Heroes and Zeros: Ozil impresses, poor stats for Giroud

Mesut Ozil and Philippe Coutinho were among the statistical stars of the weekend, with Olivier Giroud and Paul Dummett among this week’s strugglers.

Arsenal midfielder Ozil has been in excellent form this season and created an impressive seven chances – the most of any player this weekend – as the Gunners were held to a 1-1 derby draw by Tottenham.

Coutinho also caught the eye with his eight successful dribbles against Crystal Palace, but even he was outshone by Wilfried Zaha (nine successful dribbles) as the Eagles claimed a 2-1 win at Anfield.

The win enabled Palace to make ground in our Power Rankings, but the table doesn’t make pleasant reading for Chelsea, who are now in our bottom four. Willian (six successful dribbles and four chances created) was the only Blues player to emerge with any credit from their 1-0 defeat at Stoke and our Monday Verdict was quick to criticise the performance of Chelsea’s ‘biggest problem’ Diego Costa.

It wasn’t such a good afternoon, however, for Arsenal striker Giroud, with the Frenchman misplacing 46% of the 30 passes he made in the game with Spurs and also making a total of eight unsuccessful touches.

Newcastle full-back Dummett, who misplaced 50% of the 20 passes he made in their 1-0 win at Bournemouth, another struggler.

Here, WhoScored.com look at the players that played the biggest roles for their teams over the weekend – and those that were more of a hindrance than a help…

Highest-rated players


Elliot – 9.02

Van Dijk – 8.73
Coutinho – 8.50
Kante – 8.32
M’Vila – 8.31

Most shots on target

King – 3
Fifteen players – 2

Most successful dribbles


Zaha – 9
Coutinho – 8
Willian – 6
Dembele – 5
Sessegnon – 5
Hazard – 5

Most chances created

Ozil – 7
Willian – 4
Cresswell – 4
Shaqiri – 4
Coutinho – 4

Most touches

Ki Sung-yueng – 126
Carrick – 124
Schweinsteiger – 118
Fernandez – 117
Otamendi – 112

Best pass completion (minimum 15 passes)


Arter – 96.2% (52 passes)
Wollscheid – 96.2% (26 passes)
Bassong – 95.8% (24 passes)
Gil – 95.7% (46 passes)
P. Jones – 95% (20 passes)

Most aerials won

Van Dijk – 14
Sagna – 8
Fonte – 8
Benteke – 7
Ayew – 6

Most tackles and interceptions (combined)


Debuchy – 11
Evans – 11
Moreno – 11
Kante – 11
Three players – 10

Most defensive clearances


Kaboul – 15
Van Dijk – 12
Delaney – 10
Fonte – 10
Cathcart – 10
Coates – 10

Worst pass completion (excluding goalkeepers)

Walters – 33.3% (18 passes)
Giroud – 46.7% (30 passes)
Coates – 50% (22 passes)
Dummett – 50% (20 passes)
Yacob – 51.9% (27 passes)

Most unsuccessful touches

Giroud – 8
Six players – 4

Most times dispossessed

A. Sanchez – 5
Lamela – 5
Six players – 4

All statistics courtesy of WhoScored.com, where you can find more stats, including live in-game data and unique player and team ratings. You can follow all the scores, statistics, live player and team ratings with their new free-to-download app.