Liverpool will eventually pay a British record transfer fee for Florian Wirtz while Manchester City will pay just £30.5m for Rayan Cherki.
And yet, there are seven reasons to suggest that City may have bought the better player for around a quarter of the price. All stats come from the incomparable FBRef.
It’s giving one Liverpool fan in the Mailbox the heebie-jeebies and we don’t blame him.
Rayan Cherki scored eight goals to Florian Wirtz’s 10 last season in their respective domestic games, but Cherki’s eight came from a pretty modest xG of 5.0, meaning he massively overperformed on the chances he was given for Lyon, while Wirtz’s 10 goals came from an xG of 9.4, partly because he took four penalties (and missed two).
Although Wirtz was credited with 12 assists to Cherki’s 11, the German’s xAG was 7.0, meaning he benefited from Leverkusen having Patrick Schick and Victor Boniface finishing his chances, while Cherki’s xAG was pretty much bang on the money at 11.1. Despite playing around 300 fewer minutes, Cherki created much better chances across the whole season. Imagine what he can do with Erling Haaland and Omar Marmoush.
READ: Five reasons why Florian Wirtz may not actually be a good signing for Liverpool
While Wirtz scored with 11% of his non-penalty shots, Cherki’s ratio is 18% and the difference is even more stark when it comes to shots on target; Wirtz scored with just 23% of his shots on target while the Frenchman scored with 42% of his efforts that hit the target for Lyon.
There is little separating the two players when it comes to pass completion, but where Cherki really shines is in passes in the 15-30 yard category, finding a teammate with 82.3% of his passes to Wirtz’s 74.2%.
Cherki creates considerably more chances per game than Wirtz (3.3 v 2.18) but that’s hardly surprising because he plays considerably more progressive passes, with Cherki delivering 9.07 per game to Wirtz’s 6.74.
Wirtz lags behind Cherki in terms of SCAs (Shot creating actions) per 90 but that is largely explained by the new Manchester City man taking far more responsibility for dead-ball situations while the German has ceded that to Alex Grimaldo and Aleix Garcia.
Cherki carries the ball further forward than Wirtz, striding 159 yards forward with the ball per game to Wirtz’s 139.5. So he progressively carries and progressively passes far more often than the prospective Liverpool signing.
In the interests of fairness, it has to be conceded that Wirtz’ defensive contributions are more impressive than Cherki’s, with the German making a combined 1.61 tackles/interceptions but game to the Frenchman’s 0.97 while blocking far more passes (1.11 v 0.26). Is that worth £118m?