The PFA Player of the Year awards are coming up. The shortlist is quite predictable. Cesc is up against Shrek, Drogba and Tevez and I believe El Capitan is by far the best player in that group.
No doubt all three strikers have been in great form and are the best players in top quality teams. Each of them deserves special mention but the moment you put them alongside Cesc, they don’t look in the same league.
With due respect, I’ll leave Tevez out of this discussion. He’s been brilliant but just a tad short of the others.
There are different ways of looking at this argument. Stats tell one part of the story.
Cesc – 15 G 15 A @ 73 mins per G/A
Shrek – 26 G 5 A @ 82 mins per G/A
Drogba – 25 G 11 A @ 69 mins per G/A
We can also look at the ratio of total shots to goals scored. It would tell us who finishes better.
Cesc – 15G 63S – Roughly just over one in four.
Shrek – 26G 122S – Just below one in five.
Drogba – 25G 130S – Just above one in five.
Would it be safe to conclude that if Cesc had the luxury of being in the attacking areas all the time he’d have scored and created a lot more?
Simply on these numbers Drogba is the front runner. If Chelsea win the league he’d be entitled to it even more. But we all know football isn’t only about goals and assists.
Let’s look at passes, which show a player’s general involvement in the game.
Cesc – 1385 successful out of 1784 Total @ 78%
Shrek – 871 successful out of 1210 Total @ 72%
Drogba – 326 successful out of 580 Total @ 56%
Even I was surprised with Drogba’s stats. Both Rooney and Drogba have played as central strikers but Rooney is far more involved with the game than Drogba is. It’s Interesting to note that Drogba has a lot of assists from relatively few passes. I tend to believe that’s because he is mostly in or around the penalty box.
If I digress for a minute, do you remember the time when Arsene said something like – Drogba is a very good striker but he doesn’t do much else on the pitch! His words were twisted into “Drogba doesn’t do much” and everyone had a go at Wenger for being senile. Take a look at the stats above and you’ll see what Arsene said made perfect sense.
Okay, back on track, lets take a look at tackles.
Cesc — 43W 19L – Success Rate 69%
Rooney – 15W 5L – Success Rate 75%
Drogba – 13W 8L – Success Rate 62%
I’m certain if we can get stats for distances covered in total and on average, Fabregas will do better than both the strikers. Those numbers could be pretty similar to the ones for passing.
I know some of these stats are not glamorous. Who talks about tackles and passes when discussing player of the year!? But put them all together and we get a very clear picture of the most valuable player. And that’s my understanding of Player of the Year – the man who stands out as the most influential.
Then we have subjective factors and there can be a lot of difference of opinion on these.
Firstly, Fabregas has to contribute a great deal in defence. So he can’t focus his energies mostly on attack. How do we calculate the impact of that?
Secondly, how do we measure the impact of team mates? Half the time Cesc played without a proper striker in front of him!
Thirdly, can anyone measure the pressure of captaincy on a 22 year old in a team that is constantly under scrutiny and where the previous captain had some torrid times?
Finally and most importantly, Cesc gets kicked all the time. Most of those aren’t called fouls because he still manages to keep the ball and the play continues. Sure, Drogba gets fouled a lot but that’s mostly a wrestling bout with a defender. I don’t think Rooney and Drogba put together get kicked as much as Fabregas. Add to this the fact that he’s seen three of his team-mates’ legs snapped into two and countless other injuries from bad tackles. How do we take this into consideration?
Conclusion
Drogba is clearly an outstanding centre forward. His stats are phenomenal, especially his 69 min for a goal or assist. If the Ivorian took penalties it could have been even more impressive. If the award had been for the best striker he’d have won it hands down.
Rooney has worked a lot more than Drogba and his striking stats aren’t too bad either, although some might say 82 mins per goal or assist isn’t earth shattering given the fact that the other two have done much better. It’s a shame that the British media is trying to brainwash everyone into believing that Rooney is a shoo-in when in fact he is a distant third.
El Capitan’s attacking stats are as good as any striker’s and his passing and general involvement is better than most midfielders. Based on the subjective issues I’d also say the Spaniard has had to fight against the odds and literally battle on the pitch in most of the games.
All said and done, Fabregas is the best player in the league and clearly deserves the Player of the Year award.
u r damn right bt dat, just only if tha right details matter.
From da luk of things, da distant 3rd will be awarded simply bkoz they wana compare his goals return 2 dat of cr7.
El capitan is da best player dis season despite his long tym out injured.
Rooney=Shrek!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!
You gotta a very wickedly powerful sense of humor, desigunner.
Keep it up!
