The Saborio Conundrum, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Striker

It has been all too frequent in the last week to hear what is so gracefully termed "Sabo hate" permeating the depths of the internet and supporters' mindsets. Now, don't get me wrong: Some just don't appreciate him as a player or a person, and that, I suppose, is acceptable. They've done it for a long time, and they probably have their reasons — even if I don't quite get them. But for the more recent calls that Saborio is useless, or is a terrible player, or is lazy, or doesn't want to be here, what have you — for those calls, I have questions.

Question 1. When you say that Saborio is useless, do you realize how many goals he's scored since arriving at the club?

Saborio's strike rate in the league is fantastic, at about 0.5 goals/game. Would I rather he was hitting a goal every game? Sure, but those players are few and far between. In fact, in 2011, leading goal scorers Dwayne De Rosario scored 15 goals over the length of the regular season — over the course of 31 games. That's a strike rate of — gasp — about 0.5 goals/game. Now, the race for the top spot has shaped up a little differently this season — and I'll have more on that at a future date — and players are scoring left and right. Perhaps that's a blip, or perhaps they're doing well in early-season form. There are many possibilities.

Question 2. When you say that Saborio is lazy, what do you mean by lazy?

It's all well and good to hold the magnifying glass of criticism to players on your team. In fact, I think it's hugely important. But perhaps this is the reason I'm confused by this criticism. When you say Saborio is lazy, do you mean that he doesn't spend the match sprinting? That he doesn't drop back in defense more regularly? That he doesn't constantly attempt to beat the offside trap? I won't outright say that you're wrong on this, but I've still yet to see a concrete answer as to in what way he's lazy. To be clear, I just don't see it.

I do, however, see a way in which his play might look lazy, and it's something rooted a bit in tactics. Saborio plays in a very specific role in our side as a target forward. He has two primary roles, to my mind. The first is to act as an outlet for the midfield, especially in defensively tight situations. From this position, receiving the ball from often a rushed clearance, he'll flick the ball on to an attacker — Fabian Espindola or Paulo Jr., often. This is born out in the statistics: Saborio is 9/23 in accurate flicks on, easily more than any other player on our team thus far. And while it may not seem he's entirely accurate with these, how many times have you seen Saborio flick the ball on, only for Espindola's run — unpredictable as they are — to go the other way? It's a fine margin, that one.

At any rate, that role — ostensibly a defensive one, or one at least that plays out more on the defensive side of the ball — means that if he were to drop deeper into defense when we didn't have the ball, we'd be without a reliable out-ball, leading to increased pressure from opposition.

It also works to explain a bit why we don't see him constantly pressing high up the pitch: It's not exactly what we do tactically. We don't operate with a hassle-and-harry mentality high up the pitch, and while we can argue the merits of that all day long — I tend to side on the high-pressure tactic — it wouldn't serve anything if he were to do it unsupported. It only leads to players becoming prematurely fatigued when they're not able to do so with full support of the midfield. If we employed a system with genuine wingers, perhaps it would be easier, but our shape necessitates some sacrifices. This, to my mind, is one of them. Can we improve in this regard? Certainly, and Jason Kreis will know this. But it's not a case of Saborio being lazy, to my mind.

The second primary role fulfilled by Saborio is as a support for attacking play in the final third. Here, he attempts to get on the end of inventive passes, looks for simple passes to keep play ticking over, and attacks the box in open play. He stays relatively central largely because Fabian Espindola's role is often so wide — ceding the center in open play would be unwise at best.

If you're worried that Saborio doesn't take enough shots, we can turn back to 2011 stats briefly: Top-scorer Dwayne de Rosario, in 31 matches, took 113 shots, or about 3.6 shots/match. In the early days of this season, Alvaro Saborio has taken 16 shots, or about 2.5 shots/90 minutes. While his early season form hasn't been scintillating, he's not far off a reasonable pace.

Question 3. When you say that Saborio is unmotivated or doesn't want to be here, how do you show this?

This is a particularly tricky one for me. I am certainly no expert in body language, but while I've seen Saborio frustrated — look back to last summer for an example of that (and more on that later) — that's entirely different from not wanting to be here, for me.

One incident plays large in supporters' minds: The storm-down-the-tunnel after being substituted off last summer. It's easy to look at a clip of that incident and lay blame on the player, but the statements in the following days cleared it up. Saborio, in a word, was frustrated. Not at being substituted, necessarily, but about his own performance. But that was hardly the only factor in play: One of his former Costa Rica teammates had very recently died, his Costa Rica had just dropped out of the Gold Cup, and there were other, ongoing personal issues unrelated to his performances with the club.

But here's the thing: Strikers are mercurial. Strikers are erratic. Strikers are, well, a bit weird at times. It's part and parcel of the game: Just like goalkeepers, it takes a certain sort of personality to do it, and it's an incredibly high-pressure job.

I won't say that you must simply love Saborio, or that you don't have good reason if you don't — but some of the criticism I've seen in recent weeks has been over-the-top and unnecessary. Further, some of it doesn't bear out in reality, and that's entirely too frustrating.

While the striker hasn't been in stellar form during the early parts of the season, it's worth remembering that he missed most of pre-season through injury and surely needed a little bit of time to get back to full fitness and form.

'Til tomorrow, when I'll preview the match against Toronto FC — tactically and with a little bit of a statistical edge. Do share your thoughts on Saborio here: Do you like him? Do you not? Why?