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Raheem Sterling, Cesc Fabregas, Mesut Ozil, David Silva and Juan MataThe 2014-15 Premier League season has kicked off in style. The world’s most popular league has already seen some thrilling matches and some praiseworthy performances from the underdogs.So before the season resumes next week after the international break, we take a look at the statistical comparison of the playmakers of the five big guns in the league, namely – David Silva (Manchester City), Raheem Sterling (Liverpool), Cesc Fabregas (Chelsea), Mesut Ozil (Arsenal) and Juan Mata (Manchester United) based on five different parameters using their statistics from the 2013-14 season. Soure of statistics: Squawka – Only Premier League stats have been considered.
#1 Pass Completion
Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal is arguably the best team when it comes to possession based football. Hence, for such a team it is very important to keep the ball and not give away the ball even if it’s in the final third. The Gunners’ Mesut Ozil had a pass completion percentage of 88% per game last season.
Although Brendan Rodgers insisted on playing possession based football at Liverpool, the Merseyside club played the most deadly counter-attacking football in the league last season, which is probably why Raheem Sterling averages the least pass percentage in comparison to the other players in the list with just 82% of his passes per game finding a teammate.
Cesc Fabregas played for Barcelona last season, who are the masters when it comes to possession based football. The current Chelsea man averaged a pass completion percentage of 87% per game. His compatriots Juan Mata and David Silva who play for the Manchester Clubs, have a slightly better pass completion percentage than him with 89% per game and 88% per game.
Juan Mata averages the highest pass completion percentage amongst the others, but he only played 15 league matches last season – the fewest number of games played in comparison with the others. But even then his pass completion percentage is impressive when you look at the kind of football Manchester United played under David Moyes. Under Moyes, Manchester United were hoofing the ball up the ground way too many times instead of playing it out from the back.
City on the other hand arguably play the best football in the league; it is is easy on the eye and very effective, they keep the ball when they have to and counter when there is an opening, which accounts for Silva’s good completion percentage.
With three games into the 2014-15 season, the Manchester United number 8 still averages a better pass completion percentage than the others. Mata leads with 91%, followed by Mesut Ozil (89%), Cesc Fabregas (88%), David Silva (85%) and Raheem Sterling trailing with just 79%.
Except for Sterling, the others have a good completion percentage, the teenager needs to work on this aspect of his game.
| # | PLAYER | GAMES | PASS% |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Juan Mata | 15 | 89 |
| 2 | Mesut Ozil | 26 | 88 |
| 3 | David Silva | 27 | 88 |
| 4 | Cesc Fabregas | 36 | 87 |
| 5 | Raheem Sterling | 33 | 82 |
#2 Key Passes
What exactly is a key pass? It is a pass/cross that leads to a goal scoring chance. It can be the final pass before the goal is scored or it can be the pass before the assist often referred to as the second assist.
Looking at the stats from previous season, the man who falls last in this category is surprisingly Cesc Fabregas! The former Barcelona man averaged just 1.25 key passes per game. This is such a surprising number for someone who is known for assisting so many goals.
Raheem Sterling is not that far ahead of Fabregas in this parameter. The teenager averages just 1.39 key passes per game. Such a figure should be worrying for Liverpool fans. The club scored 101 goals last season and Luis Suarez was key to a significant number of those goals. With Suarez no longer at the club, Liverpool will be looking at Sterling to create more goal scoring opportunities for his teammates to try and compensate for the Uruguayan’s absence.
Juan Mata comes third in the list with a significant lead over Sterling with 1.93 key passes per game, but this is not an impressive figure for someone of Mata’s caliber. Mata had a rough season last time around, after struggling for game time at Chelsea and then playing for a Manchester United team who were just a shadow of their former selves.
Fighting it out for the top spot in this category are two players who can unlock any defence with their inch perfect, defence splitting passes – Mesut Ozil and David Silva. For the style of play adopted by these two clubs, it is important that these two provide their team with such passes. Mesut Ozil averaged 2.58 key passes per game last season and David Silva edges him out with 2.78 key passes per game.
# | Player | Matches | Key Passes | Key Passes/Game |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | David Silva | 27 | 75 | 2.78 |
2 | Mesut Ozil | 26 | 67 | 2.58 |
3 | Juan Mata | 15 | 29 | 1.93 |
4 | Raheem Sterling | 33 | 46 | 1.39 |
5 | Cesc Fabregas | 36 | 45 | 1.25 |
#3 Assists
An assist is the pass that directly leads to a goal.
