Final Third Passes: 2012/2013 Season
Although it’s only 3 games into the season, let’s have a look at the leading final third passers in the Premier League this season, and see if the generic pattern from last season still holds.
At the moment, the early season performers, notably new players Cazorla and Hazard, are already leading the list of top final third passers (not including the weekend of 15/09/2012). Cazorla has slotted in perfectly at Arsenal, pulling strings in the attacking half of the field. He has the highest number of passes in the final third of the field (88 passes with 87.5% accuracy) and a very impressive 7.3 final third passes per chance created. He is also the second most creative player so far with 12 chances created (Leighton Baines is first with 16 chances created). Similarly for Hazard, who’s had a dream start in Chelsea with 8 chances created and 4 assists to his name already, has 83 passes in the final third of the field with 89% accuracy. Familiar names like Yaya Toure (9 chances created) and Nasri (8 chances created), who were the top 10 final third passers last season, are already among the top 5 final third passers this season.
Early signs of dominance from the Manchester clubs can also be seen here, with 3 out of the 5 players in the top 5 coming from Manchester City (Toure, Nasri & Tevez), and 3 out of the top 10 coming from Manchester United (Cleverly, Kagawa & Valencia).
Final Third Passes: Conclusion
From the analysis above, there is a general trend that players who have a higher rate of passes in the final third of the field are considered to be the more creative ones. However, as seen from the examples of Mata and Van Persie, there are some players who don’t make as much final third passes but who can still possibly have more shots, assists and chances created to their name as well. Hence, it would be safe to say that final third passes is more of a factor to determine the creativeness of a player than anything else.
In addition, it should be noted that the number of final third passes for a player has a lot to do with his playing position and role he has in the team. Clearly players pulling the strings in the final third of the field are usually the attacking minded midfielders. It is quite interesting to note that we don’t see that many strikers making the top of the final third passes list too. However, we do see the odd attacking full-backs present as well, such as Enrique in the 2011/2012 season and Glen Johnson (coincidentally both Liverpool players) this current season.
Finally, we can see that more often than not, players from the top clubs dominate the top final third passes table. Last season, Joey Barton and Danny Murphy are the 2 odd players from Queens Park Rangers and Fulham respectively who made the top 10 list of final third passes. But both of them have the lowest percentage of accuracy in the final third (Barton has only 63.26% accuracy while Murphy has 67.89% accuracy), and in a way this shows the difference in quality between players from a top club and players from clubs lower in the league table.
All of the stats from this article have been taken from the Opta Stats Centre at EPLIndex.com – Subscribe Now (Includes author privileges!) Check out our new Top Stats feature on the Stats Centre which allows you to compare all players in the league & read about new additions to the stats centre.
