Declan Rice, Paul Scholes embarrassed as the best Premier League midfielder decided

We’re not having any of this “can’t we just enjoy all of them?” nonsense here at Football365 and in a bid to end the debate about the best Premier League midfielder after Moises Caicedo’s stunning display against Liverpool raised the question, we’ve used 10 different Premier League stats from this season to compare the Fab Four.

Although, as shown conclusively by these stats, it’s actually the Thrilling Three and some guy Paul Scholes picked as the best in his very successful pursuit to prove that great players often make awful pundits.

We’ve tried to pick out the most important traits of a midfielder, assigning points for how they rank, and our thanks go to FBRef and their very useful player comparison tool.

Goals

1) Moises Caicedo – 3 (three points)
2) Ryan Gravenberch – 2 (two points)
3) Declan Rice – 1 (one point)
4) Sandro Tonali – 0 (no points)

It strikes us, if you’ll excuse the pun, that this is a mirror image of the order many would expect on the basis of how attacking these players are. Those people evidently haven’t accounted for Caicedo’s howitzer work in training.

Assists

1) Declan Rice – 2 (3)
2=) Ryan Gravenberch – 1 (2)
2=) Sandro Tonali – 1 (2)
4) Moises Caicedo – 0 (0)

Never going to be a particularly fair comparison as Rice and Tonali take corners and deliver from set-pieces while Gravenberch and Caicedo don’t, but they take them because they’re good at them and also have fewer scoring opportunities as a result.

Goals-xG

1) Moises Caicedo – +2.5 (3)
2) Ryan Gravenberch – +1.6 (2)
3) Declan Rice – +0.5 (1)
4) Sandro Tonali – -0.3 (0)

Caicedo rarely ventures into the opposition area so his shots are always likely to carry a high xG, and four of his five Chelsea goals have indeed come from outside the box, including the one on the final day of the 2022/2024 season from halfway against Bournemouth.

Progressive carrying distance (yards, per 90)

1) Ryan Gravenberch – 161.0 (3)
2) Declan Rice – 134.3 (2)
3) Sandro Tonali – 103.4 (1)
4) Moises Caicedo – 84.4 (0)

We might have expected Rice to be leading the way here, as we tend to picture him marauding through midfield, but Gravenberch is starting from a deeper position and there is no-one better at taking the ball on his back foot and spinning past the press.

Pass completion percentage

1) Moises Caicedo – 91.1 (3)
2) Ryan Gravenberch – 87.9 (2)
3) Declan Rice – 85.1 (1)
4) Sandro Tonali – 80.3 (0)

Aston Villa’s Lamare Bogarde (94.3%) is the only Premier League midfielder with a higher percentage than Caicedo, and while it’s quite correctly no longer used as the stat to illustrate the quality of players in their position, we do also think Tonali should be somewhere above Nick Woltemade (82.1%); higher than 126th in the Premier League.

Passes into final third (per 90)

1) Sandro Tonali – 6.27 (3)
2) Ryan Gravenberch – 5.67 (2)
3) Moises Caicedo – 5.57 (1)
4) Declan Rice – 4.50 (0)

Tonali’s only victory and it speaks to his crushing pass percentage defeat. Rice takes more corners (4.67) than he attempts passes into the final third.

Shot-creating actions (per 90)

1) Ryan Gravenberch – 4.17 (3)
2) Declan Rice – 3.31 (2)
3) Sandro Tonali – 3.27 (1)
4) Moises Caicedo – 1.86 (0)

Shot-creating actions are the two offensive actions leading directly to a shot, whether that’s a pass, dribble or drawing a foul. Gravenberch is shaming Rice and Tonali from the base of Liverpool’s midfield.

Tackles and interceptions (per 90)

1) Moises Caicedo – 6.57 (3)
2) Ryan Gravenberch – 3.00 (2)
3) Sandro Tonali – 2.69 (1)
4) Declan Rice – 1.50 (0)

Not a fair fight. No player in the top five European leagues has made more than Caicedo’s 46 tackles and interceptions.

Miscontrols (per 90)

1) Moises Caicedo – 0.57 (3)
2) Declan Rice – 1.33 (2)
3) Sandro Tonali – 1.34 (1)
4) Ryan Gravenberch – 1.67 (0)

Bit of a surprise to see Gravenberch at the bottom here, as the most Rolls Royce-y of all of them. One miscontrol every two games from Caicedo is extraordinary.

Ball recoveries (per 90)

1) Moises Caicedo – 5.43 (3)
2) Declan Rice – 4.83 (2)
3) Ryan Gravenberch – 4.67 (1)
4) Sandro Tonali – 4.03 (0)

Of course Caicedo is pouncing most effectively on the loose balls, but he’s some way behind Premier League leader Elliot Anderson (7.86). Maybe this should be a Fantastic Five?

The best midfielder in the Premier League

1=) Ryan Gravenberch – 19
1=) Moises Caicedo – 19
3) Declan Rice – 13
4) Sandro Tonali – 9

Different paths to share the gong as Caicedo is generally either the best or the worst at different facets of the game, while Gravenberch is good at most things. Egg on Scholesy’s face for his Tonali shout, and indeed Carragher’s as he plumped for Rice as his best midfielder in the Premier League.