Player Focus: Is It Problematic Being A One-Man Team?

Picking up a man of the match award is an honour that any player will happily receive in football, regardless of the result of their team. The award highlights the input and display of said performer in a game and the more a player picks up, the more highly revered they tend to be.

Naturally, any player would be disappointed to see their team succumb to defeat, but nevertheless the individual glory is always worthy of a mention. Such have been the idiosyncratic performances by the players at hand, it’s unsurprising to have seen a number of Europe’s stars pick up multiple WhoScored Man of the Match awards this year.

As things currently stand, Lionel Messi has won the most individual accolades across the continent, with the Barcelona ace securing 20 man of the match distinctions from just 32 appearances for the Blaugrana this year, four of which have been as a substitute. 

The Argentina international is out of action for the remainder of the campaign, but with only three games left across Europe - two Primera Division and one Ligue 1 - it’s now impossible for any player to match or better Messi’s record.

The closest any player across Europe could come to the Argentine is Paris Saint-Germain front man Zlatan Ibrahimovic, with the burly Swede claiming 13 individual awards for himself, although he has the chance to land a 14th should he impress during PSG’s final day encounter away at Lorient. Either way, they are impressive returns for the two players, with Ibrahimovic picking up his accolades in 33 Ligue 1 appearances.

Moving further down the rankings, Franck Ribery and Gareth Bale have picked up 11 man of the match awards each this season to make up the top four, although Cristiano Ronaldo (10) can leapfrog the pairing with two games remaining.

It’s fair to say that the five aforementioned players have enjoyed exceptional campaigns this term. Focusing on Ronaldo, the Portugal international has netted 34 goals in 34 appearances for Los Blancos this term. With such an impressive return - a goal a game is a record that any player would strive towards achieving - boasting 10 WhoScored.com man of the match awards is hardly surprising.

Those 10 awards amount to 38.4% of Real Madrid’s 26 as a collective this season, a notable return for any player regardless of the stature of club or player across the continent. Yet, that percentage is lower than that of Bale (39.2% of Spurs’ 28), Ibrahimovic (46.4% of PSG’s 28) and Messi (64.5% of Barcelona’s 31), with only Ribery (35.4% of Bayern’s 31) lower than Ronaldo in terms of the individual man of the match contribution to his respective team. 

In fact, while Ibrahimovic accounts for a huge proportion of his side's man of the match awards, his percentage is lower than that of Kevin De Bruyne, Christian Benteke, Wolfgang Hesl, Robert Snodgrass (all 50%) and Luis Suarez (47.3%), of Werder Bremen, Aston Villa, Greuther Furth, Norwich City and Liverpool respectively. With four of those five teams in the bottom half of their respective league, or having been relegated in the case of Gruether Furth, their reliance on those players may actually have been too great.

For example, while Benteke has won eight of Villa’s 16 man of the match awards, only Charles N’Zogbia and Matthew Lowton (both 2) have won more than one individual accolade, despite the club itself boasting seven different winners of the honour.

This could point to the lesser quality available to each respective manager, with Benteke in particular a key member to Paul Lambert’s starting XI this season. The Belgium international directly contributed to 48.9% of Villa’s 47 Premier League goals this season, while their next highest contributor - Gabriel Agbonlahor - aided in 25.5% of their goals this term.

Yet, when utilising a similar method with regards to De Bruyne (Werder Bremen) and Snodgrass (Norwich), the approach sees the direct input of the respective duo diminish, and while De Bruyne (38%) and Snodgrass (29.2%) are their respective teams highest direct contributors, the gap between Nils Petersen (32%) and Grant Holt (26.8%) is nowhere near as substantial as that between Benteke and Agbonlahor.

However, perhaps worryingly for Villa has been that while Agbonlahor has directly contributed the second highest amount of goals for the club this term, six of his nine Premier League goals came in Villa’s final 10 games of the campaign. This further highlights the need for another player to ease the goalscoring burden on Benteke, who has shouldered the weight almost alone for much of the season.

It’s a similar case to that at Liverpool, with Steven Gerrard (3) and Daniel Sturridge (2) the only players other than Suarez to have picked up more than one man of the match award, despite there being eight different winners of the accolade. Meanwhile it’s no shock to see Suarez contribute the highest amount of goals and assists to the Reds, with 39.4% of their goals coming through the Uruguayan in some form, with Gerrard the next best placed Liverpool player to have contributed to the team, with 25.3%. 

However, the over reliance on Suarez was evidently a problem for the club and with the striker set to miss the first six games of the new season, the arrival of Sturridge in January has been crucial. The England international is the third highest direct contributor to Liverpool, having scored or assisted 18.3% despite having made just 14 Premier League appearances under Brendan Rodgers at Anfield. With the arrival of Sturridge from Chelsea in January, Liverpool ended up scoring the most Premier League goals in 2013 (40) and much of that has been down to the striker, as Liverpool’s points per game ratio improved from 1.4 in 2012 to 1.83 in 2013.

Of course, while it is undoubtedly beneficial to boast one player of exceptional quality in the ranks, an over reliance on that man can be detrimental if there are no other playerscapable of outstanding performances when the star man is out of sorts. As shown by Bredan Rodgers, utilising the transfer window to balance out a squad can be key to turning around a season.

Sturridge’s record at Anfield following his arrival is a testament to this and regardless of the shared goal-getting responsibility of both Snodgrass and Holt at Norwich, manager Chris Hughton looks to have followed suit following the decision to sign Ricky van Wolfswinkel, with the Dutchman netting 33.3% of Sporting’s 36 Liga Sagres goals this term as the Canaries look to share the goalscoring responsibility out.

It’s perhaps a method that Villa should look to follow once the transfer window reopens as it’s evident that the Midlands outfit could well have succumbed to relegation had it not been for the late season form of Agbonlahor.