Here are some early contenders for the best players of the season so far. Ultimately I'll be putting them into a ranking in January with briefs profiles of the players and their performances. Suggestions and comments would be much appreciated. Obviously with a month to go there is plenty of scope for change. Goalkeepers Samir Handanovic (Inter and Slovenia) Rene Adler (Hamburg and Germany) Kevin Trapp (Eintracht Frankfurt and Germany) Remy Vecoutre (Lyon and France) Steve Mandanda (Marseille and France) Petr Cech (Chelsea and Czech Republic) Manuel Neuer (Bayern Munich and Germany) Federico Marchetti (Lazio and Italy) Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus and Italy) Fraser Forster (Celtic and England) Full-backs Philipp Lahm (Bayern Munich and Germany) Leighton Baines (Everton and England) Darijo Srna (Shakhtar Donetsk and Croatia) Benoit Tremoulinas (Bordeaux and France) Kwadwo Asamoah (Juventus and Ghana) Branislav Ivanovic (Chelsea and Serbia) Patrice Evra (Manchester United and France) Jordi Alba (Barcelona and Spain) Cicinho (Sevilla and Brazil) Filipe Luis (Atletico Madrid and Brazil) Pablo Zabaleta (Manchester City and Argentina) Jan Vertonghen (Tottenham and Belgium) Dmitri Kombarov (Spartak Moscow and Russia) Centre-backs Benedikt Hoewedes (Schalke and Germany) Andrea Rannochia (Inter and Italy) Water Samuel (Inter and Argentina) Thiago Silva (PSG and Brazil) Giorgio Chiellini (Juventus and Italy) Dante (Bayern Munich and Brazil) Carlos Gilberto Gil (Valenciennes and Brazil) Diego Godin (Atletico Madrid and Uruguay) Diego Rodriguez (Fiorentina and Argentina) Martin Demichelis (Malaga and Argentina) Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid and Spain) Miranda (Atletico Madrid and Brazil) Pepe (Real Madrid and Portugal) Holger Badstruber (Bayern Munich and Germany) Hugo Campagnaro (Napoli and Argentina) Nicholas Otamendi (Porto and Argentina) Defensive midfielders Michael Carrick (Manchester United and England) Benat (Real Betis and Spain) Maxime Gonalons (Lyon and France) Etienne Capoue (Toulouse and France) Claudio Yacob (WBA and Argentina) Sandro (Tottenham and Brazil) Esteban Cambiasso (Inter and Argentina) Mario Suarez (Atletico Madrid and Spain) Sergio Busquets (Barcelona and Spain) Central midfielders Hernanes (Lazio and Brazil) Toni Kroos (Bayern Munich and Germany) Bastian Schweinsteiger (Bayern Munich and Germany) Ilkay Gundogan (Borussia Dotmund and Germany) Mikel Arteta (Arsenal and Spain) Arturo Vidal (Juventus and Chile) David Pizarro (Fiorentina and Chile) Marouane Fellaini (Everton and Belgium) Xavi (Barcelona and Spain) Fernandinho (Shakhtar Donestsk andBrazil) Remy Cabella (Montpellier and France) Alain Traore (Lorient and Burkina Faso) Xabi Alonso (Real Madrid and Spain) Attacking midfielders Aaron Hunt (Werder Bremen and Germany) Mario Goetze (Borussia Dortmund and Germany) Santi Cazorla (Arsenal and Spain) Henrikh Mkhitaryan (Shakhtar Donestsk and Armenia) Wayne Rooney (Manchester United and England) Juan Mata (Chelsea and Spain) Cesc Fabregas (Barcelona and Spain) Isco (Malaga and Spain) Siem de Jong (Ajax and Netherlands) Mathieu Valbuena (Marseille and France) Michu (Swansea and Spain) Wingers Franck Ribery (Bayern Munich and France) Jefferson Farfan (Schalke and Peru) Eden Hazard (Chelsea and Belgium) Gareth Bale (Tottenham and Wales) Willian (Shakhtar Donestsk and Brazil) Dries Mertens (PSV and Belgium) Steed Malbranque (Lyon and France) James Rodriguez (Porto and Colombia) Jakub Blaszczykowski (Borussia Dortmund and Poland) Arda Turan (Atletico Madrid and Turkey) Szabolcs Huszti (Hannover and Hungary) Markel Susaeta (Athletic Bilbao and Spain) Juan Cuadrado (Fiorentina and Colombia) Forwards Lionel Messi (Barcelona and Argentina) Thomas Muller (Bayern Munich and Germany) Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid and Portugal) Luis Suarez (Liverpool and Uruguay) Francesco Totti (Roma and Italy) Erik Lamela (Roma and Argentina) Dusan Tadic (Twente and Serbia) Stevan Jovetic (Fiorentina and Montenegro) Marco Reus (Borussia Dortmund and Germany) Jeremy Menez (Paris-Saint Germain and France) Strikers Zlatan Ibrahimovic (PSG and Sweden) Robert Lewandowski (Borussia Dortmund and Poland) Stefan Kiessling (Bayer Leverkusen and Germany) Radamel Falcao (Atletico Madrid and Colombia) Edinson Cavani (Napoli and Uruguay) Robin van Persie (Manchester United and Netherlands) Jackson Martinez (Porto and Colombia) Wilfried Bony (Vitesse Arnhem and Ivory Coast) Mario Mandzukic (Bayern Munich and Croatia) Stephan El Shaarawy (AC Milan and Italy) Jermain Defoe (Tottenham and England) Demba Ba (Newcastle and Senegal) Alexandr Kerzhakov (Zenit and Russia) Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (St Etienne and Gabon)
