The Premier League players in the worst form this season

During the football season and outside of transfer windows, we’re a pretty positive bunch around these parts. Most of our newsletters are about players and teams we enjoy watching and are excited to see get better. But being a Hater is fun, so we’re going to check in on who’s having an extremely bad time in the Premier League at the moment.

Dishonorable mention: Florian Wirtz — Liverpool

While there were quite a few wingers or attacking midfielders who are performing worse than Florian Wirtz, I figured this was a radar a lot of people wanted to see. He’s working hard, avoiding crap turnovers and he’s a plus passer, but he’s also not really doing anything around the box.

I am a big Wirtz believer, and I think the goal and assist production will come eventually. But I have to admit that it’s not looking good for my boy.

OK, onto guys who are much worse than Florian Wirtz.

Goalkeeper: Mads Hermansen and Alphonse Areola — West Ham

The Hammers spent £20m on Hermansen this summer, only to bench him after just four games for playing poorly. He was, indeed, playing poorly enough to deserve getting benched. Problem is, his replacement Alphonse Areola is not any better.

West Ham have been a bit unlucky with opponent finishing — the 55 shots on target they’ve conceded have been worth 7.36 xG and a whopping 18.12 post-shot xG. Opponents are placing them well. But even given that, Hermansen and Areola have allowed 22 non-penalty goals.

Neither player is providing any value with their distribution either, even through coaching and system changes. I’ll make apologies for some guys in this newsletter, but these two are just unequivocally poor.

Fullback, kind of: Dan Burn — Newcastle

We’re being a little unfair, because he’s split time between two positions due to injuries, but he does not appear to have any skills besides being 6’7”. Apologies to all the parents reading this who just heard their children’s voices reading Dan Burn’s height.

Burn is winning 65% of his attempted tackles, which isn’t truly horrendous, but only good for 30th percentile in the sample. He’s providing absolutely no dribbling or passing value, as you might expect if you have ever seen him play. He is succeeding at being large — Burn has 24! shots this year, so he remains a set piece monster — but he’s become a liability in all other phases in his age 34 season.

Center back: Maxime Esteve — Burnley

Following an excellent Championship campaign, Esteve — dubbed Maximum Steve by my friends at Cartilage Free Captain — was linked to a big money transfer. He opted to sign a contract extension and play for Burnley in the Premier League instead. That might have been a bad move for his long-term career prospects.

Esteve’s numbers are definitely suppressed by playing for Burnley, who are bad and going to get relegated. But for comparison, here’s what Taylor Harwood-Bellis did on Southampton last season. I think these players are extremely comparable in quality of team played for, age, experience, ability level, and current market value.

If Esteve genuinely loves Burnley and never wants to leave, good for him. But let this be a lesson to players who are trying to advance in their careers: If you’re faced with the choice of playing for a relegation battler or moving to a better team, always move to the better team. Even if you have to throw a fit and look like a dick on your way out. It might take a long time for Esteve’s stock to recover from this campaign.

Midfield: Casemiro — Manchester United

Sorry for spending a lot of this newsletter being mean to the elderly, but Casemiro has a few Champions League wins to his name and makes £20m a year, so I think he can handle some shit talk.

Casemiro provided basically no ball progression value to United last year, while being decent defensively. He was very widely considered to be washed, and United fans were hoping he’d make his way to Saudi Arabia last summer. He did not, and this year he is worse at everything.

With only 6 months left on his contract, perhaps he’ll accept a payoff of a couple million less than the remaining value to go away in January.

Winger/attacking mid: Morgan Rogers — Aston Villa

Villa are sitting in 6th thanks to a series of narrow wins where they got out-xG’d, and an odd 4-0 win over Bournemouth that probably ends up 2-1 more often than not if you were to run 1000 sims. And the biggest underperformer of the bunch has been Rogers, who Villa scared suitors off in the final weeks of the transfer window.

Amidst rumours that Spurs and other teams were interested, Villa leaked that it would take a bid in excess of £100m to even get them to a negotiating table. But if he keeps this up, he’s going to get dropped.

We’ve held off on a “why are Aston Villa struggling” deep dive because, well… they’ve been winning games. But the attack is not clicking this year, even though ball is going in net sometimes, and Rogers’ downturn in form is a big part of the problem. If he doesn’t start playing better soon, the goals are going to dry up.

Striker: Beto and Thierno Barry — Everton

David Moyes and new ownership have revitalized Everton. They might be my favorite team to watch as a neutral so far this season. The attacking midfield trio of Jack Grealish, Kieran Dewsbury-Hall and Illman Ndiaye are on outstanding form.

And their strikers cannot put the ball in the damn goal. Here’s Beto’s shot chart.

And here’s Thierno Barry’s.

1 goal from 5 xG between the two of them. A whopping -2.23 combined shot OBV rating. Everton have the best group of playmakers they’ve had in 15 years, serving assists on a platter repeatedly, and the big boys just cannot tap it in.

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