Thanks to Liverpool’s dominance of the English Premier League during the 2019/20 season, the Best XI we drew up from the FotMob average player ratings was kind of boring. We found that, if the season ended now (and we really hope it doesn’t) Liverpool players had earned the highest average in 7 positions across our standard 4-3-3 formation.
Therefore, we thought we’d run through our stats for the Premier League again. And add some caveats.
The Rules: This time, we’ve limited who gets into our Best XI to one player per club. So, looking at our overall player ratings – Kevin De Bruyne sits top with an average of 7.93 so he automatically becomes the first and last Manchester City star to get into our line-up.
The next condition is that we run from the top of rankings down – so each position is filled by the player with the best rating, but if he takes the spot for that team it means even if someone from the same club has a better rating in their position, they will not be included. For instance – Sadio Mané is the best scoring Liverpool player, so he goes into the left wing position. His teammate Trent Alexander-Arnold is the most rated right-back but as Liverpool’s spot is taken, we can’t use him.
Over complicated? Probably, but this is where we are now with no football to report on!
Who makes the cut?
Our new rules make for some interesting changes from the original Best XI for the Premier League. Arsenal’s Bernd Leno actually has the 3rd highest average rating for a goalkeeper this season but as Alisson’s club spot is taken by Mané and Sheffield United’s Dean Henderson forfeits his chance, with centre-back Jack O’Connell taking their club spot – we pick Leno!
Elsewhere, JonJo Shelvey is our 4th best rated central midfielder behind not only De Bruyne and Maddison but also, David Silva (Man City’s spot taken by De Bruyne) and Jordan Henderson (Liverpool’s spot taken by Mané). By virtue of his club’s place not being taken by another Newcastle player with a higher rating, he slots in to our team.
Perhaps our most contested position on the pitch is at centre forward. Here Roberto Firmino, Jamie Vardy, Sergio Agüero and Raúl Jiménez all miss out due to other, better rated players from their clubs already taking a place elsewhere in the team. Instead, Harry Kane steps up as our number 9 (injury not withstanding)!
So, what does all this mean? We’re not sure! But we thought it was a perfectly good way to lose ourselves in the vast number of statistics we carry here in the app.
The overall Best XI.
Here’s a reminder of the original team produced from our ratings for the Premier League. The one without the rules applied!
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