View: Stats show West Brom 28y/o has outperformed teammate despite constant criticism
West Brom midfielder Romaine Sawyers has come in for some criticism from Baggies fans this season, but the stats show he’s not been performing as badly as it seems.
Some Baggies fans criticised the St Kitts & Nevis international following his performance against Southampton, as the Baggies lost 2-0 at Saint Mary’s.
The 28-year-old was taken off after 64 minutes for Filip Krovinovic after what was a seemingly underwhelming outing.
However, Sawyers registered a 96% passing accuracy against Southampton, with 89% of his forward passes finding their intended targets, as per WyScout.
As a midfielder, it is essentially Sawyers’ job to create attacking moves by moving the ball to the attackers and with 89% of his forward passes finding his target it suggests the problems may lie higher up the pitch.
Defensively, Sawyers won 100% of his defensive duels, and made three interceptions across his 64 minutes, proving he was contributing for the Baggies in both an attacking and defensive sense.
It wasn’t just in the Southampton game where Sawyers’ performance went under the radar. He has been outperforming fellow midfielder Jake Livermore this season, who doesn’t seem to get anywhere near as much stick as Sawyers.
Sawyers has been outperforming his captain if you compare their passing stats in the Premier League this season. Sawyers has been averaging a passing accuracy of 85.7%, whereas Livermore has been averaging 74.5%.
The accuracy of forward passes stat tells a similar story, with Livermore averaging 51.5% in comparison to Sawyers’ average of 75.7%
Defensively Sawyers has won 75% of his aerial duels this season, which is a higher percentage than Livermore’s 50% for the same stat.
Sawyers has also outdone his captain when it comes to total successful actions, with Sawyers and Livermore’s successful actions percentage being 63.1% and 46.8% respectively.
These stats show that not only is Sawyers performing well, but he is also outperforming the West Brom captain. This shows criticism of Sawyers is perhaps unfair and that Baggies fans should be more appreciative of their midfielder.
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