Adem Ljajic was acquired by Inter over the summer on a loan-to-buy deal from Roma, with an option to purchase for €11 million. Even with sparse appearances until more recently in the season, the Serbian attacker may have already convinced Inter management of exercising that option.
The former Roma attacker has impressed with the chances he has seen lately. Since joining Inter, he has played 533 minutes over nine appearances for an average of 59.2 minutes per appearance. But that has not held him back from making a very visibly creative mark on the pitch, scoring two goals and assisting three.
Creativity is the former Firenze-man’s greatest threat, so it makes sense that Ljajic is the league leader in key passes per game. He averages 2.9 passes leading to goalscoring opportunities per appearance. So, 2.9 per 59.2 minutes. That is one every 20.5 playing minutes. At that rate (of course this is hypothetical) every 90 Ljajic minutes equates to 4.4 key passes this term. Whew. He is far and away the league leader in terms of key passes/total minutes.
His stat of key passes/total passes is amazing as well, at 8.47% or one per every 11.8 passes on average. Only Paulo Dybala (closest player to Ljajic in all these key passing stats) is better in the league in this regard averaging 8.69% key/total. I got curious, crunched the numbers, and found out that in terms of key passes/forwards passes, he is again, the league leader. His is an outrageous 19.2% of total forwards facing passes leading to a goalscoring opportunity, compared to Dybala’s 16.5% average.
Something to note while we are comparing on this stat is that Dybala’s total of chances created come vastly more from the wings, with only 38.7% coming from central areas. This is while 64.5% of Ljajic’s key passes have come from the more congested central area of the attacking third. 92% of Ljajic’s chances created were from short distance passes, to Dybala’s 55%. The two have similar passing completion rates, at 84% for the Argentinian, and 85.5% for the Serbian. Also important, Dybala has played 945, to Ljajic’s 533 minutes. Anyway, enough about that Juventino…
Adem is a master at opening up defenses, a real ace in the deck, and without pass-masters in midfield, he is vital for this Inter side. He is something we have sorely missed, and could just push Inter that extra kilometer to reaching the Scudetto.
*Statistics from squawka.com, whoscored.com, espnfc.com, and transfermarkt.com
What do you think of Ljajic? Do the numbers surprise you? Do you think he could be the key to unlocking Icardi? He does already have two assist for MI9… Comment below and let us know!
Article like this should be written on graph or table. My eyes tired switching between numbers, percentage, and alphabeth
True, I just didn’t have much time and typed up everything I was researching as fast as I could, finals week and all. But note taken, I’ll definitely look into that!
the fact matter only icardi is the key to unlock icardi, too much talks about how the team was built around Icardi, but that statement is idiotic. Icardi is spearhead striker, who waits for chances and Mancini want him support the team, he does but that for now diminish his striking ability, sharpness and goals target. he needs to be left alone to develop or sell him for considerable amount of money, i am loving the 1-0 wins.. inter should think more about promoting academy players and see their potential, it takes the media one debate goal to make a god out of new comer, its all about marketing isn’t it
when inter were chasing eder, and pocho through the summer, we have mentioned Ljajic over and over, he has been fantastic at roma, and before that at fiorentina, and he found better form at Inter with his Balkan friends, its fantastic
Great article, love these stats.
I really appreciate it mate!
We must keep ljajic at all costs, he is pure class!! We haven’t had a dribbler like him since the days of Chino and Figo…Exciting to watch!!!
Ahhh I love his feints this way and that. 😀
And the sad thing is that he was always our third choice. After Eder and Perotti. In my notebook he was first.
Same for me!
Another magic pulled off by Ausilio in the last seconds of the transfer deadline. Thank you Ausilio. Keep up the good work!
Ljajic is 10 times better than kovacic. Now I know you are a wizzard mancio..!!
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I view Ljajic as the key to “unlock” Icardi and Jovetic as a pair. Our starting strikers have little to no chemistry together, which is understandable considering they’ve only played together a handful of times, but could prove a problem going forward if it doesn’t improve. They both need to work on their individual issues, Icardi’s being his work-rate, his skill-set reminds a bit of Inzaghi, yet he rarely makes runs trying to beat the defensive line and instead opts to hold up play and try to get someone to make a play for him.. in other words he’s been very lazy this season. Jovetic on the other hand, needs to make better choices as to when to be selfish and when to use team-play, often times imo he passes when he should dribble and or shoot and vice versa. If they can sort out their individual issues, which shouldn’t be too difficult of tasks, I believe Ljajic can help bridge the gap in their chemistry together and form a deadly front trio!
