The international break is a time for reflection in the Premier League and assessing how the campaign has unfolded.
During the coming days fans are likely to read plenty of reviews of the season so far and Manchester United star Paul Pogba is likely to feature heavily in those.
The latest one includes the French star and it’s not just an assessment of the Premier League, it’s the whole of Europe, with Pogba rated as the fourth best player on the continent based on how valuable he is to the Reds.
Your question might be, how is that worked out? Well, the good folks at whoscored.com have gone through the goals and assists and assessed how many points players across Europe have directly chipped in for their sides.
Now it’s certainly flawed. This is more of an assessment of how effective creative and attacking players have been because it’s based on goals and assists.
Someone like Liverpool star Virgil van Dijk would never appear high on this list because he’s a defender yet every block, tackle or interception could easily be deemed as influential in getting points as scoring a goal.
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But regardless these statistics are still interesting from an attacking perspective, with United midfielder Paul Pogba fourth on the list across Europe behind only Barcelona’s Lionel Messi, Chelsea star Eden Hazard and Lille’s Nicolas Pepe.
Even Cristiano Ronaldo is not as influential for his current team as Pogba is for United, with the Juventus star eighth on the list.
Pogba has played a hand in 20 league goals this term, having netted eleven times and assisted nine goals. That's good for 19 points.
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It’s quite a remarkable achievement for Pogba, especially considering that a large proportion of those contributions have come since Jose Mourinho was sacked in December. It’s safe to say Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been able to get the best out of the 26-year-old.
In its essence, whoscored.com have worked out how many points a player’s side would have lost each week if you take out their assists and goals. Therefore, they have worked out how many points each player has contributed to their team, with those numbers below.
Top ten most valuable players in Europe based on points contributions:
- Nicolas Pepe (25 points for Lille)
- Eden Hazard (20 points for Chelsea)
- Lionel Messi (20 points for Barcelona)
- Paul Pogba (19 points for Manchester United)
- Antoine Griezmann (18 points for Atletico Madrid)
- Jadon Sancho (18 points for Borussia Dortmund)
- Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (18 points for Arsenal)
- Cristiano Ronaldo (18 points for Juventus)
- Wissam Ben Yedder (17 points for Sevilla)
- Duvan Zapata (17 points won for Atalanta)
