Samir Nasri is not going to the World Cup. Given his foibles
with the French national team, this was not exactly a surprise, but it’s a
stupid decision nonetheless. Ryan O’Hanlon recently wrote a terrific piece on
Samir Nasri for Grantland, highlighting his talent for retaining possession
while still creating chances for his teammates.
It’s tough to quantify the benefit of someone who’s so careful with the ball so high up the field. And yet he was second on the team (obviously) to Silva in key passes per game, with 2.7. Across the league, among all players who completed 90 percent of their passes, no one else created more than one chance per game. Nasri steadied the rollicking death train that was often Manchester City in possession, but also accelerated it forward.
Tough to quantify, eh? Challenge accepted! Let’s start by
saying the metrics O’Hanlon used are pretty flawed. Using passing percentage to
approximate ball control has its problems, potentially inflating a player’s totals
due to making easy, short passes (Javi Garcia has a 91% passing percentage
after all). And using per game
statistics doesn’t account for the minutes each player played. The best measure
of a player’s creativity, as I’ve argued before, is how many chances he creates
for each time he turns the ball over to the other team. Think of each attempted
defense-splitting pass as a risk. It can be successful and lead to a chance on
goal, or it can be intercepted by the defense and lead to a counter-attack.
Those players that consistently provide that successful final ball, as Nasri
has done this year, are going to be much more valuable than those who hit and
hope. As this is a ratio rather than a counting stat, we can compare players much
more easily without having to worry about the number of games they played.
Unfortunately, nowhere really measures turnovers yet, so I
have developed the following proxy (all data from Squawka.com):
Chances Created/Turnover Proxy = Key Passes/(Unsuccessful
Passes + Unsuccessful Take-Ons)
As you can see, this helps account for times the player lost
the ball in possession as well as the times he misplaced a pass. I’ve looked at
all midfielders with over 1000 minutes played and over 20 key passes in the Premier League this year
and placed their results in the table below.
| Name | Chances Created vs Turnovers |
| Dorrans | 0.37 |
| Willian | 0.37 |
| Nasri | 0.34 |
| Mata | 0.34 |
| Mirallas | 0.34 |
| Silva | 0.32 |
| Assaidi | 0.31 |
| Jesus Navas | 0.30 |
| Downing | 0.29 |
| Ozil | 0.28 |
| Eriksen | 0.27 |
| Adam Johnson | 0.27 |
| Jarvis | 0.26 |
| Dembele | 0.26 |
| Sessegnon | 0.26 |
| Kacaniklic | 0.26 |
| Larsson | 0.25 |
| Ward-Prowse | 0.24 |
| Ki Sung-Yueng | 0.24 |
| Westwood | 0.23 |
| Snodgrass | 0.22 |
| Lallana | 0.22 |
| Townsend | 0.22 |
| De Guzman | 0.22 |
| Chadli | 0.22 |
| Whittingham | 0.21 |
| Sissoko | 0.21 |
| Giaccherini | 0.21 |
| Ireland | 0.21 |
| Lennon | 0.21 |
| Amalfitano | 0.21 |
| Sterling | 0.21 |
| Ben Arfa | 0.20 |
| Boyd | 0.19 |
| Bannan | 0.19 |
| Cazorla | 0.19 |
| Cabaye | 0.19 |
| Henderson | 0.19 |
| Oscar | 0.19 |
| Puncheon | 0.18 |
| Fernandinho | 0.18 |
| Januzaj | 0.18 |
| Holtby | 0.18 |
| Milner | 0.17 |
| Rosicky | 0.17 |
| Coutinho | 0.17 |
| Davis | 0.17 |
| Gerrard | 0.17 |
| Nolan | 0.17 |
| Lampard | 0.17 |
| McCarthy | 0.17 |
| Pienaar | 0.16 |
| Anita | 0.16 |
| Sigurdsson | 0.16 |
| Noble | 0.16 |
| Allen | 0.16 |
| Colback | 0.16 |
| Whelan | 0.16 |
| Dejagah | 0.16 |
| Redmond | 0.15 |
| Huddlestone | 0.15 |
| Routledge | 0.14 |
| James Morrison | 0.14 |
| Fer | 0.14 |
| Nathan Dyer | 0.14 |
| Shelvey | 0.14 |
| El Ahmadi | 0.14 |
| Schneiderlin | 0.13 |
| Kim Bo-Kyung | 0.13 |
| Brunt | 0.13 |
| Ashley Young | 0.13 |
| Wilshere | 0.13 |
| Barry | 0.13 |
| Noone | 0.13 |
| Kagawa | 0.13 |
| Tettey | 0.13 |
| Matic | 0.12 |
| Valencia | 0.12 |
| Yaya Toure | 0.12 |
| Pablo Hernandez | 0.12 |
| Carrick | 0.12 |
| Ramires | 0.11 |
| Adam | 0.11 |
| Arteta | 0.11 |
| Nzonzi | 0.11 |
| Osman | 0.11 |
| Mikel | 0.11 |
| Barkley | 0.11 |
| Kasami | 0.11 |
| Koren | 0.11 |
| Livermore | 0.10 |
| Javi Garcia | 0.10 |
| Howson | 0.10 |
| Gunnarsson | 0.10 |
| Kieran Richardson | 0.10 |
| Bolasie | 0.10 |
| Leiva | 0.10 |
| Mutch | 0.10 |
| Ledley | 0.10 |
| Ravel Morrison | 0.09 |
| Delph | 0.09 |
| Paulinho | 0.09 |
| Diame | 0.09 |
| Ramsey | 0.09 |
| Scott Parker | 0.09 |
| Dikgacoi | 0.09 |
| Cleverley | 0.08 |
| Cattermole | 0.08 |
| Tiote | 0.08 |
| Bentaleb | 0.08 |
| Cork | 0.07 |
| Sidwell | 0.07 |
| Yacob | 0.07 |
| Flamini | 0.07 |
| Meyler | 0.07 |
| Jedinak | 0.07 |
| Elmohamady | 0.07 |
| Bradley Johnson | 0.06 |
| Calum Chambers | 0.06 |
| Mulumbu | 0.06 |
| Fellaini | 0.06 |
| Britton | 0.05 |
| Matt Taylor | 0.05 |
| Wanyama | 0.04 |
| Medel | 0.03 |
| Bacuna | 0.03 |
| Canas | 0.02 |
As you can see, Nasri is third in the league by this metric
behind Graham Dorrans (whose result should be taken with a grain of salt due to the
smaller sample size, he played just over 1000 minutes) and Willian. Mata,
Silva, Kevin Mirallas, Jesus Navas, and Mesut Ozil are all high up on the
leaderboard as well. With three midfielders high up the board, it’s no wonder
that Manchester City were such a potent attacking force this year.
And that is what France are missing out on: a potent
attacking force. If you look at total chances per turnover (expressed as (SOG +
Key Passes) / (Unsuccessful Passes + Unsuccessful Take-Ons)), Nasri looks even
better, ranking #2 behind Mirallas. He is one of the best attacking
midfielders in England and would improve any squad. Leaving your best players out
of the squad is no way to win a World Cup.
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