Tomáš Rosický

Arsenal

Attacking midfielder - Czech Republic

2010/2011 Mid-season: 248
End of 2010/11 - Start of 2011/12: Unranked
2011/2012 Mid-season: Unranked
End of 2011/12 - Start of 2012/13: 285

End of 2011/12 - Start of 2012/13:

This was the most Tomas Rosicky played for Arsenal since his first season way back in 2006/07 and he makes a modest comeback on the list.

He is a player who of course has been plagued by injuries throughout his career. The worst when he missed the entire 2008/09 season but even before that, and after, injuries has often meant continuous struggling finding prolonged form over a full season. When at his best he's been an excellent player, often for the national team, but looking all the way back to when he became, at that point the Bundesliga's most expensive player ever, signing for Dortmund in 2001, you expected more and unfortunately it's probably fair to say that "Little Mozart" has never really been able to fully live up to his great talent and become one of the best players in the world.


Tomas Rosicky has the kind of fine technique and clever movement where he can excel in smaller spaces under pressure. When at his best, not least physically, allowing for greater activity, more movement, he is so good he can dictate a game or even create with some fine passing, including a nice through-ball, when he is not however, and that's been the case too much, everything is less, there is certainly not much dictating, it's more in spurts, and unlike a whole new generation of excellent small-space players (think all the current great attacking Spain midfielders) he won't have the physical capabilities to consistently execute effective ball pressure higher up the pitch when possession is lost and any tracking back also becomes a serious physical challenge, in other words he is struggling with positive contributions to defense, the very kind that his type of player almost has to have in their arsenal in current football if they want to be counted among the elite, overall then in my opinion reducing current Rosicky's value to a team significantly

Raul Garcia

Osasuna/Atletico Madrid

Midfielder - Spain

2010/2011 Mid-season: Unranked
End of 2010/11 - Start of 2011/12: Unranked
2011/2012 Mid-season: Unranked
End of 2011/12 - Start of 2012/13: 289

End of 2011/12 - Start of 2012/13:

Raul Garcia had always had a lot of all-round midfield talent, technical as well as physical, for Spain he was something of a star at U-21 level, but for what had amassed to a couple of years quickly he just wasn't making it happen at Atletico Madrid and his career was going seriously stale.

The answer turned out to be a season long loan-deal to his early home Osasuna, the place where he had first broken through (leading them to the UEFA Cup semifinal back in 2007) and of course made Atletico Madrid pay good money for his services.

Now back at Osasuna 2011/12 he became something of a talismanic presence once again, contributing in many ways from midfield. With his great kicking-technique and knack for seeing the right openings he created goals for himself and others both in open play and on set-pieces (where Osasuna was 3rd best in the league with 19 goals overall) tallying 11 goals (Garcia was Osasuna's top scorer) and 8 assists (where only Navas and Castro were better outside Real Madrid and Barcelona)  being instrumental leading Osasuna to an impressive 7th place finish.

Raul Garcia is also very active battling in midfield in duel play phases of the game. He is physically strong and there are definitely some spoiler qualities in place as well being in the La Liga top 5 when it comes to fouls committed averaging 2.4 per game.

One way that he was utilized at Osasuna this season, which I don't remember seeing with any consistency previously for Atletico Madrid, was in aerial play where he was both an effective playing- station further up the pitch and with his head scored some goals as well. All in all his 3.3 headers won per game was the 4th best in the league.

2012/13 he is back in Madrid and can once again experience midfield starts hard to find. In many ways however I do think he is someone who should be to coach Diego Simeone's liking, for starters his characteristic made perhaps the most direct-playing team in the league, as well as one of the more physical (Osasuna), last season a lot better, all in all that's also the direction of Diego Simeone, unfortunately though for Garcia the Atletico Madrid central midfield duo of Gabi and Mario Suarez has been superb for a while now and for the more attacking roles behind or around fantastic striker-stud Falcao there are more obvious choices as well.

Staying in the top 300 will be difficult.

Younés Belhanda

Montpellier

Attacking midfielder - Morocco

2010/2011 Mid-season: Unranked
End of 2010/11 - Start of 2011/12: Unranked
2011/2012 Mid-season:  Unranked
End of 2011/12 - Start of 2012/13: 160 

End of 2011/12 - Start of 2012/13:

Belhanda had his big breakthrough being a key player in Montpellier's very surprising championship win in France. Having said that I can't help thinking that this ranking might be too much of a good thing too early and instead I should have debuted him lower.

That aside, what impresses me most about Belhanda when watching him playing for Montpellier is his very stellar combination of technique and anticipation. Very often he knows exactly what will happen before it does and gets the best out of situations with very impressive first and second touches whether it's the impressive tactical dribble or nice passes, horizontal or vertical.

