In this article, we attempted to determine which Premier League midfield players have the most impact in all areas of the pitch. As you’re well aware, midfielders come in all shapes and sizes. Some are great at taking players on, some are excellent distributors of the ball, others are strong tacklers.
In this article, we’re looking to see those players that maybe don’t excel at any one skill but they are heavily involved in all stages of play. Not always, but you might call some of them box-to-box midfielders.
However, regardless of the label they are given, they are always present in the match and have a strong impact both offensively and defensively.
How We Ranked Premier League Midfielders by All-Around Impact
Given the data set we have, we focused on three key statistics in an attempt to determine which players meet these characteristics:
- Tackles – quite simply, the number of players tackled. To note, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the tackler’s team won possession of the ball afterwards, it just takes into account the total number of players tackled.
- Ball Touches – number of times a player touched the ball. To note, in the data set we have, receiving a pass, dribbling with the ball and then making a pass all counts as one touch.
- Progressive Carrying Distance – this is the total distance in yards that a player moved the ball while controlling it with their feet towards the opponent’s goal.
The selection of these three metrics was very intentional in an attempt to provide insight into a player’s involvement in all stages of play.
The player’s tackled metric covers off the defensive side of the game. The number of ball touches helps show a player’s involvement in the match when in possession of the ball. And lastly, progressive carrying distance helps indicate a player’s desire to attack and drive the play forward.
All three of these metrics measure different components of play and we wanted to combine all three metrics to get one value in order to rank players accordingly.
To do this, we took the maximum value recorded in each of the three statistics and divided each player’s individual value by the maximum to get a value between 0 to 1.0.
We then summed all three metrics to get a total value out of 3.0 and then filtered for only midfield players.
Step-by-Step Scoring Method
For instance, João Palhinha has the most tackles so far this season with 39. All other player’s number of tackles were divided by 39 to provide a comparison against the Premier League’s best in this statistic.
This provided a value between 0 and 1 for all other players. In this case, Palhinha received a 1.0 for the player’s tackled component of his score.
This process was then completed for the remaining two metrics, touches and progressive carrying distance, using the maximum value as the denominator for each of the two respective metrics.
To note, at the time of writing this article, all squads have played 9 Premier League matches; data is as of October 30th. So, keep that in mind depending on when you’re reading this article.
With all that being said, let’s get to the data.
The Top Five Premier League Midfielders Dominating Both Attack and Defence
For the three metrics, as noted above, João Palhinha leads the Premier League with 39 tackles. Elliot Anderson leads the league with 832 touches on the ball. And Jan Paul van Hecke leads the league with 2143 yards of progressive carrying distance with the ball.
When summing up all three metrics, Elliot Anderson is leading the Premier League as the midfielder having the most impact in all areas on the pitch. We determine his total score to be 2.24 out of a maximum of 3.
Elliot Anderson is leading the Premier League as the midfielder having the most impact in all areas on the pitch
In total so far this Premier League season, Anderson has 25 tackles, 832 touches on the ball and 1286 yards in progressive carrying distance with the ball.
So, the contribution of each statistic to Anderson’s total score was 0.64 for players tackled (25 divided by Palhinha’s 39), 1.00 for touches (Anderson has the most touches), and 0.60 for progressive carrying distance (1286 yards divided by van Hecke’s 2143 yards).
Elliot Anderson is strongly admired by the Forest fans and he’s starting to become a household name on several Premier League team’s watchlist.
Based on his numbers above, it is clear to see how involved Anderson is both on and off the ball, which warrants the recent media attention he’s receiving.
Individual Metric Breakdowns: Tackles, Touches & Progressive Carries
The top 5 players by weighed score can be seen in the graph below, as for the first 9 matches of the 25-26 Premier League season.
Second was Liverpool’s Dominik Szoboszlai with a total score of 2.02 which is based on 21 tackles, 737 touches on the ball and 1270 yards in progressive carrying distance.
Third is Moisés Caicedo who is a key player in Chelsea’s young lineup. Caicedo has contributed 29 tackles, 642 touches and 811 progressive carrying yards so far this 25-26 Premier League season.
In total, Caicedo’s combined score was 1.89. With a few more progressive carries with the ball each match in an attempt to generate more of an offensive threat, he could really elevate the offensive component of his match.
Tyrick Mitchell for Crystal Palace and Neco Williams for Forest are ranked fourth and fifth, with total scores of 1.77 and 1.71, respectively.
For both of these players, we note that they have played different midfield and defensive roles at times this season but have been included in this analysis as a result of their midfield involvements.
Mitchell has 32 tackles, 509 touches and 713 yards in progressive carries. Williams has 23 tackles, 609 touches, and 822 yards in progressive carries. Similar to Caicedo, Mitchell and William’s game could be improved with additional progressive carries towards their opponent’s net to generate further offensive threat.
Anderson, Szoboszlai, Caicedo, Mitchell & Williams Compared
Below, we’ve included graphs of each of the three individual metrics for the five midfield players presented above.
First is number of tackles made, with Tyrick Mitchell leading with 32, followed closely by Caicedo.
Next is progressive carrying distance, measured in yards. Both Anderson and Szoboszlai have recorded significantly more than the other 3 players in this analysis; 1286 and 1270 yards, respectively.
Third is the number of touches on the ball. Again, Anderson leads the way in this metric with 832 touches, which equates to about 92 touches per match on average.
Final Thoughts: Who Is the Premier League’s Most Involved Midfielder?
Well, that’s it for this article. In this post, we took a closer look at those all-around midfield players who are putting the work in both offensively and defensively.
As noted above, we ranked midfield players on three metrics: number of tackles, number of touches on the ball, and the amount of progressive carrying yards.
Scores were weighted based on the maximum in each metric so far in this 25-26 Premier League season. And finally, all three metrics were added together to get a number out of three.
Nottingham Forest’s Elliot Anderson had a weighted score of 2.34 and based on our analysis, was ranked the highest midfielder for all-around involvements in the game. Dominik Szoboszlai (2.02), Moisés Caicedo (1.89), Tyrick Mitchell (1.77), and Neco Williams (1.71) were ranked second through fifth, respectively.
What were your thoughts on the three metrics used to determine the rankings? Are there any players you thought would be included but aren’t? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. Do you have a favourite midfielder out of the 5 noted in this article?
Stay tuned for future posts and please send us a message if there is a specific topic you would like to see covered. Additionally, if you have any ideas on how to improve these articles, please send them our way too.
As always, thanks for taking the time to reach these posts!
JC
All data in this article is from fbref.com so, thanks to them!