Who was our most successful passer of the ball, who got most yellow cards, played most minutes, and got most assists

Posted on by Tony Attwood

By Tony Attwood

I know I should be thinking of some brilliant and insightful commentary about Arsenal to end the day, but I got distracted by Guernsey cows, and thinking of the times in my youth I spent on the island (see the commentary to the article Arsenal to appoint Aussie Rules guru as new director of high performance to see how this came up) and by the time that was over I was too hot (very hot and muggy day in the East Midlands today), so somehow thinking up the next article didn’t get done.

But I have been mulling over some statistics thanks to www.Statto.com whose tables can be sorted by whatever means you like – if you want to do it yourself you can start off here.

And that’s two direct links to Statto, so I am hoping they won’t sue me for using their figures (that and the fact that we do tend to mention them a lot in match previews).

So here are four analyses.  Starting with the Pass success rate.   These figures are for league matches only.  The headings are obvious except SpG is shots per game, and PS% is the order here – the pass success percentage.

R Player Mins Goals Assists Yel Red SpG PS%
1 Per Mertesacker 37 – – – – – 100
2 Mohamed Elneny 694 – 1 1 – 1.1 92.9
3 Santi Cazorla 619 2 2 2 – 1 91.3
4 Mathieu Debuchy 16 – – – – – 90
5 Granit Xhaka 2486 2 2 5 2 1.1 89.5
6 Aaron Ramsey 1231 1 4 3 – 1.8 88.4
7 Laurent Koscielny 2824 2 – 4 1 0.3 87.9
8 Francis Coquelin 1786 – – 5 – 0.5 87.8
9 Alex Iwobi 1463 3 3 1 – 1.5 87.5
10 Gabriel Paulista 1516 – – 6 – 0.5 87

Now that’s cheating a bit because of course it makes life easy for the players only played a little, but of the players who played a lot Xhaka, Koscielny and Coquelin stand out.  Xhaka’s figure is remarkable considering that his passes can be both short and long.  Koscielny and Coquelin have a much higher number of passes that are short.

Most Yellow cards

R Player Mins Goals Assists Yel Red SpG PS%
1 Shkodran Mustafi 2275 2 2 11 – 0.9 82.7
2 Alexis Sánchez 3224 24 10 6 – 3.4 73.6
3 Gabriel Paulista 1516 – – 6 – 0.5 87
4 Francis Coquelin 1786 – – 5 – 0.5 87.8
5 Granit Xhaka 2486 2 2 5 2 1.1 89.5
6 Nacho Monreal 3153 – 2 5 – 0.3 85.6
7 Héctor Bellerín 2500 1 4 4 – 0.7 84.6
8 Laurent Koscielny 2824 2 – 4 1 0.3 87.9
9 Aaron Ramsey 1231 1 4 3 – 1.8 88.4
10 Kieran Gibbs 702 – 1 3 – 0.5 82.3

Xhaka who got a bad disciplinary reputation was actually only our fifth worse offender – the big number was knocked up by Mustafi, and that was understandable as there is no way he would have known about the little deviances of English refs.  I was surprised to see Alexis knocking up six.  I can’t even remember what they were for.

Who played the most

R Player Mins Goals Assists Yel Red SpG PS%
1 Alexis Sánchez 3224 24 10 6 – 3.4 73.6
2 Nacho Monreal 3153 – 2 5 – 0.3 85.6
3 Petr Cech 3098 – – 2 – – 55.8
4 Mesut Özil 2848 8 9 2 – 1.2 86.6
5 Laurent Koscielny 2824 2 – 4 1 0.3 87.9
6 Héctor Bellerín 2500 1 4 4 – 0.7 84.6
7 Granit Xhaka 2486 2 2 5 2 1.1 89.5
8 Shkodran Mustafi 2275 2 2 11 – 0.9 82.7
9 Theo Walcott 1925 10 2 1 – 2.2 75.3
10 Francis Coquelin 1786 – – 5 – 0.5 87.8
11 Alex Oxlade Chamberlain 1563 2 7 1 – 1 82.2
12 Gabriel Paulista 1516 – – 6 – 0.5 87
13 Alex Iwobi 1463 3 3 1 – 1.5 87.5
14 Aaron Ramsey 1231 1 4 3 – 1.8 88.4
15 Olivier Giroud 1198 12 3 2 – 1.3 71.5
16 Rob Holding 810 – – 3 – 0.6 82.4
17 Danny Welbeck 746 2 2 – – 1.2 83.9
18 Kieran Gibbs 702 – 1 3 – 0.5 82.3
19 Mohamed Elneny 694 – 1 1 – 1.1 92.9
20 Santi Cazorla 619 2 2 2 – 1 91.3

