Polter may be quite limited in terms of football, but it worked well for Bochum and he scored his goals. Now, with Hofmann, you have a limited striker again, only with the difference that he hasn’t proven to be particularly dangerous in goal so far.
Polter managed 1 goal and zero assists in the first 8 games with us last season, Hofmann now has 1 goal and one assist in 7 games, stop telling any fairy tales here.
Playfully, there are worlds between Polter and Hofman.
You don’t always have to react with the bite reflex just because your own club is criticized a little and someone is accused of telling fairy tales. Because the fact is that Polter had 10 goals at the end of the season and his yield within the first few games doesn’t change that. Especially since I wasn’t interested in comparing the beginning of last season and this beginning of the season, but rather comparing the situation from around 4 to 5 months ago when the old season ended and the current situation.
It may well be that Hofmann will also take off and do his bits in the end, but that’s anyone’s guess. Neither you nor I can know. But what we do know is that Polter ended up scoring while Hofmann (as of now) didn’t score.
If you compare Polter’s last season with Hofmann’s current season and calculate the values down to 90 minutes, both do nothing in terms of yield (goals + assist).
Polter/Hofmann:
In 90min 0.38 goals/assists (without 11m) to 0.39
56% pass rate to 64%
42% duel ratio (50% in the air) to 44% (56% in the air)
The difference between the two is probably best described in Hofmann’s template against Hoffenheim. A rumble would have headed him on goal himself, Hofmann puts it down for Zoller. If Hofmann comes out with 5 goals and 6 assists in the end, he is just as strong as Polter in terms of pure yield for me. In addition, he is less of a foreign body in the game, but distributes the balls better and uses the teammates. And Polter played when things went well for us last year, there is currently no well-rehearsed team that has a run. Like the opening days of last season, so the comparison isn’t bad either.
In the end it’s less of a biting reflex than a one sees him play every match day vs. one limits oneself to one value (goals, albeit an important one for strikers) and thus comes to different results