;D
ha ha ha … much as I’d like to take credit for the name, I have to confess it’s not my invention. I don’t remember where but I picked it up somewhere on the internet
I think it was LeGrove that came up with it
I don’t read le grove so I’m sure I didn’t get it from there. Maybe someone else got it from them and I got it from that person. It’s very difficult to trace back to the origin in such cases.
Cesc is a warrior no doubt(shown against barca last 5 minutes) but award will be given to shrek only coz he is british.
One could make the argument that Cesc Fabregas has more completed passes and a higher percentage because he’s dropped back a little more and thus it makes it a little easier to pass to another defender. Don’t you agree?
The point I made was that Fabregas works more than the others and that includes running more than the others and receiving and making more passes than the others. Some of this is in defence. At times it can be easy at times it can be tough when the team is under pressure.
Since Fabregas generally plays highest in the midfield, if he is playing deeper means the team is under pressure. In that case the passing he is involved with won’t be easy. It’s a different matter that Cesc can make it look easy.
What’s the point you are trying to make?
Point taken, I was trying to somehow connect that with Rooney doing more work and being a more decisive and game changing player than Fabregas. Being a United fan myself I can see that I have a significant amount of bias, after debating this with my blog partner (who’s an Arsenal fan) we came to the conclusion that while Fabregas is superior in a majority of the categories, the ultimate factor that leads to the decision ends up being the goals scored and the fact that United had a higher standing in the Premier League also adds to the bias…sorry for the late response.
I agree that the position of a team in the league and the general image of dominance makes a big impact on our decision making. It’s a subjective thing and I tried to get into a detailed objective analysis in order to counter that.
I can understand why a lot of people FEEL that Rooney makes a lot more difference on the field. It’s not easy to take distance and analyze without bias, even I have an Arsenal bias.
I always appreciate an honest debate, thanks for your contribution.
i think fabregas deserves it more than any player and as you said shrek i think should be in second considering his work rate at man u and lastly to all GUNNER FAN keep the faith
My article of why I think there’s something very deeply wrong with Arsenal
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/382494-theres-something-very-wrong-with-this-arsenal-side
forget stats for a moment and look at performances in big games. where was cesc during the chelsea and united matches? that’s right, nowehere to be seen. drogba and rooney both scored against you while cesc filled his boots with goals and assists against the lesser sides. you can twist stats all you want but rooney and drogba have delivered where it matters whilst cesc hasn’t.
Do you realize the offside goal Drogba scored against United was his first against them in the Premier League? What was that about big games?
Is the award for the best goal scorer in supposedly big games?
It’s very easy to make random arguments that don’t mean anything. If you think what your wrote actually proves anything then I can only pray for you. There is no point wasting time on a discussion.
yes, it was his first goal against the mancs in the PL but what about his his record against your lot? doesn’t he DESTROY you every year? surely no other mananger is as stupid as AW to allow the same player to humiliate them season after season.
besides, he won chelsea that game so at the end of the day he did it against the biggest team in the country in a high pressure match. cesc hasn’t done anything of note in the PL this season against united or chelsea. infact he’s never done anything in ANY match he’s ever played against them.
furthermore, the manipulation of your ‘stats’ proves how ignorant you are as fabregas isn’t even the highest scoring midfielder in the PL.
of course his shot to goal ratio would be higher than that of drogba and rooney, they’re strikers you moron. it’s their job to take the majority of shots their team creates. the same goes with their passing stats. as fabregas plays further back than either rooney or drogba he has more options available to him than the other two by default.
and surely it’s a damning indictment that rooney who plays higher up than cesc has a better tackling rate than your captain.
You make too many assumptions and your approach is too simplistic so there isn’t much to say.
What can I say to people who think because a striker scored a goal or two the striker won the game for the team. To me Chelsea defence and midfield contributing to defence won them both games against Arsenal. Drogba took his chances but anyone in his place would have done it because that was not the hard part in those games.
What Cesc has done has to be seen in the light of the support in front of him and the tactics of the opposition. It’s similar to how Xavi was completely impotent against Inter Milan. But then it’s a complex issue not sure you’ll understand.
Please include the stats for assists…
They’re already there!
[...] Detailed Analysis Proves Fabregas Deserves Player of the Year The PFA Player of the Year awards are coming up. The shortlist is quite predictable. Cesc is up against Shrek, Drogba [...] [...]
Hi, dunno how I missed that…lol…thanks for always posting great info…
No worries.
[...] other news, as expected, Shrek has been crowned the PFA player of the year. I’d analysed this in detail and there is no doubt Fabregas should have been the deserving winner. This just goes to show how [...]
[...] I think that is the simplest way of silencing all doubters. All he needs to do now is show this on the pitch and I’m confident this season we will see the same Cesc Fabregas who I thought deserved the player of the year award last year. [...]