I copied in the top 20 from Statto to give a fair spread – Rob Holding played more than I thought, and interesting to see how much time Monreal got.  Also just from thinking back I wouldn’t have guessed Coquelin was in the top ten either.

The most assists

R Player Mins Goals Assists Yel Red SpG PS%
1 Alexis Sánchez 3224 24 10 6 – 3.4 73.6
2 Mesut Özil 2848 8 9 2 – 1.2 86.6
3 Alex Oxlade Chamberlain 1563 2 7 1 – 1 82.2
4 Aaron Ramsey 1231 1 4 3 – 1.8 88.4
5 Héctor Bellerín 2500 1 4 4 – 0.7 84.6
6 Alex Iwobi 1463 3 3 1 – 1.5 87.5
7 Olivier Giroud 1198 12 3 2 – 1.3 71.5
8 Danny Welbeck 746 2 2 – – 1.2 83.9
9 Granit Xhaka 2486 2 2 5 2 1.1 89.5
10 Nacho Monreal 3153 – 2 5 – 0.3 85.6
11 Santi Cazorla 619 2 2 2 – 1 91.3
12 Shkodran Mustafi 2275 2 2 11 – 0.9 82.7
13 Theo Walcott 1925 10 2 1 – 2.2 75.3

We all know Alexis was the top scorer – he was also the top assistant too, followed by Mesut and Alex.  What an important fellow the Ox is turning into!

Anyway, I hope there might be something there to turn the topic away from Channel Islands cattle.

Did I mention that the figures come from Statto?

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11 Replies to “Who was our most successful passer of the ball, who got most yellow cards, played most minutes, and got most assists”

  1. Some nice stats there, shame you didn’t do passes forward and backwards with the PS, that would have been interesting to compare as well.

    ElNeny has a 92% PS but how many was forward and how many was backwards? Xhaka makes those long passes as you said and he does appear to prefer to get the ball forward and start an attack than just pass back to keep possession but is that true?

    Another good read on Untold, keep up the good work ^.^

  2. I think about half of the yellow cards to Alexis, were for getting kicked.

    —

    Sorry about the cows. 🙂

    I’ve been looking at Dexter personally. And for pigs: Tamworth and Beckshire (Berkshire?).

  3. He was just milking the subject, that’s hall. Oldies are good at that 🙂

  4. That might have been the cream of the puns Colario.

    —

    Udder nonsense.

    —

    Cows may come and cows may go. But the bull in this place just goes on forever. 🙂

    —

    Well, I better hoof it out of here.

  6. @ Walter. If anyone who os regular here does not realise how much you love Per, something is really wrong!

  8. Lanz

    I think the Ox can be anything he wants but he has to cut out the occasional terrible outing he puts in.

    When he plays in mid field his desire to do something ‘special’ in ill judged positions, or at ill judged moments in the game, can, and have cost us dear.

    Picking your moments is an art and mistakes will happen, but they need to happen less often than they do.

    He has, and still is improving, so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that he could fill Santis boots but for now I personally prefer him out wide where his lapses are generally less costly.

  9. Interesting article at Arsenal.com asking Wenger about video referees.

    Wenger only points out three incidents, all of which are from Champion’s League. But he hints there were many others. Isn’t he afraid of UEFA sanctioning him?

    Trying to avoid calling the PGMO a bunch of cheats?

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