According to the CIES Football Observatory exclusive algorithm, the transfer value of players in the English squad amounts to €751 million. This figures is over €500 million for four other teams: France (€697 million), Spain (€639 million), Germany (€601 million) and Belgium (€550 million). Issue number 153 of the Weekly Post presents the data for all nations.

The total transfer value of twelve participating teams out of 24 is lower than that of the most expensive player overall: Cristiano Ronaldo (€138 million). At the bottom of the table is Hungary (€30 million), ahead of Romania (€51 million), Albania (€57 million) and Slovakia (€59 million).

For more information about the approach developed by the CIES Football Observatory research group to estimate the transfer value of professional footballers, please refer to the 16th Monthly Report. Issue number 152 of the Weekly Post presents the top 100 list of the big-5 league players with the highest transfer values. A calculator for footballers in the five major European leagues is available on the CIES Football Observatory website.

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Who are the footballers whose transfer value is above €100 million? Issue number 152 of the Weekly Post unveils the excusive CIES Football Observatory list of the 100 big-5 league players with the highest values from a transfer fee perspective. Besides Lionel Messi, seven other footballers currently have a transfer value of more than €100 million.

According to the CIES Football Observatory algorithm, the players whose transfer could be negotiated at more than €100 million are Messi, Neymar, Ronaldo, Griezmann, Kane, Martial, Suárez and Dybala. More information on the criteria taken into account and the methodology used is provided in the 16th edition of the Monthly Report.

Since 2013, the correlation between the transfer values predicted by the CIES Football Observatory’s algorithm and the fees actually paid for the recruitment of big-5 league players has been close to 80%. The strength of this correlation shows that, on one hand, the footballers’ transfer market is rational and, on the other, that its rationality has been well understood by the econometric model developed.

Per position, the most expensive players from a transfer fee standpoint are Thibault Courtois among goalkeepers (€48.4 million), David Alaba among centre backs (€48.8 million), Hector Bellerín among full backs (€55.6 million), Paul Pogba among central midfielders (€90.4 million), Eden Hazard among attacking midfielders (€78.3 million) and Lionel Messi among forwards (€211.1 million).

The 16th Monthly Report of the CIES Football Observatory also presents the big-5 league players with the highest probability to be transferred for a sum of money. Among footballers with a transfer value of more than €25 million, the most likely to change team during next summer are Gonzalo Higuaín (€60.9 million), Alexandre Lacazette (€41.5 million), Michy Batshuayi (€25.2 million), Antoine Griezmann (€120.2 million) and Romelu Lukaku (€58.1 million).

For more information, please read issue number 16 of the Monthly Report. To contact us, please write at football.observatory@cies.ch

Issue number 151 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks big-5 league clubs according to the average transfer cost per player fielded. Leicester City was crowned despite the third lowest transfer expenditure at English Premier League level (€2.7 million per player). Conversely, Newcastle United could not avoid relegation despite having on average played with the 8th costliest line-up (€7.9 million per player).

In the four other major European championships, the most positive and negative gaps between the position in the transfer cost ranking and that achieved in the final table were measured for Las Palmas (+6) and Valencia (-9) in Spain; Angers (+8) and Marseille (-10) in France; Mainz (+10) and Hannover (-9) in Germany; as well as for Empoli (+7) and Palermo (-5) in Italy.

Overall, the team who fielded on average the most expensive line-up was Real Madrid (€32.2 million per player), followed by Manchester City (€27.5 million), Paris St-Germain (€27.0 million), Manchester United (€26.8 million) and Barcelona (€23.7 million). Champions League finalist Atlético Madrid ranks only 13th (€8.8 million).

David Silva heads the CIES Football Observatory table of the best performing big-5 league attacking midfielders. Manchester City’s Spaniard outranks Mesut Özil (Arsenal) and Henrik Mkhitaryan (Dortmund). In the top three positions for forwards are Lionel Messi (Barcelona), Zlatan Ibrahimovi? (Paris St-Germain) and Neymar (Barcelona). Issue number 150 of the Weekly Post presents the top 10 for both positions.

Following the CIES Football Observatory statistical approach, six English Premier League players are to be found among the ten best performing attacking midfielders of the season. However, only Adam Lallana is eligible for the Three Lions team. The best ranked EPL footballer among forwards, Alexis Sánchez, is only 14th. Cristiano Ronaldo is sixth behind the youngest footballer listed: Paulo Dybala (Juventus, 22 years).

The rankings are established according to six Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), among which take on, chance creation and shooting (see table). More information is available in the 15th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report. The study includes the rankings of players who out-performed the most their teammates, both per position and area of the game. This is particularly useful to unveil the potential of relatively unknown footballers

Last but not least, we also kindly invite you to visite our brand new version of our website.

According to the CIES Football Observatory analysis, Leicester City’s N’Golo Kanté is the best performing English Premier League defensive midfielder of the 2015/16 season. The French is the only EPL player in the top 10 positions. This figure is three at box-to-box midfielder level: Moussa Dembélé (Tottenham, 1st), Dele Alli (Tottenham, 4th) and Yaya Touré (Manchester City, 5th). Paul Pogba (Juventus) ranks 6th. Only footballers who played at least 60% of domestic league minutes are included.

