Who is the most effective attacking player of Arsenal? « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade

Who is the most effective attacking player of Arsenal?

By Alek Pan

Everyone can choose criteria to assess attacking abilities of players. So I do not insist that statistics say everything. But I think that stats can help us in understanding the issue of selecting a team.

The main task of attacking player is to produce goals and assists. So let’s take a look on how our players managed this task.

(Goals + Assists)/Game

All competitions from beginning of season 2010-2011 to 26 April 2011.

Robin Van Persie	1.03
Theo Walcott	0.84
Cesc Fábregas	0.73
Andrei Arshavin	0.70
Nicklas Bendtner	0.67
Carlos Vela	0.65
Marouane Chamakh	0.49
Samir Nasri	0.49
Jack Wilshere	0.25
Abou Diaby	0.24
Alex Song	0.22
Tomas Rosicky	0.19
Bacary Sagna	0.15
Laurent Koscielny	0.09
Emmanuel Eboué	0.09
Sebastien Squillaci	0.08
Gaël Clichy	0.07
Kieran Gibbs	0.06
Johan Djourou	0.06
Denilson	0.00
Thomas Vermaelen	0.00

And let’s compare this season and previous one.

(Goals + Assists)/Game

All competitions of the season 2009-2010.

Cesc Fábregas	1.02
Robin Van Persie	1.02
Nicklas Bendtner	0.81
Sanchez Watt	0.60
Fran Merida Perez	0.56
Andrei Arshavin	0.52
Eduardo	0.43
Aaron Ramsey	0.40
Carlos Vela	0.38
Abou Diaby	0.34
Tomas Rosicky	0.33
Theo Walcott	0.30
Samir Nasri	0.29
Denilson	0.25
Thomas Vermaelen	0.23
Emmanuel Eboué	0.19
Kieran Gibbs	0.14
William Gallas	0.12
Alex Song	0.08
Bacary Sagna	0.08
Sol Campbell	0.08
Mikael Silvestre	0.06
Gaël Clichy	0.03

These comparisons show us that RVP stays on the top of list both years with almost the same rate 1.02 – 1.03.  Theo Walcott jumps from 0.30 to 0.84. This is absolutely fantastic jump +0.54.

Cesc Fábregas moves down from 1.02 to 0.73. This is minus 0.29. This is not a catastrophe but a reason for concern.   Andrei Arshavin makes a move up from 0.52 to 0.70. Nicklas Bendtner makes some slide down from 0.81 to 0.67. This is minus 0.14. Samir Nasri moves up from 0.29 to 0.49. This is +0.20.

You can see that this season Cesc Fábregas,  Andrei Arshavin and Nicklas Bendtner shows approximately one level.

Cesc Fábregas	0.73
Andrei Arshavin	0.70
Nicklas Bendtner	0.67

So I do not understand why so many analysts calls for Bendtner to leave when he produced so many goals and assists this season and previous one.

Just compare his rate with the rates of the best players of this season of Barcelona and MU:

Lionel Messi	1.56
Pedro	0.72
David Villa	0.64
Dani Alves	0.48
Bojan Krkic	0.41
Andrés Iniesta	0.34
Thiago	0.33
Xavi	0.29
Seydou Keita	0.24

Dimitar Berbatov	0.80
Wayne Rooney	0.78
Javier Hernández	0.78
Nani	0.61
Michael Owen	0.55
Park Ji-Sung	0.48
Ryan Giggs	0.47

These were rates for all competitions. Method of calculations of these rates was not so accurate.

I calculated the total number of games played (TG) which equal to games started (GS) plus games when players used as substitute (SB) divided on 3. TG = GS + SB/3.

So now let’s take a look on more precise rates and compare all rates.

Season 2010 – 2011 from the beginning to 26 April 2011

Competitions =>>	EPL	EPL	EPL	All Comps
Method of calculation =>>	MGA = Mins/(G+A)	84min/MGA	(G+A)/TG	(G+A)/TG
Robin van Persie	71.43	1.18	1.24	1.03
Theo Walcott	98.07	0.86	0.80	0.84
Andrei Arshavin	124.18	0.68	0.65	0.70
Cesc Fàbregas	141.29	0.59	0.61	0.73
Nicklas Bendtner	165.67	0.51	0.43	0.67
Marouane Chamakh	175.50	0.48	0.50	0.49
Samir Nasri	214.36	0.39	0.41	0.49
Abou Diaby	229.50	0.37	0.31	0.24
Alex Song	409.67	0.21	0.22	0.22
Jack Wilshere	590.75	0.14	0.14	0.25
Bacary Sagna	686.50	0.12	0.14	0.15
Emmanuel Eboué	720.00	0.12	0.11	0.09
Tomáš Rosický	1002.00	0.08	0.08	0.19
Laurent Koscielny	1285.00	0.07	0.07	0.09
Johan Djourou	1635.00	0.05	0.06	0.06
Sébastien Squillaci	1853.00	0.05	0.05	0.08
Gaël Clichy	3042.00	0.03	0.03	0.07
Kieran Gibbs	–	–	–	0.06
Thomas Vermaelen	–	–	–	–
Aaron Ramsey	–	–	–	–
Denílson	–	–	–	–

First rate is the rate which shows how many minutes are needed for a player to make a goal or assist. This is for EPL only.

Second rate shows how many goals or assists a player made per 84 minutes. You can ask me why 84 minutes but not 90 or 95? This is just because I calculated this rate this way –  sum of minutes for best 7 attacking players I divided by sum of total games (TG) for these players. This is the most accurate way to compare Second, Third and Fourth rates. Second rate calculated for EPL only.

Third rate shows how many goals or assists player made per game. This is for EPL only.

The fourth rate shows how many goals or assists each player made per game in ALL COMPETITIONS (EPL, UCL, CC, FAC).

The biggest surprise is that in the EPL Theo Walcott was twice as effective as  Samir Nasri and 1.47 times more effective than Cesc Fàbregas.

The second biggest surprise is that Samir Nasri is the one of the less effective attacking players of Arsenal in EPL games. I think that first of all this is because Samir played more games this season than any attacking players of Arsenal. And he is tired. But there is no room for moaning about how poor he is. Because 0.4 – 0.5 is very good for attacking player. If you do not believe me – just compare:

Park Ji-Sung      0.48

Ryan Giggs       0.47

Jermain Defoe    0.44

Gareth Bale       0.42

Aaron Lennon    0.31

Andrés Iniesta   0.34

Xavi       0.29

You can see that the majority of attacking players of Arsenal are very effective. Arsenal is the second best goal scorer in EPL. So if our footballers do not perform their best in every game does not mean that players from other clubs are the machines for performance.

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