Do Arsenal need another creator in midfield?
Looking at the very best midfielders on the market
Arsenal‘s attack seems to be buzzing of late, but that hasn’t stopped fans from connecting the club to another midfielder in the mold of a progressive playmaker.
Will Arsenal pursue someone who’s less Havertz, more Ødegaard to patrol the left side, form a partnership with Gabriel Martinelli and do more on the ball? Time will tell.
But this is Adam’s player rankings. I came here to rank players and chew gum and well, I’m all out of gum.
My legal team has advised me to share the following:
This list is created relying fully on statistics from this season. Players are rated using 24 distinct data points of varying weights, with priority given to creative, progressive midfielders who threaten goal and keep the ball.
Minimum for inclusion was 810 league minutes, which is 9 full games.
I generally aimed toward pre-prime or early prime, so again you’ll find no 28+ players here.
Also, these guys are not all necessarily true attacking 8s or 10s. I’ll shed what light I can on their roles as we go.
I always encourage a healthy dose of the eye test before forming a final opinion on any player, so consume responsibly.
It’s definitely worth noting that this list isn’t meant to be all-inclusive. Some manual paring has happened to eliminate mostly guys who wouldn’t be available to Arsenal for any reasonable move. And there are some who could play left 8/10 for Arsenal who aren’t here simply because they’re playing a dramatically different role (winger, for example) at their current club, meaning the data won’t be comparable.
All scores are subject to an adjustment according to league strength, so you shouldn’t have to mentally raise or lower rankings to make it more “fair.”
Thankfully, Arsenal already have one excellent player in a role like this, one Martin Ødegaard. While he started slowly, Ødegaard has been on an absolute heater going on about three months now. Here’s his chart:
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Cannon Stats to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.