Next up let’s take a look at ground duel and tackle win percentages. We are not interested in really the amount of tackles/duels a player puts in, or even how often, what we are interested in is what percentage of them they win. Because it’s such a pivotal area of the pitch it’s vital our defensive midfielder can win a high proportion of his tackles and 50/50 duels.
Mulumbu comes out tops again, winning 76.71% of all his tackles. With Faurlin, Reo-Coker, Diame and Gareth Barry all featuring in the points places. Next Michael Carrick surprisingly comes out tops in the ground duels category. A player maybe not renowned for his battling qualities. To put into context only 8 players out of the 122 we are looking at have a better ground duel win percentage, and all of them are defenders. So impressive from Michael Carrick.
So let’s take a look at our final table and see who gets the defensive midfielders slot in our Ultimate Team.
Youssuf Mulumbu comes out tops in the table with 11 points. He came out top in the tackle win % statistics and the passes per interceptions category. He also recorded a respectable 84.72% passing accuracy so a worthy winner in the end as the stats point to the fact he has an all round game.
Attacking Midfielder
Next we’ll have an attacking midfielder that will operate slightly further forward in our 4-2-3-1 system. Of course an attacking midfielder will need different attributes than a defensive midfielder so we will look at more creative stats when picking our attacking midfielder. Again we’ve filtered out our players to only look at players who have attempted 700 or more passes. Amongst the 122 players we are left with a total of 19 players who could operate in that position.
Firstly as you can see Mikel Arteta just about comes out tops in the passing stakes – being accurate with 90.64% of all his passes. Quite impressive, anything above 90% really is outstanding. In context, out of 247 players that have attempted 400 or more passes this season, only 13 of those have a passing accuracy above 90%.
The next category in the table is ground duels win %. All though not the most important attribute in an attacking midfielders locker it is important nonetheless to be combative in any midfield role. As you can see Dembele comes out tops winning 58.26% of his ground duels, with Lampard and again Arteta close behind.
Next let’s take a look at various creative stats for our attacking midfielders.
First off Danny Murphy has created more chances and assists combined this season among our attacking midfielders with Modric not too far behind with 67. These two are a way in front of next placed Charlie Adam on 51. Secondly, how efficient are our attacking midfielders? Well Adel Taarabt creates a goal or assist every 17.27 passes he attempts. That’s pretty efficient if you ask me. It shows, compared to the time on the ball he gets (passes), he often creates something. In fact only 6 players on our list of 122 players create more frequently per pass attempted.
Our last column is self-explanatory really. Frank Lampard has been once again at his goal-scoring best despite the limited amount of time he’s played this season. Scoring 10 goals as a midfielder is impressive, even more so with so much of the season left. And when you break it down he scores a goal every 124.4 passes he attempts. So a much deserved 5 points for Frank Lampard.
So where does that leave us in our final table for attacking midfielder?
As you can see Mikel Arteta is the winner with 13 points from the statistics we looked at, with Luka Modric and Frank Lampard not too far behind. So we have a central midfield pairing of Mulumbu holding and Arteta slightly more advanced trying to pull the strings in our attack.
Next Page: Side Attack, who will play either side of the forwards?
