The Best Players So Far This Season

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Think you are a good judge of talent? That Wenger uses an innate ability to spot players with potential for Arsenal? That world class footballers are will constantly be compared and debated but never with a definitive answer as to who is superior?

Well you’re WRONG. It’s all about the Premiership Actim Index!

The Premier League Actim Index is the official rating system for the Premiership and therefore can not be questioned or doubted in it’s comprehensive judgement of form. How is infallible indicator of football performance calculated?

Actim is the brand name for the official data of the FA Premier League, The Football League and the Scottish Premier League. The data is used to produce Actim Stats. Actim Stats are a collection of team, player and match statistics. They are derived from all the actions that take place during a match, including goals, shots on target, corners, fouls, offsides, passes, tackles, blocks and clearances.

So while we were going to do our own bit looking at the impact players thus far this season, we couldn’t simply ignore the hard work put in by the people at Actim and let them tell us who’s the best instead.

Below are the top 10 Premiership players thus far.

1 andy johnson Everton 172
2 didier drogba Chelsea 160
3 gareth barry Aston Villa 134
4 gabriel agbonlahor Aston Villa 132
5 ashley young Watford 132
6 kanu Portsmouth 131
7 frank lampard Chelsea 130
8 ivan campo Bolton Wanderers 129
9 liam ridgewell Aston Villa 128
10 gary speed Bolton Wanderers 125

Some obvious entries there – COS is a big fan of Ashley Young – and more than a couple surprises. The full list is after the jump, and there are plenty of high profile players missing as well as a few names that plenty of supporters won’t even recognize (but will pretend to).

Of course this will cue many cries of “statistics can prove anything!”. Of course there is some merit to the claim and individual scores should be looked at in the context of the team (John Terry may make less tackles than Liam Ridgewell because Chelsea have a better midfield). But given that we happily let the results of testing, statistics and data analysis impact virtually all other areas of our lives – why should football be any different?

Well, a lot of reasons… but here it is anyway.

1 andy johnson Everton 172
2 didier drogba Chelsea 160
3 gareth barry Aston Villa 134
4 gabriel agbonlahor Aston Villa 132
5 ashley young Watford 132
6 kanu Portsmouth 131
7 frank lampard Chelsea 130
8 ivan campo Bolton Wanderers 129
9 liam ridgewell Aston Villa 128
10 gary speed Bolton Wanderers 125
11 kevin doyle Reading 123
12 tim cahill Everton 123
13 seol ki-hyeon Reading 123
14 benni mccarthy Blackburn Rovers 119
15 bobby zamora West Ham United 115
16 olof mellberg Aston Villa 111
17 david james Portsmouth 111
18 sean davis Portsmouth 110
19 phil neville Everton 106
20 el-hadji diouf Bolton Wanderers 106
21 michael essien Chelsea 105
22 andriy shevchenko Chelsea 105
23 john terry Chelsea 103
24 ricardo carvalho Chelsea 103
25 gary o’neil Portsmouth 102
26 ryan giggs Manchester United 102
27 jussi jaaskelainen Bolton Wanderers 101
28 joseph yobo Everton 101
29 emmanuel eboue Arsenal 101
30 scott parker Newcastle United 101
31 joey barton Manchester City 101
32 louis saha Manchester United 99
33 mikel arteta Everton 99
34 matthew taylor Portsmouth 98
35 rio ferdinand Manchester United 98
36 thomas sorensen Aston Villa 98
37 marcus hahnemann Reading 97
38 benjani mwaruwari Portsmouth 97
39 bobby convey Reading 97
40 luke moore Aston Villa 97
41 edwin van der sar Manchester United 96
42 ivar ingimarsson Reading 94
43 juan pablo angel Aston Villa 94
44 wes brown Manchester United 94
45 abdoulaye meite Bolton Wanderers 93
46 linvoy primus Portsmouth 93
47 robbie savage Blackburn Rovers 93
48 morten gamst pedersen Blackburn Rovers 93
49 glen johnson Portsmouth 92
50 tim howard Everton 90
51 steven davis Aston Villa 89
52 paul scharner Wigan Athletic 89
53 david bentley Blackburn Rovers 88
54 dejan stefanovic Portsmouth 88
55 cesc fabregas Arsenal 88
56 steve finnan Liverpool 87
57 petr cech Chelsea 87
58 ole gunnar solskjaer Manchester United 87
59 nicky shorey Reading 86
60 cristiano ronaldo Manchester United 86
61 brad friedel Blackburn Rovers 86
62 lee carsley Everton 85
63 franck queudrue Fulham 85
64 leroy lita Reading 84
65 sol campbell Portsmouth 84
66 ibrahima sonko Reading 83
67 tal ben haim Bolton Wanderers 82
68 liam rosenior Fulham 80
69 gavin mccann Aston Villa 79
70 john o’shea Manchester United 79
71 joleon lescott Everton 79
72 daniel agger Liverpool 78
73 xabi alonso Liverpool 78
74 jimmy bullard Fulham 78
75 richard dunne Manchester City 78
76 rob hulse Sheffield United 77
77 gary neville Manchester United 77
78 jens lehmann Arsenal 76
79 michael dawson Tottenham Hotspur 76
80 kevin nolan Bolton Wanderers 74
81 darren bent Charlton Athletic 74
82 alexander hleb Arsenal 73
83 antti niemi Fulham 73
84 lucas neill Blackburn Rovers 72
85 brett emerton Blackburn Rovers 72
86 stewart downing Middlesbrough 72
87 mark schwarzer Middlesbrough 71
88 pedro mendes Portsmouth 71
89 paul konchesky West Ham United 71
90 aiyegbeni yakubu Middlesbrough 71
91 fredrik ljungberg Arsenal 70
92 steve sidwell Reading 70
93 william gallas Arsenal 70
94 jose reina Liverpool 69
95 trevor sinclair Manchester City 69
96 stephen carr Newcastle United 69
97 michael carrick Manchester United 69
98 phil jagielka Sheffield United 69
99 craig moore Newcastle United 68
100 damien duff Newcastle United 68