When the PFA announced the team of the year many fans questioned why their favourite player wasn’t included, so we have derived a concept to see who would have made it into the team of the year if it was based on statistics alone.
We have done this by comparing players for each position using Opta statistics from the 2011/2012 season. We have then awarded the player that comes out on top in each statistic 5 points, the player that comes second 3 points and the player that comes third 1 point and then added up the totals.
This article is the first part of a series. We start the comparison with the Goalkeeper.
Goalkeeper
The results of the goalkeeper comparison support the PFA’s decision to name Joe Hart as the best goalkeeper in the Premier League this season, but not by much as Michel Vorm is not far behind him.
Hart has conceded the fewest amount of goals out of all the goalkeepers this season as he has only conceded 27 goals. This is 2 fewer than De Gea and 8 fewer than Reina who are his two nearest rivals in this statistic. Hart has also conceded the fewest amount of goals per game as he has conceded 0.27 fewer goals per game than De Gea and 0.30 fewer goals per game than Reina.
Hart has also kept 16 clean sheets this season, which is 1 more than Krul and 2 more than Vorm and Friedel.
Michel Vorm does have the best penalty save ratio though as he has saved 66.66% of the penalties he has faced this season. This is 16.6% better than Howard and 33.33% better than both Hart and De Gea.
Vorm has also made the joint highest amount of high cross catches with Cech, as they both have caught 59 balls from high crosses this season. This is 2 more crosses than Foster, 3 more than Krul and 22 more than Hart. Vorm has only missed one cross this season, which is one fewer than Al-Habsi and 2 fewer than Hart, Krul, Cech and Ruddy.
Krul and Foster have not made one error this season that has led to a goal, while Hart, Friedel, Cech and Vorm have made all made one error that has led to a goal this season.
Therefore, as Joe Hart scored one more point than Michel Vorm in this comparison then he is our choice for the goalkeeper position.
Goalkeeper Choice: Joe Hart
Left Back
The results of the left back comparison are quite surprising as Maynor Figueroa, Patrice Evra and Gael Clichy all compare better than the PFA’s choice Leighton Baines.
Enrique has won the highest percentage of his tackles this season out of all the left backs that were attempted as he won 81.16% of his tackles. Enrique has won 1.75% more of his tackles than Riise and 4.24% more of his tackles than Evra who both scored highly in this statistic.
It has also only taken Enrique 16 minutes to win the ball back each time in the defensive third of the pitch, which is 3 minutes more often than Assou-Ekotto and 10 minutes more often than Figueroa.
Figueroa has been accurate with 41% of his crosses this season, which is 13% more accurate than Baines and 14% more accurate than both Assou-Ekotto and Riise. Figueroa and Evra also make a tackle every 31 minutes, which is 4 minutes better than Cole and 7 minutes better than Clichy.
Figueroa has made 93 interceptions this season though, which is 1 more than Assou-Ekotto, 18 more than Clichy and 28 more than Baines. Figueroa has also won the highest percentage of ground 50-50s this season as he has won 5% more than Riise and 6% more than Evra.
Riise has won the highest percentage of aerial 50-50s this season though as he has won an impressive 66% of them. This is 3% better than Figueroa and 10% better than Enrique who have both won an impressive amount of aerial 50-50s this season.
Ashley Cole has completed 85.49% of his passes this season, which is 1.89% better than Evra, 3.46% better than Clichy and an impressive 13.91% better than his England colleague Baines.
Baines has created a chance for Everton every 44 minutes this season though, which is 22 minutes more often than his nearest rival in this statistic Assou-Ekotto and 37 minutes more often than Evra.
Baines and Clichy have also not made any defensive errors this season, compared to Evra who makes a defensive error every 3239 minutes and Riise who makes one every 3141 minutes.
It also takes Clichy 226 minutes to lose possession of the ball, which is 63 minutes longer than Figueroa and 68 minutes longer than Riise. Clichy has also only conceded 0.68 goals per game that he has played this season, which is 0.18 fewer goals per game than Evra and 0.20 fewer goals per game than both Baines and Enrique.
