Finding the best central midfielders from Danish Superliga – data analysis

In this data analysis piece, we will be looking out for the best central midfielders currently playing in Superliga using statistics. Central midfielders have come a long way in redefining their traits in the modern game. Gone are the days where central midfielders had a very limited task to do in their respective teams. The best central midfielders are the most complete ones, is the saying that rings around. Modern managers are hugely dependent on their central midfielders for the team’s successful tactics.

In our analysis, we will be considering both the attacking as well as defensive attributes. Definitely passing is the most important trait for a midfielder so that won’t be missed for sure. We will be looking at players who have registered at least 800 minutes of football in the 2021-22 league season. Also, only proper central midfielders are taken into consideration i.e. no makeshift options included. 

We will shortlist the best options according to the statistics and data analysis.  The success of players like Kasper Schmeichel and Christian Eriksen in EPL has definitely made Superliga a hotspot to find players. Let’s dive deep into the analysis.

Profiling the Players

The most important thing for any player or position in football is probably to identify their best-suited abilities. Different players playing in the same position will have different abilities both offensively and defensively. Likewise, a central midfielder will show both defensive as well as offensive capabilities. In order to account for the profile of the CMs that we are looking into we compare them with respect to how well they perform their attacking and defensive actions. We can see the plot in the image below that compares the CMs in Superliga with this regard.

From the chart, we can see that the players are clustered based on their profile with some of the players doing extremely well in the attacking sense while some of them are good defensively and are just above average offensively.

Anis Ben Slimane  The 20-year old Brondby youngster has been showing very good attacking stats here as he averages 4.05 successful attacking actions per game while also being active and sound defensively where he is just below the 75th percentile for the successful defensive action, averaging 11.67.