THE EPL TOP 5 This is going to be a pretty simple list where I will name the players who I believe are at the top 5 of each position in the Premier League. This is a list of the elite players at each position. Goalkeeper David De Gea (Man Utd) Asmir Begovic (Stoke) Hugo Lloris (Spurs) Petr Cech (Chelsea) Michel Vorm (Swansea) I think that De Gea is not only the best keeper in the league; I also think that he has them most upside of any keeper in the league. If you consider that De Gea is only 22 and the next oldest on this list is 26 (Begovic & Lloris), you wonder how good he may get. The major omission on this list is Joe Hart, and that is because he hasn’t played at an elite level for well over a year. Right Back Rafael (Man Utd) Pablo Zabaleta (Man City) Branislav Ivanovic (Chelsea) Glen Johnson (Liverpool) Seamus Coleman (Everton) A close contest between the top 3, but I think that Rafael edges it because of his superior attacking skills (he also has more upside that the other two as well). Ivanovic (who is really a centre back) and Zabaleta are both better defenders than Rafael but for me if I were to pick a team right now I would have Rafael in there first. Left Back Leighton Baines (Everton) Jose Enrique (Liverpool) Patrice Evra (Man Utd) Ashley Cole (Chelsea) Luke Shaw (Southampton) Baines is easily the best left back in the league. There isn’t a massive gap between the next three but Cole (one of the most overrated players in the league) is the worst of them. Luke Shaw gets the fifth spot because he is a top prospect and there isn’t another stand out left back in the league, Ben Davies at Swansea would’ve been another option. Centre Back Vincent Kompany (Man City) Nemanja Vidic (Man Utd) Younes Kaboul (Spurs) Rio Ferdinand (Man Utd) Jan Vertonghen (Spurs) Oddly enough the five top centre backs in the league have all recently been injury prone. Kompany and Vidic are the two best in the league, with Kompany edging it because he has been fitter recently. If you had told me that Rio Ferdinand would be on this list two years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you but his play over the past year has been vastly improved. Mamadou Sakho would be my man to watch for the future that got edged out because he hasn’t actually played a game yet. Right Midfield Jesus Navas (Man City) Theo Walcott (Arsenal) Kevin Mirallas (Everton) Antonio Valencia (Man Utd) Victor Moses (Liverpool) Wow there is a distinct lack of right midfielders/wingers in the Premier League. I was scraping the bottom of the barrel here, with players like Valencia getting in because there wasn’t much else to offer. I wouldn’t say that any of these players were elite on the world stage, which really tells you that the Premier League is seriously lacking in quality. Left Midfield Andre Schurlle (Chelsea) Hatem Ben Arfa (Newcastle) Ashley Young (Man Utd) Willian (Chelsea) Pablo Hernandez (Swansea) Basically the exact same as right midfield, a distinct lack of actual quality. It says a lot when three out of five of these guys didn’t even play in the league last year, which says a lot. Bring back Bale! Defensive Midfield Yaya Toure (Man City) Sandro (Spurs) Morgan Schneiderlin (Southampton) Leroy Fer (Norwich) Victor Wanyama (Southampton) At the top end of the game there does seem to be a lack of holding midfielders, with many teams either not utilising one, or using a player that doesn’t actually fit the position. Southampton have two excellent young defensive midfielders, both of whom have bright futures in my opinion, as does Fer. Central Midfield Michael Carrick (Man Utd) Marouane Fellaini (Man Utd) Paulinho (Spurs) Ramires (Chelsea) Jack Wilshere (Arsenal) Odd to think that Utd have the two best central midfielders in the league, yet they don’t have a great central midfield. To be fair Fellaini hasn’t really played yet, and the drop off to the next central midfielder would be quite large. Unlike the defensive midfielders, the central midfield is dominated by players from top teams. Attacking Midfield Juan Mata (Chelsea) David Silva (Man City) Mesut Ozil (Arsenal) Santi Cazorla (Arsenal) Eden Hazard (Chelsea) Both Arsenal and Chelsea have two top attacking midfielders (Chelsea have more than two), and you can see the quality of attacking midfielders in the Premier League when guys like Kagawa (play da man!), Eriksen, Oscar and Coutinho can’t get on the list. Striker Robin van Persie (Man Utd) Sergio Aguero (Man City) Luis Suarez (Liverpool) Wayne Rooney (Man Utd) Christian Benteke (Villa) RVP is by far the class of the strikers in the Premier League, the next three are also quality strikers and Benteke is one of the brightest young talents in world football (where are all these Belgian’s coming from!). Overall Overall there were 11 Man Utd players, 6 Man City players, 8 Chelsea players, 4 Arsenal players, 5 Spurs players, 4 Liverpool players, 3 Everton players, 3 Southampton players, 2 Swansea players, 1 Newcastle player, 1 Villa player, 1 Stoke player & 1 Norwich player. Based on those figures you wouldn’t be discarded for thinking that Man Utd has by far the best squad in the Premier League, however it is probably because Utd are stacked at certain positions (multiple players in top 5) and also because of the lack of quality wide men in the league (allowing Young and Valencia to push up numbers, despite not being that great). The other numbers aren’t overly shockingly high or low for what you would expect from each team (maybe City could’ve been higher but that’s about it). One of the things that became blatantly clear to me whilst picking the top 5 players at each position was the distinct lack of good wide players in the Premier League. It is odd because if you were to describe the style of play of English football, you would talk about high paced counter attacking wide play, yet it seems like the Premier League has moved into a more attacking midfielder based league, surely concerning for an England national side that has lost its identity and doesn’t know what way to turn. There were only 10 English players in the entire list (three of whom were left backs, and one of whom is retired). In comparison there were 7 Spaniard’s, 5 French, 6 Belgian’s & 4 Brazilian’s, if you consider further that these nationalities have players playing all across Europe it becomes even more stark for England who’s players only play in England. There is clearly a lack of quality English players playing at the current moment, and only two made it to the top of their positional rankings (ironically neither starts for the international team…..go figure). Premier League Best 11 GK- David De Gea RB- Rafael LB- Leighton Baines CB- Vincent Kompany CB- Nemanja Vidic RM- Jesus Navas LM- Andre Schurlle CDM- Yaya Toure CM- Michael Carrick CAM- Juan Mata ST- Robin van Persie If you’re counting that’s 5 Utd players, 3 City players, 2 Chelsea players & 1 Everton player. Maybe you disagree with the team (I imagine many will) but if I were to pick my perfect Premier League starting 11 this would be it. For fun here’s a bench: Subs- Asmir Begovic, Branislav Ivanovic, Theo Walcott, Marouane Fellaini, Paulinho, David Silva & Sergio Aguero. So there you have it the Premier League Positional Top 5, what did you think? Did you love it and couldn’t have written a better list yourself? Or more likely did you hate it and will send me hate comments about how I hate every single team in the league and how dare I leave John Terry out? Either way leave a comment and send your love!
Posted on: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 15:10:18 +0000
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