Defensive Error Prone Players in the Premier League | Stats Comparison

Whilst watching games we usually erupt at the sight of one of our defenders or midfielders giving the ball away which ultimately leads to conceding an attempt at goal or a goal itself. This can lead to broken Televisions, remotes flying (maybe even some head injury compensation) sometimes even a broken foot – it totally depends on your tolerance! Well you may just get a little more upset if you see one of your team’s players on the Top 20 list!

Error Prone Players 2012/13

Click on the column headers to sort the table via the column.

There are some big names in the list shown above – players like Tim Howard, Pepe Reina, William Gallas, Martin Skrtel & Thomas Vermaelen. The majority of the errors seem to come from goalkeepers with Ali Al-Habsi committing eight errors already this season and we’re only just passed the half-way stage!

The next few graphs will analyse the mins per total error and mins per error that lead to a goal statistics.

Top 20 Error Offenders 2012/13

The Radar Chart above is a pretty cool way of showing which of the Top 20 Error Prone Players in 2012/13 are conceding errors more regularly. It’s Southampton’s Kelvin Davis who is committing an error every 180 mins hence his point being closest to the centre of the chart. Ashley Williams is committing the least often out of the Top 20 Error Offenders.

Others that are closer to the core are Nathan Baker, Adam Federici, Ali Al-Habsi, and most surprisingly Bacary Sagna. Sagna usually very solid seems to be committing an error every 247.5 minutes this season – not good for Arsenal and there are three Arsenal players on the list with Thomas Vermaelen and Aaron Ramsey on there too. Liverpool and Spurs also have three players each on the list with Liverpool’s offenders being Joe Allen, Pepe Reina and Martin Skrtel whilst Spurs have Steven Caulker, William Gallas and, the usually reliable, Kyle Walker.

Offenders – Error Leads to Goal

Reading’s Adam Federici takes the wooden spoon here committing an error that leads to conceding a goal every 337.5 minutes – the equivalent of conceding a goal by mistake every 3.75 games which is basically conceding 10 goals a season just because of your own mistake. If Reading are relegated – statistics like these will point to 10 goals conceded because of silly errors and those ten goals can be the difference of ten points or more. Our friend Ali Al-Habsi has made a few howlers this season and he’s there with Tim Krul. It’s a big turnaround for Tim Krul as he was exceptional last season. Kyle Walker and John Arne Riise look a little better on this graph in comparison to the other players.

Error Conclusions

Spurs are the only team that are committing errors but not struggling – it would be interesting to see where they’d be had they not committed these errors. Some other players and the teams they represent could be doing a lot better in the Premier League and supporters of Arsenal, Liverpool and Newcastle would agree with this statement. As you’d expect the teams at the bottom are represented heavily in the Top 20 Defensive Error List. You’d not expect any Manchester based players here but QPR players are conspicuous by their absence!

P.S. Look out for a more Liverpool focussed error prone article tomorrow!

All of the stats from this article have been taken from the Opta Stats Centre at EPLIndex.com – Subscribe Now (Includes author privileges!) Check out our new Top Stats feature on the Stats Centre which allows you to compare all players in the league & read about new additions to the stats centre.