Is this the reason for Ayoze Perez’s improved form last season?
Posted on June 3rd, 2019 | No Comments |
To get straight to the point, until last season, Perez hardly ever played right wing in a Newcastle United shirt, he was primarily a second striker, occasionally filling in as a centre forward or left winger as needs must in a threadbare Ashley squad.
However, since around December of 2018, Rafa Benitez switched him to a new position on the right of a cosy threesome nestling behind Salomon Rondon and whilst his assist stats haven’t really changed, his goal stats have been transformed from mediocrity to world class levels.
According to Transfermarkt, when he played as a second striker last season, which he did on 12 occaisions, he scored a goal every 402 minutes of play on average. In the season before that (2017/18), he did score more freely as a second striker, making a total of 26 appearences and scoring every 260 minutes on average. Going back further would mean using stats from the Championship which isn’t really compatible.
Coming back to last season though, since Rafa Benitez moved him out to the right from last December onwards, his scoring rate goes right up to a goal every 146 minutes and if he did that all the time in the Premier League, he would be a world class winger sought by the world’s best clubs, like Eden Hazard or Mohammed Salah.
There has been another potential factor though, the arrival of expensive competition in the form of Miguel Almirón as some kind of motivating factor. However, Almirón didn’t join until the last day of January when Perez had already played 7 games as a right winger and Almirón has also been more of a central or left sided player.
Looking more closely at Perez’s improvement, he scored first time as a right winger, but his increase in goals was more progressive as he got used to his new role, reaching a climax in the last month of the season when he scored 6 goals in his last five appearences at a rate of a goal every 65 minutes including his first hat-trick since 2014.
Whatever happens, it augurs well for next season, with Perez’s and Newcastle’s improving form and the possible takeover by he Bin Zayed Group, a bet on Newcastle’s chances may be a good thing at this time, and it may be worth making a visit to bestsportsbooks.co to get informed.
It will be interesting to see if Perez stays on the right next season, and if he can keep up his excellent run of form. If he does, as well as being good for the team, it could transform his career.