Who has been the MVP of the season – Ozil or Mahrez?

01/13/2016

On Christmas of 2015, Leicester City were on top of the Premier League table. Arsenal were a close second. When New Year of 2016 struck, both teams were tied on points, and only a goal difference of 4 decided who got the bragging rights – Arsenal have managed to hold on to that lead and pull away a bit since then.

Two men, one who was barely “nicking a living” not too long ago, and the other, an until-now obscure player from across the English channel, have been pivotal in their respective team's charge to the summit. As Mesut Ozil and Riyad Mahrez have weaved their magic on the field, fans off-field have squabbled over which of these two has been the more valuable player for his team.

Ozil has been used in his favored central role by Wenger this season, while Mahrez has mostly featured on the wings. At the cursory level, Ozil has created 1/3rd of all of Arsenal's chances and assisted almost half (47%) of the team's goals. Mahrez has created almost 1/5th (19%) and assited the same number of Leicester's goals. On the goal-scoring front, Mahrez evidently leads with 35% of Leicester's goals this season as against 9% by Ozil for Arsenal.

Statistic	Arsenal	Leicester City	Ozil	Mahrez
Pass completion ratio	85.5%	71.1%	88.4%	72.6%
Chances created	254	201	83	38
Assists	34	37	16	7
Goal conversion ratio	27%	40%	19%	42%
Goals	34	37	3	13
Goals+Assists			19	20

Ozil has directly contributed to 19 goals (16 assists and 3 goals) in EPL as against Mahrez's 20 (13 goals and 7 assists). But it must be considered that four of those 13 goals for Mahrez have arrived from penalties.

The matter hence requires a closer examination.

We looked at multiple parameters to compare both.

Impact of the goal/ assist
Pressure situation when goal/ assist was made
Quality of the goal

Impact of the goal/ assist:

The direct impact of the goal/ assist on the match result was assessed.

Level	Definition
High	Goal/ assist in 1 goal difference win/ draw
Moderate	1st goal/ assist in a >1 GD result
Low	2nd or 3rd goal/ assist in >1 GD win, loss

Barring the face-off between these two players in the Leicester vs Arsenal match (where Ozil assisted Arsenal's third goal, while Mahrez was not at his usual best), Ozil has been understandably prolific in all the high-scoring encounters. Luckily or unluckily for him, Arsenal have won quite a few matches with a 2-0 margin or better – which brings down the direct impact of each of Ozil's goals/ assists. Leicester, meanwhile, have close encounters time and again with Mahrez chipping in regularly.

To drive home the point, if you made the simplistic reduction of removing all the goals/ assists both players made to arrive at the match result, Arsenal would be 10th on the table with 29 points, while Leicester would be in the relegation zone - at a miserable 18th with 17 points.

Pressure situation when goal/ assist was made:

Pressure was a trickier factor to deal with. Hence we looked at three criteria:

Goal situation
Time of match when goal/ assist was made
Opposition
Result of previous match

Pressure	Goal situation	Timing	Opposition	Previous match
High	Down on goals	>80th min of match	Title contender
Moderate	Scores level	46th to 80th	Mid level opponent	Lost previous match
Low	Leading already	<45th min	Lower rung	Won/ Drew previous match

Arsenal have had a great season this year, with the club leading from the front in most matches. If they go down, they don't get up. They lost 0-2 to West Ham, Chelsea and 0-4 to Southampton. Ozil played in all 4 matches, and almost from start to finish in all of them.

On the contrary, Leicester have been down and out in multiple matches, before clawing their way back. They have scripted remarkable come-backs against Stoke to draw from 0-2, and won against Aston Villa 3-2 from being 0-2 until the 70th minute. Mahrez scored a goal and an assist in the Stoke match, while he gave two assists in the Aston Villa comeback.

Quality of goal:

If only you could put a number on it, when you have a magician on one side! But we tried.

For an assist, the lens has been how tough the assist was to make and how easy the striker had it in the end. Mahrez held his own against Ozil here as he made 2 high-quality goals and 2 assists. However, he has had his share of easy goals, right in front of the goal mouth.

The only area where Mahrez seems to lag is in consistency. If consistency was measured by the number of matches in which one either scores or assists at least once, Mahrez has done it in 12 out of 19, while Ozil has been on the board on 2 more occasions.

Additionally, barring the Chelsea match, Mahrez has been non-existent when pitted against the big guns – Arsenal, City, United and Liverpool. Ozil, meanwhile, barring that controversial early-season match against Chelsea, had a better outing against top teams – he had a hand in 2/3 goals against United and both goals against City.

Conclusion:

It appears there is little doubt that Mahrez has been the more valuable player to his team – more so because of the quality of his team. He has had more impact, brought them back from the brink of defeat, again and again, and scored some splendid goals on the way.

However, Ozil still has the quality and consistency to speak for him. His quality was never in doubt. But he has finally managed to channel that into consistent performances on-field. As Ozil's form has been on the ascent, Mahrez has seen what we hope is a temporary dip in his fortunes. We may yet see a change in this heads-up before the season is up.

*The data for the analysis is for the EPL season 2015-16 until the 12th of January.

(We perfectly understand you may not agree with our rating on one or two points. However, in case you would like to look at the data, here goes….)