These past few weeks the loan transfer of Nuri Sahin has been nothing short of a saga with the player first linked to Arsenal then supposed to be signing for Liverpool, with another u-turn to Arsenal and now it looks as if Liverpool may be capturing the player this weekend on a season long loan worth £2m plus 70% of his wages.

There aren’t many sources for Sahin stats and it’s been difficult to be able to do a comparison with what we found on WhoScored.com. The only stats we found were for his last season at Dortmund in 2010/11. Looking at these stats we decided to compare with some of the similar players in the Premier League; Yaya Toure, Mikel Arteta and Luka Modric (stats from last year).

We also found it difficult to source how many minutes Sahin had played for Dortmund in 2010/11 but luckily we found that soccerway.com had a full breakdown for the player (every player in fact) so this made it easier to analyse the players in terms of the minutes they have played which is a much more accurate way of analysing players.

Sahin Vs Midfielders from Premier League

The bare stats are displayed and all four players had a similar amount of playing time. Sahin managed to get more assists than the players compared here. To be fair though an assist is a two-way relationship and you need strikers to finish off the chances you create – something that may not happen at Liverpool if you go by their stats in front of goal for the last year.

The real important stat here is the chances created one. Nuri Sahin created over a hundred chances at Dortmund in 2010/11 – this is impressive in itself. If you can create over 100 chances in one of the top European League’s you’re a pretty good player.

Looking at the number of shots he’s considerably lower than Modric but attempted more than Yaya or Arteta. Mikel Arteta has the amazing chance conversion of 26% scoring 7 goals from just 27 shots. That’s pretty impressive and Sahin isn’t close to that in fact he’s got more of a Liverpool chance conversion percentage converting 10% of his shots. He’ll fit in well then!

The real comparison begins when you convert the stats into minutes per metrics. Subscribers of the EPLIndex Stats Centre will know that they try to convert most of their stats into “mins per” rather than per game as you get a more accurate figure when dividing the statistic by minutes played.

As can be seen above Nuri Sahin comes first or second in five out of the six stats available with only his passing accuracy letting him down. He created chances more often and attempted tackles more often than those in the comparison and was second in the mins per shot, goal and interception stats. Pretty impressive if you ask me as all the other three players in this comparison had excellent seasons last year.

Sahin Vs Liverpool’s Midfield

Whilst writing this article Liverpool FC have actually announced a deal with Real Madrid to loan Sahin for the season so let’s have a look at how Sahin compares to the current crop of midfielders at Liverpool FC.

Sahin’s stats from 2010/11 at Dortmund are again impressive against Liverpool’s midfield (stats from 2011/12 Premier League season). He tops the creativity statistic and also the shooting one. He comes second to Gerrard in scoring, second to Lucas in tackling (obviously) and also second to Lucas in interceptions. Once again his passing accuracy lets him down but expect him to improve upon this in the current Liverpool set up with all of their players looking to keep the ball more this season under Brendan Rodgers.

Nuri Sahin Conclusion

If Nuri Sahin can recapture the form he had at Dortmund in 2010/11 Liverpool will have one of the top player in this season’s Premier League in their team. With two top quality central midfielders in Joe Allen and Lucas already on the books you would feel that Liverpool have the central positions covered now (Henderson & Shelvey in reserve) freeing Gerrard for a more pivotal role further up the pitch. This could also mean that the careers of Charlie Adam and Jay Spearing may be coming to an end at Anfield which would boost the transfer kitty further as we feel Liverpool still lack a wide-player and striker in the squad.

A brief article today but there you have it – Nuri Sahin’s stats from his last full season at Dortmund stack up very well against the top midfielders in the Premier League and the Liverpool players that he is going to be playing with. He should really be a certain starter in the side alongside Lucas and Allen in the middle with Gerrard moving into a more attacking role.