The youngest players in the top 10 lists are Julian Weigl (Dortmund) among defensive midfielders and Dele Alli among box-to-box ones. Both players are only aged 20. The list also features 21-year-old Saúl Ñíguez. Atlético Madrid’s rising star ranks third among box-to-box midfielders of the Spanish Liga behind two great champions: World Cup winners Toni Kroos (Real Madrid) and Andrés Iniesta (Barcelona).

The analysis is based on the statistics of players in six areas of the game, weighted according to their importance per position (see table). Two Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are crucial for defenders: rigour and recovery. The former area defines the ability to minimise opponents’ chances through robust duelling. The latter highlights proficient interception work. Only players fielded for at least 60% of minutes are included in the rankings.

According to our approach, the best performing full back over the 2015/16 English Premier League season was Aleksandar Kolarov (Manchester City). The Serbian is the only EPL player in the top 10 positions. Besides Nicolás Otamendi, Mamadou Sakho (Liverpool) is 10th among centre backs. The youngest footballers in the lists are Ricardo Pereira (Nice, on loan from Porto) for full backs (4th) and Samuel Umtiti (Lyon) for centre backs (9th). They are both aged 22.

According to our analysis, the best performing English Premier League goalkeeper is Hugo Lloris. Tottenham player only conceded 0.8 goals per match (0.5 for Manuel Neuer) and saved 73.9% of shots (78.8% for Manuel Neuer). The highest percentage of saves overall was recorded for Paris St-Germain goalkeeper Kevin Trapp: 80.6%. He is the only player with a percentage of saves greater than 80%.

The least performing goalkeeper both at Premier League and big-5 league level is Brad Guzan (Aston Villa). The American conceded 2 goals per match on average. His percentage of saves was 59.5%. Throughout the season, he won only the first game played on August 8th 2015 against Bournemouth. After this game, his team drew 5 matches and lost the remaining 22 in which Guzan participated.

In the next three Weekly Posts, we will present the rankings for six outfield positions: centre backs, full backs, defensive midfielders, box-to-box midfielders, attacking midfielders and forwards. For more information, please contact us at football.observatory@cies.ch

Only in two big-5 league clubs out of 98, the percentage of long balls compared to total passes is higher than at Leicester: Darmstadt (10.7%) and Ingolstadt (7.8%). The highest figures in the three remaining big-5 leagues were recorded at Eibar (6.6%), Frosinone (6.3%) and Bastia (6.2%). At the opposite end of the spectrum are Paris St-Germain and Bayern Munich (both 1.1%), Barcelona (1.4%), Juventus (1.6%) and Manchester City (2.4%).

The average percentage of long balls for Champions League semi-finalists is 2.1%. At league level, this percentage varies between 3.8% in Italy and 4.6% in Germany. The figures in England and Spain (4.4%) are slightly greater than that observed in France (4.1%). In absolute terms, Deportivo La Coruña had the most recourse to long balls (851, two more than Leicester), while Bayern Munich the least (246).

For more information, please contact us at football.observatory@cies.ch.

While the English national A-team is among the youngest at worldwide level, the number of eligible U23 players in the big-5 leagues with a higher experience capital than that of current Three Lions internationals at the same age is only five. This figure is much greater for the other nations hosting the five biggest European leagues: 30 for France, 22 for Spain, 18 for Italy and 17 for Germany. This finding both reflects the restricted talent pool available to England’s manager Roy Hodgson and the high experience level of current English full internationals.

The full list of the 92 most likely future English, Spanish, German, French and Italian full internationals is available here.

The study reviews U23 players currently present in 31 top division leagues in Europe. Footballers are ranked according to the level of experience gained since the start of their career at adult level. Among players listed, notably are two goalkeepers who were born in 1999: Gianluigi Donnarumma (Milan) and Alban Lafont (Toulouse).

The method of experience capital allows clubs to optimise their approach regarding transfers by considerably reducing the risks inherent in such operations, from both the sporting and economic point of view. For recruiting clubs, there is indeed no better guarantee than recruiting footballers who have had the opportunity to play as often as possible at the highest possible level taking into account their age and talent.

Our research team is at the service of clubs interested in finding out more about the practical modalities of implementing a talent spotting system of this kind.

The English Premier League does not only gather the highest percentage of foreign players (see the 12th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report), but it is also that where the most footballers were recruited from abroad: 43.1%. This percentage is only 31.2% for the French Ligue 1, while the big-5 league average is 36.5%.

The clubs per league who signed the highest proportion of their current squad members from foreign teams are Chelsea (75.0%), Monaco (73.1%), Lazio (67.9%), Sevilla (64.3%) and Bayern Munich (54.2%).

In total, 23 teams big-5 league teams out of 98 recruited at least half of their first team players from abroad: eight in England, five in both Spain and Italy, three in Germany and two in France. The data for all clubs is available in issue number 144 of the CIES Football Observatory Big-5 Weekly Post.