The Curious Case of Maurice Edu and Cognitive Dissonance (and dodgy statistics)

Every football team has at least one player that polarises opinion; Darren Fletcher was the archetype for the trope for years at Manchester United, although in recent years he appears to have become more universally accepted among their support. At Rangers, numerous players have divided the denomination over the last few seasons, from Alan Hutton and Charlie Adam, through to current incumbents Kyle Lafferty and Maurice Edu.

Edu, a Californian-born graduate of the University of Maryland, came to Rangers in 2008 from Major League Soccer side Toronto, with whom he had won the previous season’s MLS Rookie of the Year award. In his first season at Ibrox, he featured sparingly until the Spring of 2009, after which he enjoyed a run in the team as Rangers secured their first league title in four years. However, during the 3-0 victory over Dundee United that sealed the Championship, Edu suffered a knee injury that would rule him out for six months. His injury problems continued throughout the 2009-10 season, restricting him to only ten starts in all competitions.

2010-11 was more encouraging for the American. After a strong showing at the World Cup with the USA, he started 40 of Rangers’ 55 games in all competitions, and recorded five goals and two assists. However, there were perhaps some lingering doubts about the midfielder’s performances and overall form, particularly in the third quarter of the season. He didn’t look comfortable in possession, or going into tackles and appeared to have developed an unfortunate habit of slipping and tripping over the ball. Perhaps his season could be summed up by his performance against Valencia in the Champions League in October; some thirteen minutes after giving Rangers the lead with a header (during which he took a goalkeeper’s fist to the face), he sent a second header into his own net to equalise for the Spaniards.

At this point, it could be suggested that Edu’s hesitant performances were exasperating the Ibrox crowds, and their exasperation was further affecting Edu’s performances. A vicious circle that showed every sign of continuing in Rangers’ first eight or so games of the 2011-2012 campaign. However, it should be noted that for five of those matches, Edu was partnered in central midfield by Lee McCulloch, a pairing that has never been particularly effective for Rangers, as illustrated by the following table:

2009/10 Edu/McCulloch central midfield conundrum

Presence	No. of Matches	Win Rate
Neither starting	2	100%
McCulloch only	13	69.2%
Edu only	28	64.3%
Both	12	58.3%
Overall	55	65.5%

When Rangers play McCulloch and Edu together in midfield, Steven Davis, the more creative of the three is often fielded on the right, where his influence is diminished. Additionally, McCulloch and Edu are very similar in how they play within the Rangers midfield. They’re supposed to break up the opponent’s possession, close down, ferry the ball to the more creative players. However, Rangers’ system in the last two seasons (when playing either 4-4-2 or the 4-4-1-1) doesn’t allow for two sitting midfielders. As a result the counter-attacking threat the team have developed over the years (by accident or design) is tempered by having two midfielders that aren’t particularly adept at playing fast and direct passing football.

Of course, the above data should not be taken as gospel, and I’m certainly not a statistician, but it does appear to bear witness to the grumblings coming from the Ibrox terraces and cyberspace. Subjectively speaking, I don’t like the Edu/McCulloch partnership, for the reasons I delineated in the preceding paragraph. Whether coincidence or not, the five games Rangers have played this season with Edu and McCulloch starting in midfield saw some pretty turgid displays. Rangers won one league game and drew one; lost and drew against Malmo in the Champions League qualifier; lost and drew against Maribor in the Europa League play-off.

Of course, it’s not simply that McCulloch and Edu are incompatible as players; there’s the additional problem that neither is in a particularly rich vein of form. McCulloch has struggled for most of 2011 with knee problems, and hasn’t looked nearly fit enough this season. Edu, as I have previously intimated has been struggling with what appear to be confidence issues, culminating in the game against Malmo where he appeared to be taking up positions where his team-mates wouldn’t have been able to pass to him. However, since Rangers’ exit from both European competitions, Edu seems to be playing more adeptly. It could be argued that the fact Lee McCulloch has been struggling with injury and hasn’t started any of the last six matches has been a key factor in Edu, and Rangers’ renaissance.

However, this brings us to cognitive dissonance. A poster on a Rangers’ forum coined the phrase to explain the reluctance of some other members to give Edu credit for his improved performances, arguing that they’d already decided Edu wasn’t a good player and wouldn’t give him credit, even begrudgingly. He does have a point; the adoption of favoured players and scapegoats has long been a breeding ground for contradictory attitudes among football fans where an unfancied player will be criticised for his on-pitch failings while a more popular colleague will be exempted from similar chiding for identical, or worse, failings.

Maurice Edu may well now be the victim of adaptive preference formation, as well as the boo-boys. But he might equally be the beneficiary of cognitive dissonance. While the fans that were scapegoating him might be slow to give him credit for his recent improved performances, it appears to me that defenders of the player’s abilities and potential are now over-stating his current form. Evidence of this might include the denigration of Lee McCulloch; his appearance in the League Cup loss against Falkirk resulted in claims that the club wouldn’t have lost ‘if Edu were playing’. I’ve also read comments online suggesting Edu’s quieter performances are due to him playing a similar role to Sergio Busquets at Barcelona and that his anticipation “borders on telepathy”. I also remain to be convinced that his goal against Dunfermline today was quite as well executed as some are suggesting.

A poll for today’s man of the match on the aforementioned supporters’ website, as of 7pm, sees Edu with 8.16% of the vote, 1.02% behind Steven Naismith, who scored two goals. Contrastingly, in the vote on Rangers’ official Facebook page, Edu has 3.46% and Naismith 11.2%. This disparity could be due to a number of factors; posters on the fan’s forum have more in-depth knowledge of football perhaps. Maybe more people on Facebook were at the game.

Whichever poll is correct, most people seem to think that Maurice Edu was the third best player in a Rangers shirt today. They might well be right, but I haven’t been convinced by even Edu’s better performances this season. Perhaps that’s due to me choosing not to see what is readily apparent to everyone else. I have suspected that the people raving about Edu after the last two league matches have simply had such reduced expectations of the player due to his performances over the past two seasons. Therefore, in a match where he plays competently by other players’ standards, by his own he will appear to have had a terrific game.

I do suspect that’s simply me being churlish however. is it a coincidence that Rangers have won 83% of the matches that Edu has started, without McCulloch, this season? I’ll be quite honest; I don’t rate Edu as a player, and I’m not sure he has the ability or the tools to be anything more than a 7/10 player for Rangers. I can’t see this terrific form he’s in that others see. But if Rangers keep winning while he’s in the side, that’s good enough for me.

Advertisement