Thinking back to the days of Anthony Stokes and Gary Hooper as a partnership I always thought Stokes was underrated. Yeah Stokes didn't always fulfil his potential and wasn't consistent however even when not playing well he was still better than many gave him credit for.
I remember looking at stats at the time and Hooper always played better (scoring more goals) when he played alongside Stokes. (Even if you took out the Rangers games from those equations as Stokes was generally left out of these games).
That made me look at the stats for Ajeti and other forwards (including Christie as a forward and including forwards up front themselves) to see how they compare. I also looked at Edouard alongside Ajeti and Edouard in games without Ajeti partnering him.
My findings were that Edouard's ;
- goals per 90 mins increase by 95% to 1.26 when playing alongside Ajeti
- shot conversion rate increase by 59% to 25% when playing alongside Ajeti
- shots per 90 mins increase by 23% to 5.1 when playing alongside Ajeti
- average match touches increase by 29% to 54 when playing alongside Ajeti
- average box touches increase by 132% to 16 when playing alongside Ajeti
Also in regards to Ajeti;
- his conversion rate is the best of our forwards at 43%
- his shots on target is 64% from all shots taken which again is the best of our forwards
Given the above stats I would recommend we play both Edouard and Ajeti up front together for the rest of the season standing by them even when they have a bad game.