James McCarthy - Everton's lynchpin, a followup

The excellent Everton fansite www.grandoldteam.com recently a published an article on their Irish midfielder entitled "James McCarthy: Everton's lynchpin". You can read it here - http://www.grandoldteam.com/2015/01/01/james-mccarthy-evertons-linchpin/ - and is well worth the time spent.
In the article, the author Michael Rutherford, notes that many Everton fans would argue there is a correlation between Everton's inconsistent start to the 2014/15 season and McCarthy's participation in only 73% of their fixtures, compared to 90% in 2013/14.

While we're not an Everton site here at IA Towers (obviously!) we do have a record of James McCarthy's appearances since he started his career with Hamilton Academical, so we've crunched the numbers to see what effect his appearance, and absence, has on the Everton results.

James		Home			Away			Total
McCarthy	P	W	D	L	W	D	L	W	D	L
Starts	52	17	4	5	11	7	8	28	11	13
Does not start	15	3	1	2	1	2	5	4	3	8

While 15 games without the midfielder as a starting player is not a great sample size, it does still display the difference he makes to the Goodison Park side. With James in the starting XI, Roberto Martinez's men go on to win more than half of their games (54%) and lose exactly one in four (25%). However, when James does not lineout with his fellow Evertonians, they win 27%, and lose almost as many as they win with him - 53%!

Strangely McCarthy's appearance (or lack thereof) has little effect on draws, with Everton finishing all square in 21% of the games he starts, and 20% of the games he doesn't.

Pushing these numbers into a 38 game season, with McCarthy starting, the Toffees can look forward to 20 wins and 8 draws, with 10 losses and a final total of 69 points, not far off the 72 they finished the 2013/14 season with.

Without McCarthy, it's a much different story, only 10 wins and 8 draws, and 20 losses leaving them on 38 points. Going on their current rate of 1.05 points per game, Everton can expect to finish on 39.9 points (lets round it up to 40), again not far off the total without McCarthy.

As we don't have the appropriate data for all of Everton's players over the same period, it's hard to pinpoint exactly what is missing from their side this season, but from these numbers it's hard to argue that McCarthy is not a vital player to the side.

Irish Scorers weekend of 28th December 2014

28 December 2014 Sky Bet Championship Millwall 0-2 Bournemouth Harry Arter(42) Reading 2-1 Norwich City Simon Cox(34)

30 December 2014 Sky Bet Championship Ipswich Town 3-0 Charlton Athletic Daryl Murphy(59) David McGoldrick(90) Australian A-League Newcastle Jets 2-5 Melbourne City Damien Duff(24)

Irish Abroad player appearance statistics half way report for 2014/15 season

Appearance data for 2014/15 season to date: http://irish-abroad.appspot.com/MonthlyStats?month=13
We're midway through the 2014/15 season in England and Scotland, so how have the Irish players been performing across the water, and around the world?
Anthony Stokes is leading the wins, starting 17 wins this season for Celtic in the SPL, just ahead of Derby duo Richard Keogh and Cyrus Christie, and Aberdeen's Jonathan Hayes. Stokes has also been substituted more than any other player, he was withdrawn from the action in 14 of his 25 starts, while fellow striker has been introduced more than any other player, coming off the bench 17 times this season - that's six more than any other player
John O'Shea has started 11 draws for Sunderland, just ahead of Paul Green and Keiren Westwood on 10
David Forde has unfortunately started 12 losses for Millwall, just ahead of Shaun Williams and Alex Pearce, both starting ten losses so far this season
Forde's fellow Lion Alan Dunne has been shown the most yellow cards, the Millwall defender has been booked eight times in his 21 starts
Richard Keogh has started 28 of Derby County's 29 games this season, with fellow Ram Cyrus Christie in second on 27 starts. Remarkably Keogh completed 90 minutes in all but one of these, with Christie playing the whole game in each of his 27 starts
Unsurprisingly, two goalkeepers have been unused substitutes the most this season, Colin Doyle and Jack Bonham have both been left on the subs bench 27 times in 2014/15 so far. Doyle has three starts to his name, while Bonham has yet to feature. Of the outfield players, Daniel Devine is the most unused substitute, the Inverness Caledonian Thistle player has been left on the bench 17 times, and is also yet to feature for his club
Daryl Murphy and Adam Rooney have both found the net 17 times for their respective clubs. What makes Murphy's record more impressive is it does not include a single penalty, while Rooney's total includes four finishes from 12 yards. The strike duo have similar results from the games in which they scored - 10 wins and a single loss, while Murphy's goals have also contributed to two draws for Ipswich. Anthony Stokes and Andy Keogh's goals have led to wins in 100% of the games in which they scored - seven wins from seven games