Chris Martin.
- Ellie Biggerstaff
- Aug 3, 2019
- 7 min read
The lingering question is - what happened to him? There was seemingly such a huge dip in form, a hero to zero story for our former number 9. He has played 13 professional seasons, and spent six of these seasons contracted to us.
These are the statistics he has racked up in the last six seasons as a Derby player (including those when he went on loan) -
2013/14 Season:
4,331 minutes played
25 goals
9 assists
173 minutes per goal
127 minutes per goal involvement
Derby County
2014/15 Season:
3,237 minutes played
21 goals
8 assists
154 minutes per goal
111 minutes per goal involvement
Derby County
2015/16 Season:
4,078 minutes played
15 goals
11 assists
271 minutes per goal
156 minutes per goal involvement
Derby County
2016/17 Season:
2,916 minutes played
11 goals
4 assists
265 minutes per goal
194 minutes per goal involvement
Derby County & Fulham
2017/18 Season:
1,437 minutes played
2 goals
2 assists
718 minutes per goal
359 minutes per goal involvement
Derby County & Reading
2018/19 Season:
1,761 minutes played
3 goals
4 assists
587 minutes per goal
251 minutes per goal involvement
Hull
Now as these statistics show, Chris Martin was at the peak of his career between the seasons of 2013/14 to 2016/17 but he started to falter after that, and was hit by the worst season of his Derby career, but however, it does raise the question whether those three, four seasons were just a fluke because calculating the averages of Chris Martin's career, he tends to play 2,589 minutes per season, scoring 10 and assisting 5, meaning a period of 258 minutes per goal and 172 minutes per goal involvement. So, that begs the question - what is normal or what is exceeding expectations? He was going through a lot of personal issues during the worst season of his career to date in the 2017/18 season that he spent half of on loan at Reading, and that can mess with anybody's heads - I'm not one to make assumptions but his performances on the pitch was extremely poor; there were personal health issues, there were family issues, there were a lot of instability about his future as well as the future of the club after so many managerial changes.
As Chris Martin has been with us for the last six seasons, I had a look at the golden boot winners of the last six seasons too, to compare the data and the amount of minutes per goal. The numbers in brackets is Chris Martin's statistics so you can compare them.
2013/14 Season -
Ross McCormack
29 goals (25 goals - 4 less)
10 assists (9 assists - 1 less)
4,429 minutes played (4,331 minutes - 98 minutes less)
152 minutes per goal (173 minutes per goal - 21 minutes more)
113 minutes per goal involvement (127 minutes per goal involvement - 14 minutes more)
2014/15 Season -
Daryl Murphy
27 goals (21 goals - 6 less)
7 assists (8 assists - 1 more)
4,234 minutes played (3,237 minutes - 997 minutes less)
156 minutes per goal (154 minutes per goal - 2 minutes less)
124 minutes per goal involvement (111 minutes per goal involvement - 13 minutes less)
2015/16 Season -
Andre Gray
25 goals (15 goals - 10 less)
10 assists (11 assists - 1 more)
3,625 minutes played (4,078 minutes - 453 minutes more)
145 minutes per goal (271 minutes per goal - 126 minutes more)
103 minutes per goal involvement (156 minutes per goal involvement - 53 minutes more)
2016/17 Season -
Chris Wood
30 goals (11 goals - 19 less)
4 assists (4 assists - same)
3,847 minutes played (2,916 minutes - 931 minutes less)
128 minutes per goal (265 minutes per goal - 137 minutes more)
113 minutes per goal involvement (194 minutes per goal involvement - 81 minutes more)
2017/18 Season -
Matej Vydra ❤️
22 goals (2 goals - 20 less)
4 assists (2 assists - 2 less)
2,878 minutes played (1,437 minutes - 1,441 minutes less)
130 minutes per goal (718 minutes per goal - 588 minutes more)
110 minutes per goal involvement (359 minutes per goal involvement - 249 minutes more)
2018/19 Season -
Teemu Pukki
30 goals (3 goals - 27 less)
10 assists (4 assists - 6 less)
3,854 minutes played (1,761 minutes - 2,093 minutes less)
128 minutes per goal (587 minutes per goal - 459 minutes more)
96 minutes per goal involvement (251 minutes per goal involvement - 155 minutes more)
Little note - Teemu Pukki is terrifyingly good.