He is often mentioned as Montpellier's playmaker and that's not wrong (he certainly makes plays) but he is not the kind with an overwhelming number of passes, conducting, retaining or building possession. In fact two other midfielders for Montpellier had more passes per game than him. But he is the one with the fine technique and inspiration to be decisive creating openings (whether for himself or teammates) or just taking advantage of them the best, often in the final third where his chemestry with goalgetter Giroud was excellent, and often in a very direct manner making him very effective.

I also think  that Belhanda looks like a good athlete. When it comes to defending his stats don't indicate great activity, but that might not say much depending on plenty of things, and I'm really most interested in how good he is at pressing immediately when possession is lost, the effectiveness of his pressing in general or if he is just more of a limited tracking back into defensive shape type of player. Those are the kind of things that I'm guessing will help determine his next ranking.

Some Belhanda key stats from the 2011/12  Ligue 1 season:

He was 6th in Through-Balls per game (1. Pastore 2. Nene 3. Menez 4. Martin 5. Hazard).

He was 6th in Key-Passes per game ( 1. Nene 2. Valbuena 3. Feret 4. Didot 5. Hazard).

He was the 15th most fouled player in the league.

Ilkay Gündogan

Dortmund 

Midfielder - Germany 

2010/2011 Mid-season: Unranked
End of 2010/11 - Start of 2011/12:  Unranked
2011/2012 Mid-season:  Unranked
End of 2011/12 - Start of 2012/13: 290 

 End of 2011/12 - Start of 2012/13:

I think 21 year old Gündogan can be excused for his uneven start at champions Dortmund in 2011.

He had shown a lot of talent at Nürnberg the season before so when Dortmund lost Nuri Sahin to Real Madrid, coach Klopp decided Gündogan was the right man to replace him. Sahin had been Dortmund's, and arguably the league's, best player that season meaning Gündogan had very big shoes to fill.

Then when you consider that at Nürnberg he had actually been more of an attacking midfielder and now he was put into the huge and very different role, where Klopp saw his potential, of distributing deeper in midfield, seeing many more touches, facing more decisions, the place where Sahin had been a brilliant deep-lying playmaker.

Gündogan was definitely struggling early on, too vulnerable when targeted by opponent ball-pressure and not making great decisions building play or let alone making plays further back than he was used to create, trying to be an important part of Dortmund much feared transition game. 

Things got better though and after the winter-break he stepped up when desperately needed (defensive midfielder Bender was out with injury) playing at a high level alongside veteran Sebastian Kehl making a nice comeback after his injury-nightmare, establishing himself as an integral part of the Dortmund midfield with very skillful touches, passing and intelligence.

Compared to Nürnberg he went from 29 passes a game to 48 at Dortmund. He even managed an average of 2.2 dribbles a game which made him the only central midfielder in the Bundesliga top 20 in that department and crucially he showed he could also contribute defensively in central midfield and in Dortmund's highly aggressive team-defense, indicated by him more than doubling his average interceptions and tackles compared to his breakthrough at Nürnberg going from 1.2 and 1.1 tackles and interceptions to 2.8 and 2.3 respectively.

You can't really say he was an elite deep-lying playmaker like Sahin had been, but a little bit less than that is certainly not bad either, in fact it's very good in its own right, and skillful midfield distributors, who will even contribute defensively, which is exactly what Gündogan is busy establishing himself as, will have very good rankings on this list. The only way for Gündogan is up I think. Way up.

Kyle Walker

Tottenham 

Right-back - England 

2010/2011 Mid-season: Unranked
End of 2010/11 - Start of 2011/12:  Unranked
2011/2012 Mid-season:  Unranked
End of 2011/12 - Start of 2012/13: 291  

End of 2011/12 - Start of 2012/13:

The peculiar 2011 choice as PFA Young Player of the Year, is nonetheless a very talented fullback.

He is a great athlete. Very fast, like a lot of fullbacks, great acceleration and what looks like real ability to maintain very high top speed for longer runs. He has a lot of power compared to many fullbacks and while his defending is plagued by (sometimes very bad) mistakes at least his physical tools helps his potential to at some point become a good defender.

So far in his career he is very reactive with his defending (more tackles than interceptions) where his athleticism can really bail him out, even make him look very impressive, but he is poor tactically and still reads the game too slow. In general I'm not sure about the level of his teamwork either.

Coming forward he has been a force to be reckoned with for a while with his engine, power and pace, I think he has good ball-control as well, while his passing is more erratic whenever we're moving beyond the keeping it simple short-passing game, possibly mostly because, again, he makes bad or wild decisions, taking too many chances. Hopefully it's just lack of experience, maybe lack of good tactical coaching so far during his career (that could change under Villas-Boas) rather than the signs of a player clearly lacking intelligence on the pitch.

