- Where is Connor Taylor?
- What has gone pear-shaped with Morgan Fox?
- Is Dwight Gayle really worth so many starts and Wright-Phillips worth NONE?
Nobody ever agrees exactly with a match’s player ratings, where each player’s performance is given a score out of 10.
In years gone by, The Oatcake fanzine used to rate each Stoke City player for each game, and then compile a league table to find the best rated Stoke player (based on an average of the scores). What did it prove? Some might feel not a lot, as often less exciting players such as Joe Allen would top such a table, mainly for ponderous dependability rather than ecstatic goal-scoring capability.
So, as the Sentinel newspaper obligingly assesses each player’s performance (usually by Stoke stat expert Pete Smith), what can be learnt from compiling these figures?
Well, in the first 7 games before Alex Neil took over, the stars of the show appeared to be Connor Taylor (on average 6.71 out of 10), Dwight Gayle (6.41) and Jacob Brown (6.39), with even Morgan Fox looking good (although he only played 2 games out of 7 for his 6.50 score).
Average scores for Stoke’s first 7 games (ie pre-Alex Neil)
[Note that “Games” means Starts, so Wright-Phillips’ scores
are all for substitute appearances]
Conversely, the likes of Jagielka (5.33), Bursik (6.00), Tymon (6.00) and even Tyrese Campbell (6.00) appeared to struggle in those early Michael O’Neill games.
But now after 19 games, striker Campbell (6.53), keeper Bursik (6.27) and defender Jagielka (6.2) have made remarkable improvements, whilst Gayle (6.15), Brown (6.09) and (most spectacularly) Morgan Fox (6.0) have sagged alarmingly.
Average scores for Stoke’s first 19 games (including one cup game)
Defender Fox has particularly struggled, scoring only a “4” in the dreadful 0-4 Watford defeat and a disastrous “3” in the 1-3 debacle at Norwich last weekend. And that doesn’t even take into account his unforgettable spot-kick miss in the penalty shootout at Morecambe. Yet he has started EVERY game since Alex Neil took over.
But the big question is where is young defender Connor Taylor? His scores had him clearly top of the table before Alex Neil’s arrival (6.71), and even now, after the very few games that Neil has picked him for – 2 starts, and 4 sub appearances – he is STILL top of the table (6.55)! Curiously, Alex Neil seems to prefer the more experienced Jagielka (6.2) and Wilmot (6.39), and for some reason doesn’t seem to want to unseat Fox, particularly on the left of a back-three. And even Aden Flint (6.0) gets the nod on the bench over Taylor.
Also spurned is D’Margio Wright-Phillips, whose 8 substitute appearances (and ZERO starts!) give him 6.13 – impressive for just substitution appearances where you get little chance to shine. Yet Dwight Gayle has had 15 starts and has averaged about the same (6.15)! Gayle has slaved away up front, playing a part in all but one of the 19 games so far, but his failure to score has started to become an issue, and he even picked up a dreadful score of only “3” against Norwich. Worse still is that Wright-Phillips has at least scored a goal this season! But even that stat isn’t enough to get him a start in Neil’s team.
When asked about Wright-Phillips and Taylor this week, Neil’s view was that it was the likes of Fosu and Wilmot that were keeping the “youngsters” out of the team, although he did reveal that Taylor had been carrying an injury for the last fortnight, which prevented him from being in contention.
Leading the league (well, below Connor Taylor) after 19 games is Tyrese Campbell (currently out with Glandular Fever) and the Joe Allen candidate Jordan Thompson (6.5). Thompson is intriguing as for the games that he actually starts he has a pretty impressive average of 6.71! Compare that to ever present captain Lewis Baker with a paltry 6.32, who may have scored a “9” for the win at Hull (only Bursik and Tyrese also have a “9” this season), but has also had FIVE scores of “5”, and one of “4” (against Norwich, unsurprisingly).
However, whether any Stoke fan would see the likes of Taylor, Thompson, Sterling or Delap (4 of the top 5 currently) as player-of-the-season-so-far is another matter. Between you, me and the goalpost, the good money is on striker Tyrese Campbell. He may be currently in second place with 6.53, but for Alex Neil’s 12 games (for which he’s featured in 9), his score is an unassailable 6.81!
But hell, figures prove nothing!