Therefore, as Figueroa has scored 5 points more than Clichy and 8 points more than both Baines and Riise in this comparison he is our choice for the left back spot in the team of the year. Although, to improve next season he will need to focus more on winning his tackles as he has only won 68.87% of his tackles this season.
Left Back Choice: Maynor Figueroa
Next Page: Right Back and Centre Backs are chosen via statistics (click bottom right/top right for page 2 link or click here)
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Categories: Arsenal (NN), Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Chelsea, EPL Index Featured Article, EPL Index Statistical Comparisons, Everton, Fulham, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester Utd, Newcastle Utd, Norwich City, QPR, Stoke City, Sunderland, Swansea City, Tottenham Hotspur, West Bromwich Albion, Wigan, Wolves
Tags: AFC, AVFC, CFC, efc, EPL, epl opta stats, EPL Stats, ffc, LFC, MCFC, MUFC, NCFC, NUFC, Opta Stats, scafc, Statistical Team of the Year, THFC, WAFC
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I like the stats but the points allocation of 5,3,1 is completely arbitrary and skews any decisions that come from them. Shame really
Nicely done, however, how can you judge the keepers without taking into account the number of shots that they’ve saved? Sure someone may have conceded 50 goals, but if they’ve made over 300 saves then that would still make them a damned good keeper, just playing behind a shaky defence. Saves per goal would make a lot more sense than goals per game in that table.
I think this doesnt take into account Figueroa spent half the season as a left sided centre back, meaning he would be in a position to make more tackles, interceptions etc. he only played as left back about 10-15 games
So with Ivanovic, Jones and Figuora, are those stats only from the times they played at full-back? If not, this article is completely flawed and a waste of html!
Excellent post, James. My only criticism echos Sam above, in that there are perhaps some better numbers to stake the goalies claim to best in the Prem. Using the two ‘keepers who allowed 49 goals (Szczesny and Vorm) the Arsenal man made 84 saves in 3420′ while the Swans goalkeeper had 136 saves in 3330′.
The raw number aside, Szczesny was not even forced into making a save a match (0.9 saves per 90′) while Vorm was called on to make 1.5 saves per game. Despite this, Vorm kept 14 clean sheets to Szczesny’s 13.
Not arguing against your select of Hart, his 97 saves clearly illustrate that he was valuable to his club and that Man City’s defense was not quite as good as his play made them appear on the season.
Using saves is a bit unfair. The defence in front of Vorm was worse which was why he had to make more saves. How do we know that Szczesny may not have made more saves behind a weaker defence or vice versa? We don’t so it’s quite difficult to judge in terms of saves alone.
Not arguing that it should be the only metric used, however the omission of saves entirely is odd. Further, there is no weighting of statistics here, where a keeper who faced on penalty and saved it (100%) would have been allocated 5 points, where a ‘keeper who faced 0 would theoretically not receive any points for consideration in this style of comparison.
Looking at overall save % (saves/goals + saves) would be another simple stat to give context. Here Szczesny would have 84/49+84 = 63% save while Vorm would have 136/49+136 = 73.5%.
Based on their save % this season Szczesny could be (very, very roughly) expected to have allowed closer to 68 goals (that’s simply .37 * 184 or the ‘goals allowed % of Szczesny against the total shots on target (saves + goals) that Vorm faced this season). Again, there are myriad other factors the weigh into a goal being allowed.
Using ‘Mins per tackle’ and ‘Mins per %age won in def 1/3′ are ridiculous categories to use and base your team on. These are based purely on the tactics of the team they play for. Teams with higher possession percentages and deep lying defensive midfielders will always have inferior stastics with no direct effect on these stat. Poor additions.
If that is the case then why do players such as Zabaleta, Clichy and Evra do well in this statistic?
Thanks, job well done. Have always have this notion that laurent koscielny is a good centre back than most people will give him credit for, you cant ignore his stats, so impressive.
Statistics are skewed in favor of CB’s which is why you finished with four CB’s