Recently, I’ve come across the opinion that elite English players have one eye on the World Cup and are not giving it 100%. It’s an intuitive view of course, but I don’t buy it. Measuring whether players are engaging in some type of moral hazard with Qatar around the corner would be tricky to detect.
The table below is a crude attempt to assess this. The table shows current offensive players for England and displays the average fouls they draw from opponents per 90 minutes from the 16/17 season to this season. This might be considered as a measure of how much a player puts themselves in harms way or risk injury for their club side. Not to my surprise, there are no clear patterns.
The numbers for Jack Grealish are interesting as he is famous for drawing fouls. His fall coincides with his move to Man City.