4 Underrated Premier League performers

 I hope you’re ready for a stat-whack. After hours spent scouring WhoScored’s data banks, I’ve come up with a flimsy premise for an article, which I bring to you now. I filtered and sorted the statistics until I came up with four interesting names to write about. I was looking for players who’ve flown under the radar this season - they’ve been solidly decent, without the fanfare their performances have deserved (for the most part). I’ve played fast and loose with this idea in my selection of four: some of my picks have had some praise; others aren’t totally deserving of praise. Nevertheless, their names cropped up amongst the best in certain areas, and I wanted to recognise this. All stats are taken from WhoScored.com. 

I shall begin by profiling the least obscure of my picks: Aston Villa’s current top-scorer, Ollie Watkins. The pacy hitman was signed from Brentford in the summer for £28 million (give or take) on the back of a 25 goal season in the Championship, as he fired the West Londoners to the most recent playoff final. The signing of prolific second-tier strikers seems to be a dangerous practice for Premier League teams: they can’t always handle the step-up in standard (Matej Vydra I’m looking at you.) I’d say that the Watkins deal was an eyebrow raiser in this regard - especially in the covid affected market. Alas, our eyebrows were released by the end of Villa’s third league game (a rather forgettable victory over Liverpool) Watkins broke his first division duck with a superb hattrick and an assist to boot. He hasn’t looked back since then, with another goal against Southampton, followed by a brace against Arsenal at the Emirates. All in all, he’s netted six times in eight league games, which puts him joint fifth in the overall league scoring charts. This stat is particularly impressive when you consider that he only has an average of 2.3 shots per game, which, compared with the other top scorers, is very low. He doesn’t need many shots to score, which speaks of his quality in front of goal. Watkins is also in the league’s top 10 for aerial duels won per game: he’s a formidable athlete, which I found out the hard way (as a Liverpool fan) when he ran Van Dijk and Gomez ragged. I’ve saved the best stat til last though: the Devon-born forward has the 8th best average rating in the league. He’s just been really decent so far. You might be wondering, then, why I’m classing him as ‘underrated’; well, frankly, I think he’s been unfairly overshadowed by the other English success stories of the current campaign. I’m thinking of Harry Kane, Calvin Lewis and Jacky Grealish in particular. The aforementioned trio have been astounding thus far, contributing to 35 (yes, thirty five) goals between them in 9 gameweeks. Watkins hasn’t quite reached this ridiculous standard, but he has been remarkably effective in a new league, playing for a team that recently escaped relegation by a point. His feats against LFC and Arsenal almost justify his steep price-tag alone. Here’s to you Ollie Watkins.

I managed to pick Joao Cancelo out as another exceptional performer before my mind packed in under the strain of reading meaningless figures on a plain chart. Luckily (for my brain) the Portuguese popped up around the top of most tables I looked at, thus establishing him as a prime candidate for this article. Despite his excellent output, which I’ll get into, Cancelo has fallen foul of Man City’s general underperformance this season: any talk on his sublime individual performances has been drowned out by criticism of Citeh’s awful efforts as a team so far in 2020-21. The only reason I’m attuned to Joao is because he massively impressed me when I watched Liverpool at the Etihad a few weeks ago. That game was a prime example of the understated brilliance he’s delivered so far this season. Joao made nine successful defensive actions in the game (Tackles, interceptions, blocks and clearances), and emerged after 90 minutes with 81% pass accuracy. This might sound unremarkable, but you’ve got to remember that he was playing against the best front three in the world, whilst under the duress of Klopp’s fierce press. His defensive solidity was matched by quality in the final third: Cancelo made 2 key passes against the reds - one of them an inch-perfect ball onto Gabriel Jesus’ head which should’ve been an assist. I’d say he was certainly City’s best player on that day, and truly, when you look at his stats across all league games this season, he currently IS City’s best performer (of those who’ve played 4 games or more). Cancelo’s average rating of 7.35 sets him above all other mancs - and it’s not just the case that he’s the best of a bad bunch, because he’s 16th in the league overall  for average rating. He’s in the league’s top 10 for tackles per game too (3.2 is his number); top 20 for interceptions (1.8); top three for key passes (he makes an average of three a game), and he ranks highly for clearances (an average of 1.4 per game) What makes these numbers even more impressive is the fact that he’s been deployed in three different positions already by Pep. He can do the business anywhere. I think I’ve hammered my point home now. Cancelo passed the eye-test, and he’s definitely passing the stat test so far. He hasn’t received praise befitting his performances yet, and so, he’s included in this article.

