The EPL 100 -

[MINIBARCELONASAINT]

The title is pretty self-explanatory; The Bleacher Report's tactical analyst has put together the best 100 players in the PL based on a devised formula.

 

Just passing on the article if anyone's interested in Saints players did:

 

Artur Boruc was at 125; they included the 25 players that narrowly missed out. (72.7/100)

 

Jack Cork - deep-lying playmaker - is at 99; "Roy Hodgson could do a lot worse than call young Jack up to his squad." (73.7)

 

Adam Lallana - inverted winger - is at 98; "If Adam Lallana could stay fit, we'd have an England international on our hands." (73.7)

 

Jay Rodriguez - wide forward - is at 92; "He's developed fantastic chemistry with Rickie Lambert." (74.2)

 

Rickie Lambert - target man - is at 81; "He was far too intelligent for the lower leagues, constantly moving and tormenting his markers before beating them in the air and firing the ball home from 40 yards." (74.6)

 

Victor Wanyama - anchor defensive midfielder - is at 48; "nothing short of a tremendous coup on Mauricio Pochettino's behalf, as the Kenyan could have easily signed and slotted into Manchester United or Liverpool's first XIs.......The only aspect of his game that let him down in our grading was his passing." (76.1)

 

Morgan Schneiderlin - anchor defensive midfielder - is at 27, ahead of Lampard and Gerrard (!) but not Carrick who comes in as the tenth best player in the PL and Kagawa as 9th, so there is the end of that who's midfield is better argument; "notching up an astonishing average of 4.1 tackles and 3.9 interceptions per game." (77.9)

 

so 6 players in the EPL100 and 7 in the 125. It explained it was harder to include players that weren't playing in England last season, so perhaps Lovren may have featured otherwise. Other than that, I can't argue that we should have had many more in. Clyne could feel aggrieved but I don't think Shaw played enough to warrant inclusion at his age.

 

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1720614-br-100-best-premier-league-players/

 

Enjoy

[Ulrich van Gobbel]

Thanks for this! Very interesting stuff..

[sir woody]

Good read, a bit surprising that morgan is a better player(stat wise) than steven gerrard.

[DuncanRG]

Interesting they've picked out Lallana's injury problems as limiting his performances. For some reason it's something I'd not considered all that much, obvious as it seems.

[stu0x]

Good read, a bit surprising that morgan is a better player(stat wise) than steven gerrard.

 

Is it? Gerrard is the ultimate Hollywood player, and has been for years. While 50 yard raking passes and the odd thunderbolt into the top corner might look good on MOTD, it's because you only see the 10% that were successful and not the 90% of wasted chances and lost possession due to showiness over substance. The polar opposite, in fact, to MS. Liverpool are far more fluid and dynamic without Gerrard, their movement just comes to a grinding halt when he gets the ball.

[DuncanRG]

Is it? Gerrard is the ultimate Hollywood player, and has been for years. While 50 yard raking passes and the odd thunderbolt into the top corner might look good on MOTD, it's because you only see the 10% that were successful and not the 90% of wasted chances and lost possession due to showiness over substance. The polar opposite, in fact, to MS. Liverpool are far more fluid and dynamic without Gerrard, their movement just comes to a grinding halt when he gets the ball.

 

I'm not sure you could be more wrong if you tried. His age is starting to catch up with him in terms of movement but he's an absolutely world class player. He's phenomenal and not showy in any way. Even when he was scoring 30 yard screamers his biggest contribution was passing. No coincidence that most of the world's greatest clubs have made moves for him over the past 15 years - including Bayern Munich last summer.