Donny van de Beek, Saul Niguez among Premier League’s biggest bench riders
[ad_1]
With six months of the 2021-22 Premier League season played and clubs enjoying an ersatz, staggered “winter break,” this feels like a good time to look back and take stock.
While plenty of big-name players have lit up the league in the opening half of the campaign, many more have had to be content to wait patiently on the sidelines for a rare opportunity to impress. Very patiently.
Here we take a look at those fringe players at the “big six” clubs — Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur — who have struggled to establish themselves in the top flight this season, and who are perhaps hoping that the new year will usher in a fresh chance to make it off the bench and into their managers’ first-team plans with a little more regularity.
We went through the squads to identify the players who have spent the most time named in the matchday squad but confined to the dugout this term as we approach gameweek 24 of the season (although tell that to Burnley who, having played 18 games, are yet to reach the halfway point of their season).
Firstly, using Transfermarkt data, we sorted every player from each individual club in order of the number of Premier League matchday squads they have been included in this campaign. From those lists, we then filtered out a top five of the players with the most squad inclusions combined with the lowest amount of actual matchday involvement for their teams (factoring in starts, substitute appearances and total number of minutes spent on the pitch).
Of course, there is an element of subjectivity to be taken into consideration, but each of the “big six” clubs has at least one big-name bench rider who has failed to offer any real, sustained impact this season for one reason or another. That said, some have most definitely been more peripheral than others.
– Stream ESPN FC Daily on ESPN+ (U.S. only)
– Don’t have ESPN? Get instant access
ARSENAL
Biggest bench rider: Nicolas Pepe
Arsenal’s record…
[ad_2]
Source : espn