Although Cesc Fabregas fell behind the rest in terms of key passes per game, the former Arsenal man averages the most assists per game with 0.36 assists per game last season. Barcelona have some clinical finishers or else Fabregas wouldn’t lead in this category after falling behind in the previous category.
Just behind Fabregas is Mesut Ozil with 0.35 assists per game who is closely followed by Silva with 0.33 assists per game. Ozil’s stats are even more impressive when you look at the strikers he had in front of him to finish off the chances he creates in comparison to Silva who had Aguero, Dzeko, Negredo and Jovetic. Fabregas who of course had Messi!
Juan Mata averages a decent 0.27 assists per game and once again falling behind most by a significant margin in yet another category is Raheem Sterling with 0.15 assists per game. But the important thing is Sterling is just 19 years old and improving rapidly while the others are midway through their twenties at what is usually described as the peak of their careers.
Fabregas has continued assisting players wonderfully on his return to the premier league with 4 assists already in 3 games, while Raheem Sterling has 1 assist to his name and the rest are yet to open their account this season.
# | Player | Matches Played | Assists | Assists/Game |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Cesc Fabregas | 36 | 19 | 0.36 |
2 | Mesut Ozil | 26 | 9 | 0.35 |
3 | David Silva | 27 | 9 | 0.33 |
4 | Juan Mata | 15 | 4 | 0.27 |
5 | Raheem Sterling | 33 | 5 | 0.25 |
#4 Chances Created
There are two things that lead to creating a chance; a shot and a pass that leads directly to a goal (key pass).
Just like in the previous categories Raheem Sterling falls behind the rest with just 1.55 chances created per game last season. Fabregas has a slightly better figure with 1.61 chances created per game. But the Spaniard’s assists tally despite his poor key passes and chances created figure as mentioned before is outstanding.
Juan Mata once again falls in between the pack, probably because of the kind of season he had, but still averages 2.20 chances created per game.
Just like in the key passes comparison, David Silva beats Mesut Ozil to the top spot, but this time with a significant margin. Silva averages 3.11 chances created per game while Ozil created 2.92 chances per game last season.
We didn’t see the best of Mesut Ozil last season and with a season’s experience in the EPL now, he can only get better.
| # | Player | Matches Played | Chances created | Chances Created/Game |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | David Silva | 27 | 84 | 2.78 |
| 2 | Mesut Ozil | 26 | 76 | 2.58 |
| 3 | Juan Mata | 15 | 33 | 2.2 |
| 4 | Cesc Fabregas | 36 | 58 | 1.61 |
| 5 | Raheem Sterling | 33 | 51 | 1.55 |
#5 Successful Take-ons
Cesc Fabregas has the worst average in this category. Although taking on an opponent one-on-one and beating him is not an integral part of Barcelona’s game style, Fabregas’ figures are really disappointing with just 0.67 successful take-ons per game.
Fellow Spaniards Juan Mata and David Silva are not that far ahead with just 0.87 and 1.07 successful take-ons per game. From the look of things the Spaniards do not like taking on opponent defenders and would rather pass and move the ball around to create spaces.
Mesut Ozil has a significant lead over Silva in this category; the German averages 1.73 successful take-ons per game.
Raheem Sterling who fell behind the others in all other parameters leads in this one and he leads by a huge margin. He averages 1 successful take on more than Ozil did in a game. In fact the Liverpool prodigy averages more successful take-ons than Juan Mata, David Silva and Cesc Fabregas combined. Sterling’s average is as high as 2.79 successful take-ons per game.
This can be explained by Sterling’s incredible pace in comparison to the others combined with his trickery. Liverpool make very good use of his pace in their build-up play. Sterling’s numbers are even more stunning when you see that he is the smallest player among the five in the list.
| # | Player | Matches Played | Take-ons | Take-ons/Game |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Raheem Sterling | 33 | 92 | 2.79 |
| 2 | Mesut Ozil | 26 | 45 | 1.73 |
| 3 | David Silva | 27 | 29 | 1.07 |
| 4 | Juan Mata | 15 | 13 | 0.87 |
| 5 | Cesc Fabregas | 36 | 24 | 0.67 |
Sterling has already made 9 successful take-ons this season – as many as Silva (1), Mata (1), Fabregas (5) and Ozil (2) combined!
