Stoke City player ratings make interesting reading, but do figures prove anything?

After a Stoke game, many fans rush to read how The Sentinel rates the players, with each City player getting a score out of 10. It’s said that the players even check their ratings too!

But collectively, do they tell Stoke fans much about how the season is going, and how well the new batch of players are really doing?

In years gone by The Oatcake fanzine (who also rated players out of 10 for each game) kept a running table showing each player’s average score for the season. The winner was declared Player Of The Season, but often it revealed an unlikely champion.

These days it’s usually Sentinel reporter (and Stoke City expert) Pete Smith who sits in the hot seat when it comes to rating the Stoke players. Individually these ratings are a valid summation of the player and the game. But when all the scores are compiled, can they tell us anything more?

Well, after 29 games (26 league games and 3 cup games) we can reveal the current average scores for this season. (Note: Players with 3 or fewer starts are not in the main list):

In reality there isn’t really much between these scores, with most players scoring an average of between 6.2 and 6.5 out of 10.

The exceptions are Junior with a slightly better 6.86 and Wouter Burger with 6.63. And certainly keeper Mark Travers must have impressed as he averaged 6.79 compared with Jack Bonham’s 6.29.

At the bottom is struggling Dwight Gayle with 5.83, but for many fans it will be a surprise perhaps to see defender Lynden Gooch just above him on only 5.97.

It may also puzzle fans why Ryan Mmaee (Stoke’s 2^nd highest goalscorer) is in the bottom third below the likes of Wesley.

To obtain these average scores, the figures DO include the scores that players received when they came on a substitute (excluding subs that only came on for the final few seconds, and thus were not given a rating). However, an algorithm has been used to diminish substitution scores compared to scores from players who started a game, as substitutes only play approximately 25% of a game.

The only players whose average score would have changed much from not using this “substitution algorithm” are Haksabanovic, whose score would have been slightly lower (6.36) as his appearances as sub were not as impressive as the times he started a game, and Gooch, whose score would have been slightly higher (6.11) as he has actually made some decent substitution appearances.

Here are the figures showing the average score for players who started games, then the average score including substitution scores, and finally the average of both those scores.

One thing that fans want to know is what difference has there been since Alex Neil’s departure, which was 6 games ago? Well, most figures haven’t changed much, but there certainly have been improvements in some players:

Average scores for the last 6 games show keeper Bonham nearing Travers’ score with 6.66, Mmaee boosted to 6.5, Gooch bouncing up to 6.75 (although that was only in the 4 games before injury), but Burger hitting an astonishing average of 7, making him the emerging star of Steven Schumacher’s new team.

It will certainly be interesting to see how the figures look at the end of the season where a clearer comparison between the two managers will emerge.

In the meantime, keep watching those player ratings!