MadDogg
Full Member
With the talk of the lack of creativity from our midfield and suggestions that we should be looking at midfielders from other teams in the league, I was looking at stats for a few players. Figured I'd extend it to the deeper midfielders of all the top teams and the other notable ones I could think of. Came up with some things that were to be expected but also a few that were quite surprising, and thought I'd share. I'm half expecting this thread to just die but it might be interesting to some. I'll do it in two posts so it's not too big.
I want to stress that stats only tell half the story. There's a lot that aren't shown in these stats, and just because somebody is at the top of a certain stat doesn't necessarily mean they are great. The tactics and style of a team will obviously have a big impact. But they can be useful when used correctly. I'm using fbref.com for the stats.
These are only from the Premier League this season, with the exceptions being players who normally play in midfield but haven't been this season. I'm using 18/19 for Fernandinho as he hasn’t played much this season and was in defence last season, 19/20 for Henderson and Fabinho, and I've also only counted the games in midfield for Pogba and Sissoko (both of whom have played some games out wide). I did these stats yesterday so they don’t include the games from this round.
Firstly, actions leading to a shot per 90 minutes. This tallies the two offensive actions taken before a shot. This includes passing the ball (which I’ve counted separately), dribbling, taking a shot that was blocked or rebounded, winning a foul, winning the ball with a defensive action, or taking a set piece (which I’ve also counted separately). So basically if Fred passes the ball to Pogba who then passes it to Bruno who takes a shot, both Fred and Pogba get credited with an action. It’s the classic ‘assist the assister’ stat, that you would have expected players like Scholes and Carrick to score highly for in their day even though they weren’t getting the final assist.
In terms of all open play actions, we have two of the top three with Pogba in second (fractionally behind Thiago) and Fred a comfortable third. No surprise to see Pogba up there but having Fred that high up is very surprising. Indeed when limiting it just to passes he actually moves ahead of Pogba into 2nd. Even including set pieces doesn’t change much with only Moutinho catching him.
On the flip side, Matic and McTominay are quite low. When limiting it to just passing McTominay drops down to the 6th worst, although his 'other' numbers are amongst the highest of everyone else (with Pogba being an outlier ahead of everyone) which brings his total up to a similar level as some others. The gap between our top two and bottom two is quite significant though.
From other teams, Ndidi’s complete lack of any involvement in the creative side of things stands out. He has significantly less than half the involvements that the next worst (Sissoko and Soucek) have. You can say he’s not in the team for that side of his game but the size of the gap is amazing.
Fabinho and Henderson show what many have said - Liverpool have used their midfield just to provide a solid base and don’t actually do much creatively themselves, with that being left to their fullbacks and attackers. Thiago coming in this season is obviously attempting to do very differently which we know hasn’t been working on the field yet, although his individual stats look good.
Some of the other players who people have name dropped as being creatively better than what we have (the likes of Tielemans, Partey, Hojbjerg, Allan, Rice, Phillips, etc) are significantly behind our top two, although Tielemans does stand out as being quite high considering he plays for a team that doesn’t control the ball as much, sitting in 6th from open play. He does partner Ndidi though so you could also argue he’s being allowed to really focus on that side of the game. The others aren’t really any better than our bottom two, although they do play for weaker teams so in theory you would expect some improvement. The Wolves combo of Moutinho and Neves are the other two that stand out from these stats.
Honestly, Fred being so high up made me cross reference it with other similar kinds of stats but they all match up.
The below shows the Key Passes (the pass directly before a shot on goal) and the Expected Assists based on how good the chances are their passes create. I’m not sure whether set pieces are included in these numbers (I’m pretty sure they are for Key Passes but uncertain about xA).
If set pieces like freekicks and corners are included in these numbers, Fred probably ends up in 3rd from open play behind only Thiago and Jorginho for Key Passes. And he is sitting 2nd only to Kalvin Phillips in Expected Assists even if set pieces are included.
It’s strange as I wouldn’t have expected Fred to be anywhere near this high (although I knew he’d be higher than some people make out). It has been obvious that he’s been creating quite a lot of good goal scoring opportunities over the last couple of months only for our attackers to waste them, but I think the main thing this highlights is that people are expecting more creativity and assists from the deeper midfielders than what any of them really provide.
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Next I thought I’d look at a more general passing stat. The following graph shows the total distance (in yards) each player passes on average per 90 minutes, and what amount of that is passing the ball forward up the field. On top of that I also added how much distance each player carries the ball forward themselves (I didn’t bother with sideways/backwards dribbles since that doesn’t bring much to the table). Don't ask me why it's in yards, it's just what the stat site uses.
