MYTH NUMBER 1 – “HE DOESN’T PLAY ENOUGH”
Kun has made 30+ appearances (including subs) in 3 of the last 4 league seasons. His worse season was 2013/2104 when he made 23 appearances and we won the league.
Since the start of last season ONLY 2 outfield players have played more minutes in the league than Kun. The top 10 list of minutes played:
Dinho – 3464
YaYa – 3368
AGUERO– 3217
Navas – 3118
Merlin – 3096
Mang – 2954
MDM – 2906
Zab – 2766
Vinny – 2755
Kolarov - 2648
MYTH NUMBER 2 - “HE TAKES AGES TO GET BACK TO SPEED WHEN RETURNING ”
His record of scoring goals quickly when he returns from injury is actually incredibly good.
2013/2014 - he “returned” on 5 occassions after injury or lack of 100% fitness. On 4 of those 5 times he had scored within 90 minutes of play - 43 mins, 45 mins, 17 mins and 89 mins.
The one time he didn’t was when he returned for the last game of the season against West Ham and didn’t score.
2014/2015 – he “returned” 3 times scoring after 9 minutes against Newcastle and 1 minute against Liverpool. His only major blip was the return after the Everton Injury when it took him 319 minutes of playing time before he scored.
2015/2016 - this year it took him 58 minutes (sub against WBA and then Chelsea) before scoring. He then returned after injury against Liverpool and scored after 44 mins.
SO, IN 8 OUT OF his last 10 “returns” he has scored within 90 minutes.
MYTH NUMBER 3 – “OUR RESULTS SUFFER WHEN HE DOESN’T FEATURE"
It’s been 1 year and 10 months since we last lost a game that he didn’t make an appearance. You have to go back to the 0-2 at home against Barcelona in Feb 2014.
Since then he has not made an appearance in 22 games. Our record in those 22 games, all competitions, is Won 18 and Drawn 4.