You might be surprised to read that Aaron Cresswell, yes, Aaron Cresswell, is the third man to feature in my article. Indeed, I myself was surprised to find him bothering the best in various stat tables on WhoScored. This in itself speaks for why he must appear in an article like this though: no one expects anything of Cresswell, so that even when he is good (like he has been so far this season) he doesn’t get a second thought (I exclude West Ham fans from this of course). Several factors work against him in this regard: 1. He’s called Aaron Cresswell; 2. He plays for West Ham; 3. He’s more or less a traditional left-back, and 4. He arrived in the League as a relative unknown for a small fee. What I’m getting at is that he’s not exactly glamorous. To be honest, the only thing that convinced me to choose him was the fact that he used to play for Tranmere - I tried my hardest to ignore him on the tables I looked at, hoping to find someone more exotic, but in the end I gave up (Southgate will face a similar issue I imagine). His stats were too good to ignore. Cresswell has played the vast majority of his games at centre-back this season (which isn’t his normal position) guiding West Ham to joint second-lowest in the goals against column. He’s the best defender in the league’s second best defence. The ex-Rover averages 2 blocks and 3 clearances per game; he hasn’t conceded a single foul yet this season, and he’s rarely dribbled past (he’s in the league’s top 10 for least times dribbled past per game). What’s more, he’s got the second best pass accuracy among West Ham’s regular starters, and he’s practically never dispossessed (it only happens 0.2 times per game!) Once again, I’ve gone the long way to say that he’s been impeccably solid this season: he’s steady in possession, and superb at protecting his own goal. Do not be deceived though, he’s by no means unadventurous: Cresswell completes more crosses per game than any other premier league player; he also makes an average of two key passes per game, which lands him in the League’s top 10 for this stat, and he already has 3 assists to his name this season. Quite frankly, he does it all - and I’ll remind you of my earlier point: he does it all playing slightly out of position. Admittedly, his free-kick duties give him an unnatural boost in stats pertaining to chance creation, but his defensive output is outstanding all-ends-up, especially considering the teams that the Hammers have played so far: Liverpool, City, Spurs, Leicester and Wolves to name a few. Cresswell’s stats after 9 weeks of games make him one of the League’s best players, currently (on paper). He isn’t receiving the coverage and praise that his consistency deserves: that’s why I’ve eulogised about him in this article.

I’ll finish things off with the dodgiest of my four picks. The player in question is certainly ‘under the radar’, which is exactly what I’m looking for, but unfortunately it’s not quite as simple as that in this instance. I’m talking about Conor Gallagher - a 20 year old central midfielder who plays for West Brom, on loan from Chelsea. I regard him as my dodgiest pick because I’m not actually sure whether he’s had that good of a season so far or not. He might be under the radar because he’s not done anything to warrant attention! Nevertheless, I’ll try and make my case for including him in this post. I’d like to say first: stats only tell us so much - Gallagher could’ve been absolutely superb in one game, and then bang average in every other fixture, which would distort his average rating for the better (or the other way round: largely good, but one stinker which ruins his averages). Either way, stats are best utilised in conjunction with actually watching these players, to get the truest sense of how decent they are. I’ve not watched Gallagher at all, so I could be totally off here, but I found his figures on WhoScored too intriguing to ignore (it’s the same with my other three players to some extent too really). It seemed to me, from looking at WhoScored’s multiple charts, that Gallagher has the makings of an exciting all-action midfielder. He ranks second in the league for average number of tackles per game (4.2 is the exact stat). Everton’s Allan, who’s the closest thing you’ll get to a tackling robot, only pips him by .2 here. As the two players were lined up next to each other in the table, I quickly compared them on the rest of their stats as well, bearing in mind that Allan is regarded as a success in the League so far: the upshot was that Gallagher more or less matches the Brazilian in all the other defensive stats too (interceptions, clearances and blocks), and he’s actually got a higher average rating than Everton’s player. The only difference between the two is that Allan has been lauded for his defensive efforts, whilst Gallagher is largely unheard of. That said, and this is where I begin to question Gallagher’s quality, the young Englishman has been dribbled past more than any other player in the league. This is certainly something to consider, but I’m also aware that Gallagher doesn’t operate on a strict defensive remit - which I’ll explore shortly - so I think he can be excused somewhat in this area (it’s still an alarming stat though.)  I labelled him as a prospective all-action midfielder, after all. Gallagher averages two long balls a game; 1 shot a game; 1 key pass a game, and he’s second highest amongst the Baggies’ regular starters for pass accuracy (82.4%) I’m well aware that these stats are far from mind blowing, but it must be remembered that Gallagher is only 20, playing in the League for the first time in his career. Moreover, he’s employed by the division’s weakest team (who’ve loaned him to West Brom), and he’s racked these numbers up against teams like Spurs and United (facing experienced midfielders worth millions of pounds). As a perfect example of Gallagher’s box-to-box instinct, he broke into United’s box the other day and should’ve had a penalty when he was fouled before pulling the trigger. I’d also like to mention that the youngster has a higher average rating than any other West Brom regular (6.87 after 5 appearances). Five games isn’t much to go on, but Gallagher’s tackling stat is remarkable, and so far, he’s matching a world class ball-winning midfielder (Allan) in all the other defensive facets of the game too. This alone makes him worthy of some sort of credit, without even considering his promising progressive numbers. West Brom’s most consistent performer (on paper) earns a spot on my list as such.

I’m probably defying logic by writing an article of this nature after nine gameweeks - reviewing player performance after 10 fixtures certainly has more of a ring to it. Truly, the next round of games starts today, so there’s really no reason for me to jump the gun in writing this article. However, I’ve gone yonks without posting anything to my blog, so I can’t stomach the thought of leaving it for another week. With that said, I hope that I’ve done justice to the players that I picked. At time of writing, they’ve all managed to evade popular attention, in spite of their statistical excellence. I recognise that a measly paragraph on an article that no one’s going to read isn’t likely to change this for them, but it’s better than nothing. I’d like to finish with an important point: these players are exceptional at time of writing, but they might (they probably will) crash and burn as the season goes on. All that matters to me is that they’re good and under the radar now, in November 2020. Please bear this in mind if you’re reading in the future (there’s no guarantee of a ‘future’ when it comes to 2020, though). Thanks for reading. I’d be grateful if you’d tweet me your thoughts on the players I picked, and I’d be interested to hear if there’s anyone you think I’ve missed (@Torpaldo is my Twitter handle).

Thanks again, I hope you enjoyed it!