Premier League Team of the Year 11/12 via Opta Stats | Part 3: Strikers

With our goalkeeper, defence and midfield already chosen for the Premier League team of the year (http://www.eplindex.com/14737/premier-league-team-year-1112-opta-stats-part-2-midfield.html) we now look at which two strikers made the line up and announce our final team.

We have done this by comparing players for each position using Opta statistics from the 2011/2012 season. We have then awarded 5 points for the player that tops each statistic, 4 points for the player that comes second, 3 points for third, 2 points for fourth and 1 point for the player that comes in fifth in each statistic. We have then added up the totals and picked the team based on the player that scores highest in the comparison.

Strikers

The results of the striker comparison support the PFA’s decision to name Robin Van Persie and Wayne Rooney as the two best strikers in the Premier League this season.

Van Persie has scored an impressive 30 goals this season, which is 3 more than Rooney, 7 more than Aguero and 13 more than both Yakubu and Adebayor. As well as scoring a lot of goals Van Persie has also created 21 clear-cut chances this season, which is 10 more than Rooney, 11 more than Holt and 13 more than Aguero and Suarez.

Van Persie also creates a clear-cut chance every 159 minutes, which is 66 minutes more often than Holt, 99 minutes more often than Rooney and 161 minutes more often than Suarez. Van Persie and Rooney both get a shot on target every 41 minutes, which is 9 minutes more often than Aguero, 12 minutes more often than Suarez and 14 minutes more often than Van Der Vaart.

Van Der Vaart has created a chance every 31 minutes for Spurs this season, which is 5 minutes more often than Van Persie, 9 minutes more often than Suarez and 15 minutes more often than Aguero.

It has taken 57 minutes for Graham to lose possession of the ball this season, which is 2 minutes longer than Van Persie, 3 minutes longer than Rooney and 8 minutes longer than Van Der Vaart.

Welbeck and Cisse have both achieved the best shooting accuracy out of all the other strikers in this comparison as he has been accurate with 60% of thier shots this season. This is 1% more accurate than Van Der Vaart and 2% more accurate than Graham, Jelavic, Balotelli, Rooney and Van Persie. Welbeck also has the best passing accuracy out of all the other strikers, as he has been 2.57% more accurate than Aguero, 4.37% more accurate than Van Der Vaart and 6.01% more accurate than Adebayor.

Pogrebnyak has the best chance conversion rate out of any of the strikers, as he has converted 46% of his chances this season. This is 9% better than Cisse, 16% better than Yakubu and 17% better than Jelavic.

Therefore, as Robin Van Persie and Wayne Rooney are the two clear winners in this comparison they are our choices for the two places up front.

Striker Choices: Robin Van Persie and Wayne Rooney

So, our final team looks like this – Hart, Ivanovic, Kompany, Skrtel, Figueroa, Lennon, Cabaye, Yaya Toure, Silva, Rooney,Van Persie.

All of the stats from this article have been taken from the Opta Stats Centre at EPLIndex.com – Subscribe Now (Includes author privileges!) See Demo’s and videos about the Stats Centre & read about new additions to the stats centre.