West Ham wingers: Has Yarmolenko or Anderson performed best?

West Ham signed two dangerous wingers in the summer, and both have started to show their stuff. But who has been better for the Hammers so far? And what should they be changing?

There are many ways to judge a player’s performance over games, with the best always being decided by headline stats like goals assists and trophies won. But over the first few games that’s a pretty high bar to use as a comparator. So when we’re looking at West Ham’s Anderson and Yarmolenko, we’re going to have to get a little bit more creative. Unless otherwise stated stats for Anderson and Yarmolenko are from WhoScored.com.

Goals

OK let’s start with the obvious. Both of these players were brought in to be a goal threat and as such they should be judged on that. Obviously we can’t call them successes or failures as signings yet, but we can compare the two of them.

At the moment Yarmolenko has two goals and Anderson one. Anderson’s goal was a beautiful flick from close range, whilst the Ukrainian finished after a selfless Arnautovic pass and grabbed a second with the familiar cut inside and bend into the top corner. Whilst the Anderson flick brings joy to footballers everywhere, we have to give this round to Yarma. He’s scored more, and threatens to do so more regularly too.

According to whoscored Anderson has a whole host of strengths, but just one weakness (statistically). His finishing. But he doesn’t really take anything on at the moment. The site lists long range shots as a strength as well, but we haven’t seen much of that in Claret and Blue. Yarmolenko is constantly looking to cut in and attack, Anderson should look to do the same.

Score at the end of the round: Yarma 1, Anderson 0.

Chances Created/Assists

The other way you can threaten the opposition is by creating chances for others. With Anderson’s pace the opposition look to drop off in order to cover that, leaving him open to pass the ball into dangerous areas. And the stats show he’s pretty good at it too.

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With 2.5 key passes a game he vastly outshines Yarmolenko, who has only managed 0.5 per game in a West Ham shirt. Given his heavy one sidedness that’s understandable, because he is easier to block off from making a pass. But it shows the skill Anderson has on the opposite wing, the subtlety to Yarma’s direct nature.

In fact Anderson is actually 7th in the Premier League for chances created. That puts him ahead of any player in the top 6 apart from Hazard, Willian or David Silva. Given the number of quality players in this league, that’s a big mark of his quality. This isn’t a player who is as one dimensional as people thought when we signed him. He is a real danger, and it’s up to the rest of the side to start converting these chances.

Yarma 1, Anderson 1.

Dribbling

Well there’s only going to be one winner here. After being rated one of the best dribblers in Europe before his big move to West Ham, Anderson has continued to shine, albeit after a quiet introduction to the league. Anderson has completed the 7th most dribbles in the league, coming in at 1.6 per game. Yarmo, with only one trick of cutting inside and shooting, has 0.3 per game. However, as a winger, this is a big skill as it allows us to counterattack or create space by beating a man. Anderson does this far more regularly than Yarmolenko.

2-1 to the Brazilian.

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Tracking Back

A lot of criticism I have hear levelled at Anderson has been that he doesn’t track back enough. For me, I completely disagree. I can’t remember the last time we saw such a technical player getting so involved in defence, or trying to get the ball back so early. For all the good Payet did, he wasn’t great at getting back to help out his defence.

Out of all the attackers in the Premier League, Anderson has made the most challenges. He works hard to get back and put a foot in, making 3.4 tackles per match on top of 1.4 interceptions. He even gets back and helps out with clearances, managing 1 every other game. On the other side Yarmolenko makes 0.5 tackles per match, 0.3 interceptions and 0.4 clearances. So why all the grief for Anderson?

Overall Stats

Well I wanted to have an overall look so I decided to look at some more stats, this time from Twelve Football. If you haven’t seen them before, they have a complex algorithm which gives points to certain actions so you can weigh up everything a player does. It looks at attack, defence, off the ball, shooting stats and fan love. To make it fair, we look at the per 90 minutes metric. And it’s the Ukrainian who comes out on top.

The two are weighted very similarly defensively, but the Brazilian comes out on top in the attacking sense with the number of chances created. The website shows how it gives points, and looking at the pass maps Anderson ticks all the boxes. However on shooting points Yarmolenko is miles ahead. It weights all their goals the same, giving Yarmolenko twice as many goal points. But it also gives a lot of points to the awful miss against Chelsea. I assume it gives points for coming close, beating the keeper and all that, but apart from the goal Anderson has not been too dangerous. He needs to get in at goal more.

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So with that it finishes 3-2 to Anderson, but both have things to work on. I would like to see Anderson be a more direct threat on goal, and I want to see Yarmolenko move the ball quicker. We saw against Chelsea he can work in a free flowing game, but he needs to bring the pace himself sometimes. But I am very excited to see the Hammers carry on this season in an attacking manner.