Joey Barton’s statistics were then compared with players from the other teams in the bottom four to see how he is comparing to players in the teams around QPR.
Barton fared better in this comparison, but the same main points came up again when analysing the statistics.
He is still the most successful player in the whole comparison in winning ground 50-50’s as he has made at least 20 more than his nearest rival Reo-Coker and 139 more than Henry of Wolves, which shows this is probably the strongest part of Barton’s game.
Joey Barton also made more tackles than anyone else but was less successful than the others in this comparison in his tackle success rate. He has made 42 more tackles than Henry this season which is quite a lot seeing though both players are tough tackling midfielders. Although his tackle percentage is below his competitors he only has a 2.23% less success rate than McCarthy who scored the highest.
Barton again falls short in the terms of successful passes to his teammates as he is a whopping 15.15% behind his closest rival Reo-Coker and 18.29% behind McCarthy who scored highest in this comparison.
With these results it is hard to criticise Barton on most aspects of his game as he scores highly against the players that play for the teams around him and for the players that play for teams in the top four. He is the most successful player in winning ground 50-50’s, scores very highly in his tackling percentage and has two goals and three assists to his name this season which is equal to or better than any of the players that play for teams around him.
The only criticism I can lay at Barton’s door is his successful passing percentage, which is way below any other player in this comparison. This is a worrying fact seeing though he sees a lot of the ball and losing possession heaps more pressure on his teammates and with QPR’s run in he just cannot afford to do this.
If he can improve his passing percentage in the upcoming games then QPR fans can have no objections with his performances. As he compares very well in all other aspects of his game with the other players in this comparison.
Therefore, I can see where QPR fans are coming from with the criticism of their captain but I am a firm believer of getting behind my team when times get tough. So maybe, just maybe if the fans get behind Barton and his teammates they may just stand a chance of staying in the division.
All of the stats from this article have been taken from the Opta Stats Centre at EPLIndex.com – Subscribe Now (Includes author privileges!) See Demo’s and videos about the Stats Centre & read about new additions to the stats centre.
