The 10 Best Dribblers in the Premier League
Curious to know who the best dribblers in the Premier League have been so far this season? Well, we can now reveal the identity of the 10 most successful players with the ball stuck to their feet in this top-flight campaign.
Think that you can guess who the 10 technically accomplished solo artists may be? Well, you may actually be surprised by one or two names that do appear in the list.
Now we will reveal the top 10, with the statistics being provided by football stats website WhoScored.com?
10th Equal: Philippe Coutinho (Liverpool)
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Successful Dribbles Per Game This Season: 2.3
Total Successful Dribbles This Season: 14
Liverpool’s impish Brazilian creator just loves to run with the ball at his feet and has pretty much been doing that ever since he first arrived at Anfield from Inter Milan last January. It is no doubt a legacy of being born by the beach in Rio de Janeiro.
What makes the playmaker’s appearance in this top 10 even more remarkable, though, is that he has generally been off colour for much of this season compared to the eye-catching start that he made to his Reds career in the second half of the previous campaign.
The rest of the Premier League should watch out if the 21-year-old does start to find his feet again…
10th Equal: Adnan Januzaj (Manchester United)
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Successful Dribbles Per Game This Season: 2.3
Total Successful Dribbles This Season: 14
He has exactly the same dribbling stats as Coutinho, although while many would have guessed the identity of the Liverpool man in this list before the start of this season, no one would have been able to predict the appearance of the young United wide man.
The Belgium-born winger has made an electric start to life at Old Trafford under new boss David Moyes, as these remarkable stats demonstrate for a player just 18 years old in what his debut campaign at the biggest club in England.
It just shows what confidence Januzaj possesses, although anyone who has watched him in action for the Red Devils so far this season would already know that.
7th Equal: Mousa Dembele (Tottenham Hotspur)
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Successful Dribbles Per Game This Season: 2.4
Total Successful Dribbles This Season: 26
Boy did the Belgium love to take a man on during his two-year spell with Fulham, which partly helped the midfield player get his move across the capital to White Hart Lane in August 2012.
Dembele has carried on with his solo runs now that he is in north London, although ironically, that may actually now be counting against him as Spurs manager Andre Villas-Boas seeks more defensive-minded players in the centre of the park.
7th Equal: Eden Hazard (Chelsea)
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Successful Dribbles Per Game This Season: 2.4
Total Successful Dribbles This Season: 26
Back in August, Chelsea head coach Jose Mourinho demanded that his brilliant Belgium international work harder on the pitch and be more clinical in front of goal as a player of his undoubted talents.
Well, it looks like the Special One’s message may have finally sunk in, with the always skillful youngster now combining his outrageous close control—as seen by his attacking numbers above—with an end product , resulting in four goals and three assists in his 11 top-flight games so far in this campaign.
6th: Stephane Sessegnon (West Bromwich Albion)
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Successful Dribbles Per Game This Season: 2.7
Total Successful Dribbles This Season: 19
It looks as though the switch from chaotic Sunderland to the more stable and calm environment of the Hawthorns on transfer deadline day has done the Benin forward good.
That new-found confidence is now coursing through the 29-year-old’s veins, as seen by Sessegnon’s appearance in this list, with the attacker having been successful with 19 solo runs in his nine Premier League outings for the Baggies so far this season. It's impressive, to say the least.
4th Equal: Hatem Ben Arfa (Newcastle United)
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Successful Dribbles Per Game This Season: 2.8
Total Successful Dribbles This Season: 25
I doubt anyone will be all that surprised to see the name of the mercurial France wide man in the top 10, especially given the electric impact the 26-year-old has had on some of Newcastle’s Premier League fixtures.
Given that Magpies boss Alan Pardew often likes to start with Ben Arfa on the substitutes’ bench, the winger's total of 25 successful dribbles so far in this campaign is quite some feat indeed.
4th Equal: Ross Barkley (Everton)
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Successful Dribbles Per Game This Season: 2.8
Total Successful Dribbles This Season: 31
It is good news for Three Lions manager Roy Hodgson that the first Englishman made it into the top 10, and it is just a reflection of the outstanding start to the 2013/14 campaign that the hugely talented 19-year-old has made on Merseyside under new Everton boss Roberto Martinez.
What is more, only one other player in the entire Premier League has had more successful dribbles than Barkley’s 31 individual runs in his 11 top-flight appearances so far this season.
3rd: Fabian Delph (Aston Villa)
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Successful Dribbles Per Game This Season: 2.9
Total Successful Dribbles This Season: 26
The Englishman has had an outstanding start to the new campaign for the west Midlands outfit, so much so that there is even now talk of the 23-year-old being offered a new deal to extend his stay at Villa Park.
One of the most noticeable features to Delph’s impressive season to date has been his ability to take on opposition players, and judging by the above stats, beat them too.
2nd: Luis Suarez (Liverpool)
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Successful Dribbles Per Game This Season: 3.3
Total Successful Dribbles This Season: 20
Well, the only real shock I suppose is that the Uruguay international is not in first place, but do not forget that he has played just six Premier League matches for Liverpool this season since being banned from the club’s opening five contests after biting Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic.
Either way, however, 20 successful dribbles in just six top-flight contests from the only out-and-out striker in the top 10 is still pretty good. You’d be a brave man to predict anyone else but Suarez topping this list come the end of the campaign.
1st: Andros Townsend (Tottenham Hotspur)
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Successful Dribbles Per Game This Season: 5.5
Total Successful Dribbles This Season: 55
There are just incredible dribbling figures from the new hero of both Spurs and England, and it also proves—not that anyone ever doubted it—just what an absolutely crucial ingredient confidence is to a player’s ability to perform.
Anyone who has watched the 22-year-old on the wing for either club or country in this campaign will not be at all surprised to see Townsend’s name heading this list, with the term “blind alley” clearly just not in the wide man’s dictionary, judging by his willingness to take the ball on at pace in any situation.
