20 goals in all comps isn’t that hard for a team where he was one of their main forwards. Sure they’ve underperformed but were still top 4/5 in the PL and had several deep cup runs. He was always a pace merchant and his back injury did for him in that regard.
Of course it’s a performance. Doesn’t mean it can’t still have positive results, but it was absolutely performative. I’m of the opinion that pretty much all celebrity political action is performative though.
German defending is shocking no denying. That’s why I’m still suspect about the likes of Nukuku. Spanish football and English football are the only two reliable leagues imo for stat comparisons to Liverpool players etc
It doesn’t have to be about leagues either, but about playing style. Like if we’re looking at someone playing in a team based more on counter-attacks, how does that transfer to Liverpool? And when it comes to defenders as well; does the team play a style that means frequent 1v1 work for a particular defender, with limited help from others? Does he get more help than he will at Liverpool?
I think this is where Liverpool have been so good under Klopp. A clear image of how they want to play, with a highly collective-focused idea at the core. And derived from that they can define the different roles, and what’s needed to execute them well. Makes it much easier to know what to look for, and to guess or project how a player could perform, than if they’d just buy talent and take it from there.