I would remove Patrice Evra, Dries Mertens, Eden Hazard and add; Goalkeepers: Willy Caballero (Málaga and Argentina) Andrés Fernández (Osasuna and Spain) Stéphane Ruffier (St. Etienne and France) Fullbacks: Dani Carvajal (Bayer Leverkusen and Spain) Jesús Gámez (Málaga and Spain) Nacho Monreal (Málaga and Spain) Serge Aurier (Toulouse and France) Ángel Rangel (Swansea and Spain) Gino Peruzzi (Vélez and Argentina) Centre-backs: Gonzalo Rodríguez (Fiorentina and Argentina), not Diego Luís Neto (Siena and Portugal) Juan Jesús (Inter and Brazil) Andrea Barzagli (Juventus and Italy) Defensive midfielders: Ignacio Camacho (Málaga and Spain) Asier Illaramendi (Real Sociedad and Spain) Luiz Gustavo (FC Bayern and Brazil) Francesco Lodi (Catania and Italy) Central midfielders: Pablo Batalla (Bursaspor and Argentina) Juan Sánchez Miño (Boca Jrs. and Argentina) Attacking midfielders: Óscar González (Valladollid and Spain) Marek Hamsik (Napoli and Slovakia) Óscar (Chelsea and Brazil) Wingers: Juan Arango (Mönchengladbach and Venezuela) Joaquín (Málaga and Spain) Patrick Ebert (Valladollid and Germany) Pablo Hernández (Swansea and Spain) Víctor Rodríguez (Zaragoza and Spain) Yevhen Konoplyanka (Dnipro and Ukraine) Forwards: Alejandro Gómez (Catania and Argentina) Ignacio Scocco (Newell's and Argentina) Strikers: Rubén Castro (Real Betis and Spain) Burak Yilmaz (Galatasaray and Turkey) Miroslav Klose (Lazio and Germany) Léo Baptistão (Rayo Vallecano and Brazil) Rickie Lambert (Southampton and England)
Genuinely, he's only started 7 league games this season. That's half of those available, and not enough yet to merit inclusion, if he continues to feature he may well be worth inclusion.
For me he's more clever in his defending, has better anticipation and is more determined. Also, frankly, this season his offensive contribution has been a huge advantage. He's lethal from set plays. With 4 goals he's Fiorentina's 2nd top league scorer after Jovetic; and they've all been crucial. 2 opening goals in the first quarter of games, and 2 equalisers (1 was a pen.). Also an assist for the only goal in the game against Genoa, with an amazing 40-yard diagonal pass. On the downside he had 1 terrible performance where he was sent off against Inter, but as far as I can tell he hasn't been at fault for any goals. (Maybe his own-goal, but he couldn't do much else to be fair)
No clue. I mainly use WhoScored to have a quick glance at players or teams I haven't seen in action. But I just happened to have watched some Fiorentina games this season as they have assembled an exciting team (saw the games v Juve, Genoa, Lazio, Milan, Atalanta, Samp; and highlights of others) and thought Gonzalo was functioning well. His long range passing I forgot to mention, has been exquisite; maybe for this reason he doesn't have such a high passing % as you'd expect from a centre-back, but I like it as he's a valuable part of the constructive aspect (and sometimes more, see that marvellous assist against Genoa). Also his WS ratings indicate that he has been solid enough without goal contributions (all of them upwards of 7.20 even when they've been conceding 2-3 goals, except for the Inter game which I didn't see where he got a 4.81 due to the red card), so in that sense the stats "agree" with me. I haven't seen any Gazzetta ratings thus far, don't know how they've received him. I do wonder a bit sometimes about the WS ratings, as they seem to "forgive" a lot when a player has a meaningful contribution to goals. Their system has rating Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney far too kindly in my opinion, and to an extent Messi also. But then again, some human ratings in general tend to attach maybe too much importance to aesthetics, like with Zidane/Iniesta type players. The best rating is probably in the middle.
