It was another game, another ailment against Sheffield United, with Pontus Jansson becoming the latest Leeds United player to suffer one this season.
The early prognosis is that he’ll be out for up to three weeks with a knee injury . The good news is that it coincided with the international break, meaning that the Swede might only miss one game, against Millwall when the league campaign resumes. [
Even better, Gaetano Berardi is fit and ready to come in. The fan favourite suffered a potentially season-ending ruptured hamstring back in October, but he’s battled hard to get back to full fitness in four months and played regularly for the Under-23s, looking sharp.
Berardi earned rave reviews for his performances in the early weeks of the season, striking up a strong partnership with Liam Cooper as Jansson took time to get up to speed following the World Cup.
But how do Berardi and Jansson’s stats compare? Take a look:
If you're looking at win rates - yes (Jansson (52%), Berardi (63%), but Pontus has statistically been one of the Championship's best performing players this season. Unfair weighting of games (Pontus 33, Berardi 9). Sure Keith Andrews will be all over this.
— LUFCDATA (@LUFCDATA) March 18, 2019
Win percentage and goals conceded
Leeds have a better win percentage with Berardi over Jansson this season, but as pointed out above, Jansson has played a lot more games - so it’s unfair to compare based off wildly different sample sizes.
Berardi has played in nine league games, completing close to 90 minutes seven times - winning four, drawing two and losing one, whilst keeping three clean sheets. Since then he was substituted off after 27 minutes against Ipswich after suffering an injury, which Leeds went on to win 2-0, while he returned for the final seven minutes of the 1-0 win at Bristol City.
That’s a win percentage of 63%, while Jansson’s is 52%.
The Swedish international has started 29 games this season, appearing off the bench twice. With 2599 Championship minutes completed, he’s played almost four times as many minutes as Berardi, who clocks up 658.
With Berardi on the pitch, Leeds have conceded six goals in 658 minutes, averaging one just one conceded every 109 minutes. 35 goals have been conceded with Jansson on the pitch, averaging one every 74 minutes.
Defensive statistics:
According to WhoScored.com , Jansson comes out on top for most key defensive metrics, compared to Berardi - or at least, is a lot more active.
Jansson makes 2.4 tackles per 90 minutes, whereas Berardi averages just 1.7, which is the same as Liam Cooper. He also comes out on top in terms of interceptions, averaging 2.5 per game, while Berardi averages 1.4 - while Cooper (1.1), Jansson (1.2) and Berardi (1.0) are all more or less the same when it comes to fouls committed per 90.
To put those numbers in context, Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk - widely considered to be the standout defender in England this season - averages 1.1 tackles per game, 1.2 interceptions and just 0.4 fouls per match. Sometimes, less is more.
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