Match Day 9 has been completed in the Premier League and, despite their first loss yesterday, Chelsea are still on top of the league. With both of their Manchester rivals winning Chelsea are now a solitary point ahead as the title race hots up coming into November.
With almost a quarter of the season gone we’re going to look at the Top Players so far this season using our EPLIndex Stats Centre (powered by Opta). We will be looking at the following areas in this article: Top Scorers, Creativity, Passing, Tackling & Fouls Conceded.
Premier League Creators
First up we’re going to look at the Premier League’s creative players. The view below shows that Leighton Baines is the most creative player in the league. As you can see below the majority of Leighton Baines’ chances are created via set-plays. The other players in the Top 5 rely more on open-play chance creation and in Aaron Lennon’s case all of his chances are created via open-play.
The minutes per chance created (MCC) column is telling too. Baines is creating a chance every 20 minutes – the best rate in the league. However, out of this Top 5, it is Santi Cazorla that is creating most often in open-play creating a chance every 30.81 minutes. In fact only Steven Gerrard creates at a slower rate than Baines in open-play, both of them being set piece kings as shown in the Merseyside Derby yesterday with Baines creating 6 chances (no assist) and Gerrard grabbing an excellent assist as Suarez scored with a glancing header.
Clear-Cut Chances
A lot is made about creativity in the Premier League however the real creators for us are those that create the most clear-cut chances.
[quote]A clear-cut chance is a chance that finds the attacking player with a FREE shot at goal (penalty, one-on-one, only keeper to beat) without any pressure from a defender.[/quote]
As you can see from the view below (created by sorting via CCC (Clear-cut Chances Created) on our Creativity view in the Top Stats area) it is Juan Mata that leads the way. Mata has created seven clear-cut opportunities for his team-mates which should have been dispatched. He is joined in the Top 5 with team-mate Eden Hazard who has five. Samir Nasri may not have played as much but he is also creating clear-cut opportunities for the Champions – six in total so far. Everton’s Leighton Baines and Marouane Fellaini complete the Top 5 with four clear-cut chances created each.
Want more stats? Use the links below to view the other sections of this article covering Creativity, Passing, Goal Scorers, Tackling and Fouls Conceded. If you wish to have a play on the Stats Centre yourself why not subscribe to our Stats Centre: Subscribe Now to our Stats Centre!
