Luis Suarez is in fantastic form. Seemingly every pundit throughout the media says so. Goals are the most important statistic in football games, Suarez has 24 currently in the Premier League, but scoring aside which Premier League player has the best overall contribution during a game on a consistent basis?
With statistics from Opta, we can delve further into an individual player’s performance to view what are perhaps the less obvious performance parameters. These are the stats that show how efficient a player is with the ball, how clinical he is in certain areas of the pitch and what distance the player covers with and without the ball.
According to the data sets available Leighton Baines is the most efficient player so far this season. The Everton defender also acts as one of the league’s best attacking players and currently has the best figures in terms of goal-scoring chances created for a defender in the Premier League, and had the most assists of any player in that category last season across Europe.
Baines signed an extension with Everton in January and is likely to remain at Everton for the next five years.