da brdice： After the season has ended, the stats tend to put player performances into context, shedding light on the best and worst seasons in the division.
da pinnacle： The more obvious ones – the fact that Harry Kane ended the season as top goalscorer, or that Kevin de Bruyne provided the most assists – always tell us what we already knew, but it’s the less obvious ones that bear the most insight. One of those is key passes.
It won’t count as an assist if the striker doesn’t score – or lays on his teammate instead – but key passes are an undoubtedly important metric when it comes to assessing the performances of creative midfielders. After all, how often players can open up defences is incredibly significant: especially when it comes to the big clubs who often have to put up with stubborn defences. The pressure on title chasing teams is immense, meaning the ability to create clear-cut chances is huge.
Given the final table, the list doesn’t throw up many surprises. But the fact that Christian Eriksen beats out Mesut Ozil to top spot is reasonably significant. Arsenal’s German playmaker is known for his assists and his ability to see a defence-splitting pass, but the fact that he’s been usurped by Tottenham’s Danish attacking midfielder points to the wider trend of Spurs supposedly shifting the balance of power in north London. In many ways Ozil has done incredibly well to average the second most assists per game in the Premier League this season despite his side finishing in fifth place, but that just goes to show how poor Arsenal really have been this year.
Kevin de Bruyne isn’t too far behind the top two in this list, either. The Premier League’s top assist maker also made 103 key passes this season, three more than Mesut Ozil, though he did it in more games. Interestingly, though, the Belgian did so from a deeper position than most of the other players on the list. Both he and David Silva played in a more central midfield role that the others, whilst Eden Hazard played as an inside forward and the others are number 10s – the sorts of players you’d expect to chip in with key passes.
Apart from Ross Barkley, that is. Whilst the Manchester City midfield was made up of some incredible ball-players in Silva and De Bruyne, the Everton man was playing in more of a working man’s midfield this season. That’s what makes his contribution all the more impressive.
Although Barkley played more games than David Silva – thus decreasing his per-game ratio – the England man actually played two more key passes than the Spaniard this season, and also beat the likes of Gylfi Sigurdsson, Alexis Sanchez and Roberto Firmino to make the list. Those are all players who played in more advanced roles than the Goodison Park man, and he deserves praise for his contributions to the team.
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