Today, the PSL announced that the 2023/24 end-of-season awards ceremony will be held on the 23rd of June. Patrick Maswanganyi, Iqraam Rayners, and Ronwen Williams are the nominees for the Players Player of the Season, covering league games. While the eye test and gut instinct can be used to correctly judge the best players, ignoring the data and analytics in this data and age would be irresponsible. We have the resources to collect player data and the skills and tools to analyse it. Let’s take a look at some of the numbers, and cases for and against the nominees.
Patrick Maswanganyi
He’s slowly becoming a cult figure at Pirates, and the former SuperSport midfielder’s case is pretty straightforward. Behind the near-invincible Sundowns, the Pirates emerged as the second-best team in the league. And Maswanganyi was the most used player and the best attacker in that team. The attacking midfielder's radar shows his high rank in several creative metrics.
The case against him would be a lack of shooting threat, but the counter-argument would be that isn’t his main role. He is more of an orchestrator for his sid, and is still the second-highest scorer at Pirates (5 goals). He doesn’t take too many shots either, opting (by design or by default) to create chances for his teammates. However, for a much-used player, a goal every 450 minutes (every 560 minutes for open-play) is modest. Add a bit more goals to his arsenal, and a Pirates side whose deadliest player also has a goal threat would challenge Sundowns. Yet, for an oft-used player not to dip in creativity all season shows how efficiently he has utilised his licence to roam.
Iqraam Rayners
From simple attacking output, Rayners has been one of the best. Only Tshegofatso Mabasa scored more goals than Rayners this season, but even that race was won by fine margins (16-15). The case for Rayners is interesting. When you think of creative players in the league, the mind immediately goes to attacking midfielders like Sanele Barns, Devin Titus & Oswin Appollis. But Rayners ended the season 2nd in the league for big chances created and 3rd for open-play chances created. Here is a player that excelled in his primary role (goalscoring), and also in a secondary role (creating).
The case against Rayners would start with the fact that five of his goals came in one game, without which his minutes-per-goal ratio dips from 160 to about 230 - that’s about 2.5 games needed per goal. Rayners leads the league for opposition box touches and shots taken (19 more than the next best player), but a shooting accuracy of 53% is way less than his Golden Boot competitors Costa (60%) and Mabasa (63%). He could be more ruthless.
Ronwen Williams
Our Goalkeeper radars are still a work in progress, so the case for and against Williams will purely be statistical (not visual). The case for Williams is simple - Sundowns won the title, thanks to a defence that conceded a record-equalling 11 goals. Williams conceded 7 non-penalty goals in 22 matches, keeping 15 clean sheets in those games (more than any other team). The case against him is that he doesn’t make too many saves, thanks to a protective defence. He is 15th in the league for saves made (39), and correspondingly he is 15th in the league for shots on target faced. The counterargument would state that he is a key part of organizing the defence that protects him. And when called upon to save, he still remains the best. Of the 19 keepers with more than 720 minutes played (8+ games), Williams has the best save percentage (83%). A full Goalkeeper analysis will be our next newsletter, going beyond saves and saves percentage.