The CIES Football Observatory has developed an exclusive approach to assess the performance of players using the statistics produced by the leading data company OptaPro. Issue number 237 of the Weekly Post presents big-5 league footballers with the highest scores for the last 1,000 domestic league minutes played.

Aymeric Laporte heads the table in the area of rigour (duels), while Étienne Capoue ranks first for recovery (interceptions). Jorginho has the highest score in distribution and Cristiano Ronaldo in shooting. Neymar is at the top in two different tables: take on (dribbles) and chance creation (assists). According to the CIES Football Observatory approach, the Brazilian star is also the big-5 league MVP for the period considered.

At the head of the tables for footballers who played for less than 450 domestic league minutes during current season are Nicolás Otamendi (rigour), Milan Badelj (recovery), Marco Verratti (distribution), Douglas Costa (take on), Kevin de Bruyne (chance creation and MVP), as well as Konstantinos Mitroglou (shooting). More data is available in the exclusive player profile comparator.