When it comes to building play, his colleague on the left, Ekotto with his skillset, plays a much larger role at Tottenham, but there is no doubt Walker when we're talking further up the pitch with his pace can create his share of chances.

Andriy Yarmolenko

Dynamo Kiev

Winger - Ukraine

2010/2011 Mid-season: Unranked
End of 2010/11 - Start of 2011/12: Unranked
2011/2012 Mid-season:  Unranked
End of 2011/12 - Start of 2012/13: 292


End of 2011/12 - Start of 2012/13:

Impressive 22 year old winger who after some delay, has been performing at a high level for some time now and become a star in Ukraine where he was named 2011 player of the year. Not at all unlikely playing at a higher level than this modest debut ranking would indicate, but since I'm not seeing him often I'm choosing caution and for the time being keeping him behind various comparable wingers (some obviously on the way down) who have made strong impact the last couple of years.

Yamalenko is a tall winger and watching him it quickly becomes clear that this is a very physically capable player. He is strong when outduelling fullbacks and when it comes to his engine he can move around and make fast runs all game. From what I've seen he even seems pretty agile.

Technically his left-foot is very good and it has made him into a dangerous scoring threat coming in strong and fast from the right-wing. He has been in double figures the last two seasons for Kiev and not surprisingly been referred to as the "Ukrainian Robben".
However his right foot doesn't look bad either, also giving him with the option to go the other way, providing defenders with even more headaches. He also seems like quite the intelligent player, making good decisions and generally doing what's best for the team, including defensively.

For the Ukraine national team he is able to provide opponents with different challenges switching sides throughout a game with another good looking rising Ukrainian winger Konoplianka (who might very well also be on the list soon) who will usually start on the left.

Junior Hoilett

 

Blackburn/QPR  

Winger - Canada

2010/2011 Mid-season: Unranked
End of 2010/11 - Start of 2011/12: Unranked
2011/2012 Mid-season:  Unranked
End of 2011/12 - Start of 2012/13: 297


End of 2011/12 - Start of 2012/13:


This was definitely Junior Hoilett's big breakthrough season and in the last year of a contract at Blackburn he was free to move whereever the money was best, perhaps not surprisingly that turned out to be the Tony Fernandes and Mark Hughes run Queens Park Rangers who have been signing one player after another.



With a very nice looking mixture of speed, ball and body control the most impressive thing about Hoilett was his one-on-one ability.  No player in England averaged more successful dribbles per game last season than his 2.6.

He didn't lose the ball much either but I do think an argument can be made that at times, when a move elsewhere was given as soon as the season finished, he was making decisions on the field more for himself than the team. Playing too impress.

It's hard to predict what will happen at QPR. They have so many players. What I do know is that there is rarely anything inbetween when it comes to Mark Hughes tactically. It's either the kind of very attacking, not really structured football, making defensive balance very difficult to obtain, or it's overly defensive, standing very deep, making creating chances a serious challenge. Very rarely, if ever, do I remember any Mark Hughes team finding consistent balance over a season.

I have little doubt Hoilett can thrive in the all out attack version. He has also shown effective scoring technique but can he add tactical quality to what could turn out to be a true mess of a team or will he just add to the mess itself.

Oussama Assaidi

 
Heerenveen/Liverpool  

Winger - Morocco

2010/2011 Mid-season: Unranked
End of 2010/11 - Start of 2011/12: Unranked
2011/2012 Mid-season: Unranked
End of 2011/12 - Start of 2012/13: 298

End of 2011/12 - Start of 2012/13:

If I'm allowed one so called youtube player on the list, Assaidi, for the time being, is that player.
I have not watched him for any full game at Heerenveen but among, what sometimes can seem as countless of worthy candidates for the lower rankings on the list with very little between them, and that's even more the case when it comes to those you're not overly familiar with, he was probably the most interesting, in the end, mostly up against some other wingers from last season's Eredivisie that I wasn't overly familiar with either.

One of those, who I'm starting to suspect could be the best of the bunch, Ola John has moved to Benfica who usually judge quality very well. Another, the assist king in Holland last season and therefore perhaps the safest choice (and until I learned more about his teammate Assaidi also the original one) Luciano Narsingh has upgraded Heerenveen to PSV and  then Assaidi of course, who with rumors about Turkish and Russian clubs, was somewhat out of the blue suddenly signed by none other than Liverpool.

Something again, not least due to lack of evidence, doesn't make me unhappy about picking Assaidi over so many others. Of course what really counts, actually seeing and analyzing the player, is still to come since, at the time of writing, he is yet to feature for Liverpool.