As a preview to the Premier League’s return this weekend we’re going to be using our Opta Stats Centre to bring you the Top 5 Tacklers, Passers, Creators and scorers!

Top Tacklers

Mark Noble tops with the most attempted tackles however it is Mousa Dembele that has won the highest amount in the Top 5 with 85.71%. Dembele further impresses with the fact that he’s attempted the most Duels and Aerial Duels from the Top 5 tacklers. His ground duel win percentage is also the highest – he’s certainly been an impressive player for Spurs so far this season.

Mikel Arteta shows that he’s more than just a passer too attempting the second most tackles in the league as well as 87 ground duels so far too.

Top Passers

The table above shows the players that have attempted over 500 passes and there are only six of them in the league so far. As you can see there are no surprises with Mikel Arteta and Joe Allen at the top. The other four aren’t surprises either with Cazorla, Toure, Carrick and Gerrard all ball playing central midfielders.

It’s interesting that Carrick has played the ball forward the most with 35.59% going forwards and Cazorla the least (most likely because he plays highest up the pitch compared to other five and therefore has to turn back a lot).

Top Creators

As is well publicised – Leighton Baines leads the way for creators with 30 chances created. Cazorla and Silva are players you’d expect to be in there. With Steven Gerrard injury free and playing regularly again for Liverpool he makes the Top 5 too with Aaron Lennon fifth.

David Silva is very close to Leighton Baines in the regularity of creating a chance. Baines creates a chance every 21 minutes whilst David Silva creates one every 21.57 minutes. It shows clearly that if Silva had played the same amount of time he’d have a number very close to Leighton Baines’. Cazorla is just showing his class in his first season just like Juan Mata did last year. Mata surprisingly hasn’t made the list but i’m sure he’ll find his way into this list later on in the season.

Top Goal Scorers

Demba Ba leads so far after seven games with six goals and scoring a goal every 96.17 minutes. Steven Fletcher is the most impressive for minutes per goals as he’s scoring every 84.6 minutes.

Suarez has had the most shots (32) whilst Fletcher has had the least (10) yet they have scored the same amount of goals. Fletcher has scored both of his clear-cut opportunities whilst Suarez has only finished 17% of the 6 presented to him!

Suarez is attempting a shot every 19.69 minutes – the most in the top four – how well would have Liverpool done if his finishing was as good as the others in the list as Suarez’s Shot Accuracy is the worst in the Top 5 with 34%.