The Tevez effect

What started out as a quick question on Twitter quickly piqued my interest, particularly given the continued talk of just how important and instrumental Carlos Tevez has been this season.

His hat-trick in the victory over Wigan was his nineteenth in the Premier League this season and the question that was posed was where we would be in the league if you took Tevez's goals away.

Tevez has had eleven goalscoring games this season, so a return of nineteen in itself is very impressive. Of these eleven games, the win had not been affected by his goal(s) (ie, there were other scorers), there was one game where his goals earned a point from an otherwise losing scoreline and five games where his goal(s) where the difference between a draw and a win (ie, without his goal(s) we would have dropped points. It is that last stat that is most important, as theoretically it gains us a number of points we otherwise would not have achieved.

The full breakdown is as follows:

West Ham (H) 3-1 (2). 2 points.
Chelsea (H) 2-1(1) 2 points.
Bolton (A) 3-3 (2). 1 point.
Sunderland (H) 4-3 (1). 2 points.
Stoke (H) 2-0 (1). 0 points.
Wolves (A) 3-0 (2). 0 points.
Blackburn (H) 4-1 (3). 0 points.
Bolton (H) 2-0 (1). 0 points.
Chelsea (A) (2). 2 points.
Fulham (A) 2-1 (1). 2 points.
Wigan (H) 3-0. (3). 2 points.


We currently sit in fifth position on 56 points. By my calculations, the 'Tevez effect' has been worth thirteen points this season.Without him therefore we would be sat in tenth place on 43 points.

Not exactly scientific I know and it isn't to say that without Tevez his goals wouldn't have been replaced, but it is certain that without his presence during 2009/10, we would not be in nearly the position that we currently find ourselves in.