After an 8th consecutive trophyless season, talks of crisis at Arsenal are ringing around the Emirates Stadium once more. However, according to the latest statistics on passing, one player in a Gunners jersey has stood above all others in the Premier League this season: Mikel Arteta.
Mikel Arteta tops the list in terms of number of passes per game, having averaged 84.6 passes throughout his 25 Premier League appearances this season.
As for pass completion rate, Arteta has successfully completed 92.4% of his attempted passes for the Gunners this year.
Second in the list is Swansea’s Ki Sung Yeung who has achieved a pass completion rate of 92.3% in an impressive first Premier League season at the Liberty Stadium.
Surprisingly, Per Mertesacker and Jamie Carragher also make the top 5 for pass completion, although they both have averaged only 0.1 key passes per game and are mostly responsible for passing the ball around the defence or to a team-mate dropping from midfield.
Widely acclaimed Swansea midfielder Leon Britton lies in 7th place, having completed 91.1% of passes this season.
Yaya Toure, Michael Carrick, Steven Gerrard and Santi Cazorla perhaps unsurprisingly join Arteta in the top 5 for average number of passes per game whereas David Silva leads the charts for the average number of key passes per game at 3.3, closely followed by Leighton Baines with 3.2.
Source: www.whoscored.com