Now you can make your own conclusions from the data I have just given but in my personal opinion; as Martin gets older, he falls away from the best of the best but he is being utilised differently from the 2016/17 season, being awarded a different role as you can see the proportions of assists to goals is changing quite a fair bit for him. To try and put the trend down into numbers where you can see, I have calculated the percentages of how much of his goal involvement are actually goals over the last few seasons, regardless of how many he has actually gotten as this part is about proportions.
2013/14 Season - 34 goal involvement - 73% were goals
2014/15 Season - 29 goal involvement - 72% were goals
2015/16 Season - 26 goal involvement - 57% were goals
2016/17 Season - 15 goal involvement - 73% were goals
2017/18 Season - 4 goal involvement - 50% were goals
2018/19 Season - 7 goal involvement - 42% were goals
Now bearing in mind the proportions, I looked at who Chris Martin has been playing under, so you can see how Martin's roles has altered due to the managers' tactical preferences;
2013/14 Season -
Nigel Clough (Derby)
Steve McClaren (Derby)
2014/15 Season -
Steve McClaren (Derby)
2015/16 Season -
Paul Clement (Derby)
Darren Wassall (Derby)
2016/17 Season -
Nigel Pearson (Derby)
Slavisa Jokanovic (Fulham)
2017/18 Season -
Gary Rowett (Derby)
Jaap Stam (Reading)
Paul Clement (Reading)
2018/19 Season -
Nigel Adkins (Hull)
There has been obviously a lot of managerial changes throughout the last six seasons for Chris Martin, and that is tough to adapt to for any footballer, not just Martin himself - the new tactics to be learnt, the new orders, the amount of transfers going on as the new managerial appointments attempts to change things up. The uncertainty of Martin knowing where he will be in the next transfer window and the multiple managerial changes just adds to the instability and it's understandable, for me, that he would struggle. The team certainly did struggle throughout this period.
Now, the mention of a role change would be applicable to this. As said earlier in this post, the proportion of assists to goals has changed over time, and the managerial tactics has been changed a lot. Nigel Clough and Steve McClaren were both able to draw the best out of Martin's abilities by using him as a poacher, to spot goal scoring opportunities and luring around the opponent's box, waiting for chances to come his way, and that's because the tactics used by both managers allowed for this. However, in the 2015/16 season, you can see the alternation in the data as 57% of his goal involvement were goals, meaning 43% were assists, compared to 28% of them being assists the season before - this is probably due to the arrival of Paul Clement, a manager with negative tactics. Clement liked to focus on possession play, making space in the defensive area for the centre halves to pass the ball around then play long balls for the target man to hold up play. That is what Chris Martin was utilised to be; a target man due to his strong physique and his ability to hold up play, to spray out the ball to the wingers for opportunities to be created, resulting in his assist record to rack up. However, when the time was right, Martin had permission to be flexible in latching onto loose balls and getting goals so he was not entirely a target man at this point.
Then in comes the lunatic that is Nigel Pearson, he had no flexibility. He had a rigid formation, and he wanted the team to stick to it, resulting in Chris Martin having to stick in his position. but he still manages to get some goals and assists, before being shipped out on loan to Fulham, where he was still being utilised as a target man to allow Sone Aluko and Neeskens Kebano to use their pace to get the team some goals. After much rift as he requested to return to Derby during the January transfer window, his opportunities at Fulham were limited and this caused a huge downfall in the next season.
The struggle to get back to his best begun last season, and he improved on his performances although it will be difficult as he needs a lot of game time to be able to prove his quality - but due to his age and the poor season at Reading resting on his shoulders, it'll be difficult to allow him to start games.
However, my own conclusion is that he will suit Phillip Cocu's tactics, as a target man, and will compliment Jack Marriott and/or Martyn Waghorn's skills as Chris Martin will be able to spray the ball out to a proper, natural poacher of the modern game. Another reason to keep Martin is that, due to his age, he will be more accepting of being on the bench and making the most of his opportunities, should they come for him, therefore freeing up space for a youth player to come in whereas if we sold Martin and bought in someone else, we'd be freeing up Martin's wages, sure, but the new player would be here for a minimum of two years, stifling the development and taking away chances for us to actually give to our academy players.
Martin deserves another shot, another year at this club, before we move him on.
"I love playing for Derby County, I love the area as my family are growing up here."- Chris Martin
In memory of one of the greatest left backs in Deaf football - Arron White.
A huge fan of Derby County, he'd do anything for the club and for his family. Rest easy.
It's okay to not be okay - I'm always here if you want to vent or just to talk.
If you need to talk to a professional, Mind is there for you; text 86463 or call 03001233393.
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