http://www.fantacb.com/statistiche.php?start=101&end=200 GK Marchetti Handanovic Mirante Frey Consigli Andujar D Ranocchia Samuel Savic Basta Pasqual Cannavaro M Pizarro Hamsik Borja Valero Cuadrado Marchiso Inler Ledesma Hernanes F El Shaarawy Cavani Jovetic Klose Miccoli Palacio Cassano Eder Toni
Do you also know about Spain? Great that you was able to find. Gazzetta website does not have it any more.
Don Balón used to have them online, but they ceased to exist about a year ago. It does, but you need to pay for it. Mundo Deportivo (yeah location Barcelona) http://www.mundodeportivo.com/resultados/futbol/ligabbva/index.html Porteros Moyá (Getafe) 35 Toño (Granada) 34 Valdés (Barcelona) 34 Roberto (Zaragoza) 34 Casillas (R. Madrid) 30 Willy Caballero (Málaga) 30 Aouate (Mallorca) 29 Munúa (Levante) 29 Courtois (At. Madrid) 29 A. Fernández (Osasuna) 29 Defensas Mikel (R. Sociedad) 34 Miranda (At. Madrid) 31 Eliseu (Málaga) 31 Rukavina (R. Valladolid) 31 S. Ramos (R. Madrid) 31 Godín (At. Madrid) 30 Demichelis (Málaga) 29 De la Bella (R. Sociedad) 28 Spahic (Sevilla) 28 Navarro (Sevilla) 28 Delanteros Messi (Barcelona) 47 Iago Aspas (Celta Vigo) 39 Pedro (Barcelona) 36 Falcao (At. Madrid) 35 Riki (Deportivo) 33 Montañés (Zaragoza) 33 Hemed (Mallorca) 32 Jordi Alba (Barcelona) 32 Leo Baptistao (Rayo V.) 31 H. Postiga (Zaragoza) 31 Centrocampistas Xavi (Barcelona) 45 J. Verdú (Espanyol) 35 Isco (Málaga) 34 Cesc Fàbregas (Barcelona) 34 J. Navas (Sevilla) 34 Óscar (R. Valladolid) 33 Sergio Busquets (Barcelona) 33 Arda Turan (At. Madrid) 32 Beñat (Betis) 31 Ebert (R. Valladolid) 30
Some good suggestions here, including players I had thought I had included. Is this mainly based on whoscored or on personal observations? Also just to clarify, I'm only looking at Europe so would exclude the likes of Sanchez Mino. I would have included Chucky Ferreyra if I was opening up to S America.
Ah yeah, my bad. Most of them are based on my own observations (most of La Liga and Premier League, but also Carvajal, Arango, Klose, Hamsik, etc. both domestically and in Europe); some I've only seen specific games of and then checked on WS to see if that was just an exception rather than the rule. This is the case for Burak Yilmaz, whom I've only seen in the CL and Konoplyanka in the EL. The team I've been most impressed with are Málaga, hence my many selections from them. Although they've started to wane a bit, they're still extremely solid; they're just lacking a true goalscorer unfortunately. Early in the season I was impressed with Eliseu and Manuel Iturra as well, but they've only kept a high level in the CL and not performed as well domestically.
Any more thoughts? I had thought I'd included Borja Valero and Hamsik previously. Both ForeverRed and SirManchester have given me some excellent Bundesliga suggestions.
Seeing as the DM list is looking a little thin you may want to consider Victor Wanyama in there. Although lately he has been playing more advanced at times, almost as a box-to-box CM.