It’s science.
Week by week, we’ve been bringing you the most in-form Irish players and power ranking them in our race for Euro 2016.
After two Premier League games passed in the last seven days, it’s all change in the top 30 and Glenn Whelan has ousted Robbie Brady and previously Seamus Coleman from the number one spot as the most in-form Irish player.
Arsenal were told just last week that they are missing a player like Whelan whilst we were warned back at the end of last year by a Stoke journalist that the Dubliner is, pound for pound, the best defensive midfielder in the Premier League.
We have a new goalkeeper too, Rob Elliot’s consistency for Newcastle finally putting him in at number one in the race for the gloves whilst James McClean drops out of the form-based team for the first time as he slips to 13th in the rankings.
Alan Judge though takes his place in the top 10 and, despite missing a game recently through injury and being punished on the scoreboard as a result, Wes Hoolahan gate-crashes his way back into the reckoning and all the way up to second spot.
A reminder of the stipulations:
- Only league games are considered (based on the WhoScored rating each player receives).
- Stats only include Premier League and Championship performances.
- Each player’s last three league games constitutes their form rating.
- 0.5 will be deducted for each match a player misses in his own ‘Last Three Games’ period.
- To account for standard, Championship players will be rated at 80% of their form.
Shane Duffy is still the second highest rated centre half alongside Sunderland defender John O’Shea but we’ve gone for our highest-rated players this week – with a goalkeeper – and it yields a force of nature of a team.
It would probably be the most attacking back three of all time but O’Shea could cover all that space himself, right?
Still, if you were to hand-pick the players who you thought were performing most consistently, you wouldn’t stray too far from these boys.
We don’t think anyone would call for O’Neill to deploy that formation in France.
Harry Arter, Rob Elliot and Alan Judge are the three foreign names to the starting 11. John O’Shea lost his place at the end of the campaign after injury but he could win it back by June. New names but, hey, hardly names you would turn away.