Matic is a standout for us but that probably shows the inherent weakness of looking just at stats. He normally only plays against weak teams and he also tends to drop back into the defence more than our other midfielders, which then obviously makes it easier for him to move the ball forward. Otherwise Pogba and Fred are about where you’d expect, while McTominay is on the lower side (6th worst).
Looking at others, the City, Liverpool and Chelsea midfielders (bar Kante who is a bit below average) are all on the high side as you would expect from teams who look to dominate the ball. Xhaka and Neves stand out for their teams, with Hojbjerg, Phillips, Moutinho and Partey all at a decent level as well. More than any other stat, this is quite reliant on how the team as a whole set up so not sure how much can be gained from it, but some things still stand out.
I also did this table up a few days ago for a different discussion that I may as well include here. Same players but doesn’t include Ward-Prowse, Henderson’s stats are from his midfield performances this season instead of last season and I think Fernandinho is from his relatively few appearances this season. This shows how many passes each player makes per game, what percentage of them are short (5-15 yards), medium (15-30 yards) and long (more than 30 yards), and what their success rate is with each pass.
City, Liverpool and to a lesser extent Chelsea midfielders are consistently up amongst the top passers, as to be expected with their playstyles. Henderson’s 97 passes per game is significantly more than what he was getting last season (75) so along with Thiago’s high numbers it looks like they are just passing it around in midfield a lot more this season.
Matic, Pogba and to a lesser extent Fred are up around the amount of passes you would expect. McTominay is a bit lower, with only five midfielders passing the ball less than him. Scott and Fred do tend to play against all the top teams and get rested against some of the lower teams though, so you’d expect that would decrease their tallies a bit. McTominay is still uncomfortably low though and it agrees with the eye test that he needs to increase his involvement in the game. In terms of how far each player passes it, Pogba is actually the least likely to make medium passes in the list, with short passes (2nd highest) and long passes (6th highest) making up large percentages compared to the average.
Phillips and Neves are huge outliers with far less short passes and far more long passes than everyone else (percentage-wise). Not sure how much is the players natural game and how much is a tactical decision by their managers, but it’s probably a bit of both. Moutinho isn’t as extreme as those two players but still is the third most likely to play long passes on the list, so it certainly looks like a tactical decision for Wolves.
I want to stress that stats only tell half the story. There's a lot that aren't shown in these stats, and just because somebody is at the top of a certain stat doesn't necessarily mean they are great. The tactics and style of a team will obviously have a big impact. But they can be useful when used correctly. I'm using fbref.com for the stats.
These are only from the Premier League this season, with the exceptions being players who normally play in midfield but haven't been this season. I'm using 18/19 for Fernandinho as he hasn’t played much this season and was in defence last season, 19/20 for Henderson and Fabinho, and I've also only counted the games in midfield for Pogba and Sissoko (both of whom have played some games out wide). I did these stats yesterday so they don’t include the games from this round.
Firstly, actions leading to a shot per 90 minutes. This tallies the two offensive actions taken before a shot. This includes passing the ball (which I’ve counted separately), dribbling, taking a shot that was blocked or rebounded, winning a foul, winning the ball with a defensive action, or taking a set piece (which I’ve also counted separately). So basically if Fred passes the ball to Pogba who then passes it to Bruno who takes a shot, both Fred and Pogba get credited with an action. It’s the classic ‘assist the assister’ stat, that you would have expected players like Scholes and Carrick to score highly for in their day even though they weren’t getting the final assist.
In terms of all open play actions, we have two of the top three with Pogba in second (fractionally behind Thiago) and Fred a comfortable third. No surprise to see Pogba up there but having Fred that high up is very surprising. Indeed when limiting it just to passes he actually moves ahead of Pogba into 2nd. Even including set pieces doesn’t change much with only Moutinho catching him.
On the flip side, Matic and McTominay are quite low. When limiting it to just passing McTominay drops down to the 6th worst, although his 'other' numbers are amongst the highest of everyone else (with Pogba being an outlier ahead of everyone) which brings his total up to a similar level as some others. The gap between our top two and bottom two is quite significant though.
From other teams, Ndidi’s complete lack of any involvement in the creative side of things stands out. He has significantly less than half the involvements that the next worst (Sissoko and Soucek) have. You can say he’s not in the team for that side of his game but the size of the gap is amazing.
