Key passes? i thought that was an assist in lay mans terms
Key passes are, afaik, the pass that results in a shot, so its "an assist when the shot doesn't go in" essentially.
However its worthless, whats better, two people passing sideways in midfield for 39 minutes and racking up 100 passes, then a pass forwards and a goal, or 2 passes forward and a goal.
Making lots of passes doesn't mean anything, key passes don't mean anything.
By the very definition someone gets a key pass if you pass 5 yards to someone 50 yards from goal, they see the keeper off their line and shoot and miss by 30 yards.
In general key passes are completely uninterpretable, how many key passes do players at Chelsea have when Sturridge players, he'll shot from anywhere, any time, for no reason. You could get 10 key passes from sturridge shooting from stupid positions, yet never having made a difficult pass in a game.
Assists are much the same, would Song have as many assists without RVP on the end of his passes? No, why Song have as many assists if he didn't make more throughball attempts than anyone else in the league, no he also wouldn't.
Stats can be interpreted, but looking at stats on their own IS worthless, and looking at individual stats is usually worthless, a few of the most important stats give a better picture than some other stats, but without seeing a player actually play and realising why the stats are as they are, stats are worthless.
IE I watch Song play, most of his assists come from the same pass, chip it over the top, he does this multiple times every game that go no where near Arsenal players, he tries throughballs more than Mata/Silva/anyone who all have more assists. His success rate with that kind of pass is very poor, he just tries more often.
If you ONLY took assists you wouldn't know this, stats + seeing why = a bit of understanding.
), Huddersfield as well.