Clarets skipper outperforming Europe’s elite

Claret’s skipper Jason Shackell is currently the third best performing defender in the Premier League, 10th best performer overall and ranked 15th of all defenders in European football’s top five leagues!
Statistics showing how Shackell lines up against Terry and RamosStatistics showing how Shackell lines up against Terry and Ramos
Statistics showing how Shackell lines up against Terry and Ramos

These are the findings of online fantasy football game www.oulala.com

With a sophisticated Opta-sourced scoring matrix, the system that was created by an internal team of statisticians has been tested on statistics from numerous past seasons.

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Due to their partnership with Opta, the fantasy game is able to compare on the field actions on a much broader scale than all other fantasy games, taking into account every positive or negative action any player on the field may perform, from shots on or off target to blocks and tackles.

Shackell currently sits third in the Premier League’s defender performance rankings and ahead of some of the league’s top names including John Terry and Vincent Kompany.

The only two Premier League defenders currently outperforming Shackell this season are Everton left back Leighton Baines and Hull centre back Curtis Davies.

Shackell has won 61 of the 87 head to head battles that he has faced, a 70% success rate.

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His possession retention is currently at a very impressive 93% and he has also drawn in four times as many fouls than he has committed, unusually rare for a defender.

The biggest accomplishment however is the defender’s successful defensive clearances figure.

He has completed 128 clearances, this is currently the most clearances of any single player within the top five European leagues, the English Premier League, the Spanish La Liga, the German Bundesliga, the Italian Serie A and the French Ligue 1.

Shackell’s best performance so far this season came in Burnley’s 0-0 draw at home to Manchester United after the player made 14 defensive clearances and won 10 of his 11 duels.

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On a European scale, Shackell sits 15th in the defender rankings after the opening three months of the season.

That’s above previously mentioned fellow Premier League centre-back and Chelsea captain John Terry and ahead of Champions League winner and arguably the best defender in world football, Sergio Ramos.

Shackell has blocked more shots, made more defensive clearances and drawn more fouls than both Terry and Ramos.

The Claret’s skipper has committed less fouls than Spaniard Ramos and made more interceptions than Chelsea captain Terry.

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He has also helped his team to four clean sheets this season, one more than Premier League leaders Chelsea.

• Oulala is a free to play, weekly European fantasy football game offering cool prizes to it’s top three managers every week. Oulala offers unique features such as a diverse scoring matrix and live in-play substitutions making it the closest fantasy football has ever got to reality. To register and play click here