Fabinho and Henderson show what many have said - Liverpool have used their midfield just to provide a solid base and don’t actually do much creatively themselves, with that being left to their fullbacks and attackers. Thiago coming in this season is obviously attempting to do very differently which we know hasn’t been working on the field yet, although his individual stats look good.
Some of the other players who people have name dropped as being creatively better than what we have (the likes of Tielemans, Partey, Hojbjerg, Allan, Rice, Phillips, etc) are significantly behind our top two, although Tielemans does stand out as being quite high considering he plays for a team that doesn’t control the ball as much, sitting in 6th from open play. He does partner Ndidi though so you could also argue he’s being allowed to really focus on that side of the game. The others aren’t really any better than our bottom two, although they do play for weaker teams so in theory you would expect some improvement. The Wolves combo of Moutinho and Neves are the other two that stand out from these stats.
Honestly, Fred being so high up made me cross reference it with other similar kinds of stats but they all match up.
The below shows the Key Passes (the pass directly before a shot on goal) and the Expected Assists based on how good the chances are their passes create. I’m not sure whether set pieces are included in these numbers (I’m pretty sure they are for Key Passes but uncertain about xA).
If set pieces like freekicks and corners are included in these numbers, Fred probably ends up in 3rd from open play behind only Thiago and Jorginho for Key Passes. And he is sitting 2nd only to Kalvin Phillips in Expected Assists even if set pieces are included.
It’s strange as I wouldn’t have expected Fred to be anywhere near this high (although I knew he’d be higher than some people make out). It has been obvious that he’s been creating quite a lot of good goal scoring opportunities over the last couple of months only for our attackers to waste them, but I think the main thing this highlights is that people are expecting more creativity and assists from the deeper midfielders than what any of them really provide.
-------------------
Next I thought I’d look at a more general passing stat. The following graph shows the total distance (in yards) each player passes on average per 90 minutes, and what amount of that is passing the ball forward up the field. On top of that I also added how much distance each player carries the ball forward themselves (I didn’t bother with sideways/backwards dribbles since that doesn’t bring much to the table). Don't ask me why it's in yards, it's just what the stat site uses.
Matic is a standout for us but that probably shows the inherent weakness of looking just at stats. He normally only plays against weak teams and he also tends to drop back into the defence more than our other midfielders, which then obviously makes it easier for him to move the ball forward. Otherwise Pogba and Fred are about where you’d expect, while McTominay is on the lower side (6th worst).
Looking at others, the City, Liverpool and Chelsea midfielders (bar Kante who is a bit below average) are all on the high side as you would expect from teams who look to dominate the ball. Xhaka and Neves stand out for their teams, with Hojbjerg, Phillips, Moutinho and Partey all at a decent level as well. More than any other stat, this is quite reliant on how the team as a whole set up so not sure how much can be gained from it, but some things still stand out.
I also did this table up a few days ago for a different discussion that I may as well include here. Same players but doesn’t include Ward-Prowse, Henderson’s stats are from his midfield performances this season instead of last season and I think Fernandinho is from his relatively few appearances this season. This shows how many passes each player makes per game, what percentage of them are short (5-15 yards), medium (15-30 yards) and long (more than 30 yards), and what their success rate is with each pass.
City, Liverpool and to a lesser extent Chelsea midfielders are consistently up amongst the top passers, as to be expected with their playstyles. Henderson’s 97 passes per game is significantly more than what he was getting last season (75) so along with Thiago’s high numbers it looks like they are just passing it around in midfield a lot more this season.
Matic, Pogba and to a lesser extent Fred are up around the amount of passes you would expect. McTominay is a bit lower, with only five midfielders passing the ball less than him. Scott and Fred do tend to play against all the top teams and get rested against some of the lower teams though, so you’d expect that would decrease their tallies a bit. McTominay is still uncomfortably low though and it agrees with the eye test that he needs to increase his involvement in the game. In terms of how far each player passes it, Pogba is actually the least likely to make medium passes in the list, with short passes (2nd highest) and long passes (6th highest) making up large percentages compared to the average.
Phillips and Neves are huge outliers with far less short passes and far more long passes than everyone else (percentage-wise). Not sure how much is the players natural game and how much is a tactical decision by their managers, but it’s probably a bit of both. Moutinho isn’t as extreme as those two players but still is the third most likely to play long passes on the list, so it certainly looks like a tactical decision for Wolves.
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