Özil Is A Flop? Not According To These Stats

Mesut Özil was labelled a flop by many last year whilst Philippe Coutinho has just won back-to-back player of the month awards at Liverpool and is being hailed as one of the Premier League's best players this season.

Opta-powered fantasy football game www.oulala.com decided to look closely at both players to see if Özil is deserving of the flop tag and whether Coutinho is really as good as everyone says he is. The stats tell follow a different narrative...

German international Mesut Özil has only appeared for Arsenal in the Premier League 10 times this season due to a knee injury whereas Coutinho has featured for Liverpool 22 times. To give a more accurate reflection the comparison was made via a per game basis.

The seven main statistical performance criteria were analysed for attacking midfielders, focusing on passing, creativity and finishing.

Özil dominates all four passing stats with more passes made per appearance (56.7 to 39.32), more successful passes 49.6 to Coutinho's 31.5, a better key pass rate (1.8 to 1.14) and a 7% swing for pass completion (87% to 80%) it is .

From a creative point of view it is the Arsenal man who excels again. Özil has created more chances (2.10 to 1.32) per match and has provided more key passes (assists) that have led to goals with 0.3 to the Brazilian's 0.18.

Arsenal's record signing has attracted criticism in the past for the number of goals he scores in his attacking role, however this season he leads Coutinho for goals scored per game 0.3 - approximately 1 in 3 matches - to 0.09 (roughly one in 11).

With Mesut Özil outperforming Coutinho in seven key areas this season the results are conclusive. Statistically speaking the Germany star has finally found his feet in the Premier League so should he actually be receiving more praise than he has previously enjoyed in English football?