly young at 24 and now has two and a half seasons of Premier League experience under his belt, a valuable thing in today’s market with most teams not having the luxury of giving new signings time to fiind their feet. Inflation is also a factor in how much a player is worth, especially with strikers – the most expensive position in football.
But £20m? It’s hard to justify that, but it is a seller’s market in January and Villa won’t let him go easily, especially with very few options up front themselves. Transfermarkt.com values Benteke at £15m and, with a contract running until June 2017, it is impossible to value him lower than that. Buyers beware, you might not be getting ripped off in today’s market, but this Belgian still has a lot to prove in the Premier League before he can call himself a top striker.
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