AMEN! I echo a lot of what you say here! Man, I think he can grow to be a great trequartista.
We can’t compare him to Dybala, he already scored 7 times… and Dybala plays as ST whereas our star Ljajic play more on the wings or supporting the strikers- we are using a really different system comparing with Jube.. but In any case I’m really glad he joined our team at the right time, we also need that Jojo performs well and he certainly helps, just remember Perisic is not performing as we were expecting-
Absolutely, Dybala only came up as I kept seeing the two closest in the different categories of “key pass” or “chances created” stats. Very different players for sure, different roles, with different team dynamics.
I’ve mentioned before that we need to be patient with Icardi as i firmly belive that he can become vital for this new Inter..I base that on the fact that he is an assasin in front of goal,he doesn’t need lots of chances, give him 2 and he’ll score 1 goal (lots of times you don’t see him at all during the game but he just pops up and scores) so from the start i belived that when Jovetic,Ljaic and Perisic settle in we will create chances and when we start creating them Icardi will,don’t even doubt it,start converting them in to goals…
I’ll admit i think highly of Icardi and maybe im not objective here but i think we will play lot better in second half of the season and Icardi will be crucial for us,so yes i think Ljaic could be the key for unlocking Icardi but all of our attackers have lot of room to improve and im looking forward to the rest of the season first time since 2010 haha
remember batigol in his prime. a lethal one just like this young jedi codenamed MI9
Don’t even close
Amen amen. He’s proven himself before, he doesn’t have the same kind of service as before, and the system doesn’t play TO him or his attributes as well, but this system works on the whole, while that one didn’t. How to get the best out of Icardi, and the team…yep, could be down to our ‘ic’s!
great article!
Thank you mate!
Another key stat is that he’ll cost us 11mil while dybala cost rube close to 40mil lol
Hahahahaha..
That is nothing compared to they bought our bench player hernanes for 11 mil,lolll….
Imagine this,they bought hernanes->extra 11 mill->money to buy ljajic….
It means they weaken themselves and indirectly strengthen us,stupid rubentini,LMAOOOOOOO…..
I hope they buy guarin and we will see something like that repeated,lolllll
If they bought guarin that would be to good to be true lol
i believe that the grand director of this 40mil scenario is the one and only, mr. branca himself :/
speaking of branca, does anyone knows where the hell is “i-miss-marco-branca” guy?
Lol good riddance. I’m sure he’s gone smeagol on us locked up crying in his sadnesscave looking at the league table.
there at that “no from bologona to montoya and dodo’s article, chatting around with me and me doing good by try to give him some revelation about how ‘good’ jube is :))
Don’t get me wrong but dybala is by far a better player than ljajic I mean Adam is a nice player to have but be very aware of his temper he is a very mody guy and I hate to admit that in 2 3 year dybala well be a monster
You may be right but the fact is, in the here and now, we’re getting better value for money and we are top of the league, everything else is hearsay and speculation, so we should get one over the rube scum any chance we get lol
Hahahaha…
Like it will be a certainty he will be great player…
I agree, lets laugh as much as we can when we have a chance to laugh 😀
The fact is now, the future is still speculation until its happened :p
The only key to unlocking icardi is icardi 😛
Impressive stats by ljajic and what’s more impressive is how obedient he is, mancini is working wonders with him
Here I was thinking the key to Icardi was Wanda :/ lol
& amen! I hope it continues just like this.
LOL.. hahahaha.. nice one.. XD
😛
maybe mancini chalenge him to prove that roma was wrong to gave up on him.. XD
it is good to see your analysis again Mahdi. and that’s a good article indeed *kudos!
Always great to hear from you! Thank you mate!
Mahdi,you forget to describe his defensive workrate,we all know how good ljajic is,but this season he really runs a lot for defense,and i think that is a major improvement for him,..
Oh for sure! I just hope he doesn’t pull an Osvaldo, and that he keeps this up! I didn’t mean to analyze the player fully in this piece, just the different facets of the “key passes” statistics that he’s top of the league in that I found relevant and comparable. Definitely tons of other areas to look into!