Where Aston Villa Would Be in the Premier League if Only English Players’ Goals Counted

english players premier league tabl

English Player Premier League Goals Table

 

This is one of those hypothetical statistic trivia kind of deals, which can be a bit hit and miss, but this one I found quite interesting and amusing. Opta have essentially compiled the most racist of league tables – a world where only English player’s goals count! Imagine if that rule actually came in…certainly Manchester City would have wasted an awful lot of money.

Anyway…

Cast your mind back a a few seasons ago and there was always a decent representation of Villa players in the England team with the likes of Ashley Young, James Milner, Gareth Barry, Darren Bent and Stewart Downing all featuring. Nowadays, it’s a different story and the above table suggests that in the attacking half of the field, present day Villa don’t really possess much English goal threat.

Out of the 31 goals Villa have scored so far this season, a mere six of them were scored by English players. That’s 19%. A certain Belgian, on his own, has bagged 29% (nine) of Villa’s league goals this season, and he’s meant to be having an average season.

Villa’s top scoring English players in the league are Gabriel Agbonlahor (three) and Fabian Delph (two), and they are pretty much the only Villa players really capable of contributing to Villa’s scoring tally.

Still, it could be worse. Check out ‘Le Newcastle’, not one goal has come from the boot or head of an English player, while a solitary James Milner strike is the only one of Manchester City’s 69-goal haul this season that came from a domestic player.

In short, judging by the above table, if England are to do anything at the World Cup, it’ll probably be down to the Liverpool, Southampton and Manchester United contingent to fly the flag. It’s almost enough to make you want to support Belgium instead. UTV
 


 

5 COMMENTS

  1. Highlights the changes we’ve had to make because of financial reasons, imo. Under O’Neill, we could afford the premiums applied to good english players, now we have to go looking for diamonds in the rough, so to speak.

    As a sidenote, If this were changed to say “homegrown” players, I wonder how much the figures would change.

    • Nope. This table was from Opta. We get stats/tables from all kinds of places, and if they have a Villa angle or are interesting, it’s always worth taking a look at them.

  2. If only English goals counted, I’d be inclined to think Lowton Albrighton Gardner Bent Bowery Delfouneso Robinson Bennett and Steer might get a bit more game time and we wouldn’t see as much of Benteke Weimann El Ahmadi Bacuna Guzan Vlaar Sylla Luna Clark Okore Kozak Helenius and Tonev.

    Honestly these statistics just annoy me. All it proves is we don’t have any great English strikers. We’ve got good English players throughout the rest of the team and squad that this doesn’t take into account at all.

    • I think the most interesting thing about the table is looking at the comparisons of some of the other teams. Like how Liverpool compare to Man City, for example.

      For Villa, it simply highlights, we’re at the opposite end of the spectrum to when O’Neill had a predominately first XI

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