Exploring the Best EPL Creators by xT: A Zone-by-Zone Analysis

It’s evident that we are witnessing an exciting championship race in the English Premier League. Moreover, within one of the teams competing for the title, there are two players whose efficiency metrics in creating chances through passes and carrying the ball are phenomenal. From a data perspective, they are more akin to anomalies.

Below is a visualization created using Opta event data and the xT matrix, calculated for the top 5 European leagues over the last 5 years.

The first time I encountered this type of visualization was on Twitter through Jake Kolliari, who has been working at Swancy since December 2023. Inspired by his work, I decided to create a similar visualization for myself, focusing on the current state of the EPL.

For each zone, the player with the highest expected threat (xT) from open play per 90 minutes of the game during this season was selected. xT serves as an indicator of the change in the probability of scoring a goal as a result of moving the ball, either by a pass or a carry.

It can be noted:

• Manchester City dominates in 5 out of 30 zones, with Rodri and Doku being the best in two areas of the field.
• Chelsea players are present in 4 zones: Mudryk and Colwill on the left flank and Palmer in the central part of the penalty area (personally, an unexpected position for the Englishman).
• Liverpool players also occupy 4 zones, all positions look expected and, it seems, do not raise additional questions.
• Tottenham players, who predominantly play vertically this season, are located in 3 central zones of the field.
• Another 3 zones are covered by Ødegaard and Saka from Arsenal, leaning towards the right part of the final third of the field.
• Carlos’s position in the central part of the field seems unexpected at the moment; it would be interesting to hear critiques from those who have watched many Aston Villa matches this season.

Below, I’ve provided two rankings that were shown in the previous article, just to highlight once again the phenomenal impact of Manchester City players.

Overall impact of Doku.

And Rodri’s lead against other players in the TOP25 passers by xT this season.

P.s. for logos, thanks to luukhopman https://github.com/luukhopman/football-logos

If you’re interested in a code breakdown for creating such visualizations, calculating metrics, and working with football event data, please let me know in the comments. In future works, I will be posting examples of code and implementations.