Charts: Man Utd stars are playing 18 per cent worse under David Moyes
Manchester United’s season is littered with statistics to make even ashen-faced manager David Moyes grimace, but these may be the most damning yet.
A comparison of how players have performed relative to last season, using Kickdex, shows that United’s first-team regulars are on average 18 per cent less effective under Moyes than they were in winning the Premier League under Sir Alex Ferguson.
Left-back Patrice Evra has suffered the most alarming decline of 20 per cent but the most eye-catching is forward Robin van Persie, who has been a shadow of the player who fired United to the title last term, as his 19 per cent deterioration indicates.
Curiously, the three Reds players who have regressed the least this season are all English: Wayne Rooney (six per cent), Michael Carrick (eight per cent) and Chris Smalling (eight per cent).
Compare Moyes’s impact with that of Manuel Pellegrini (unless you’re reading, David, in which case maybe look away now) who has given United’s “noisy neighbours” Manchester City plenty to shout about.
City’s players are playing on average five per cent better under Pellegrini, an improvement that has helped them to overtake their local rivals.
Pellegrini has overseen an especially effective improvement in the performance of attacking players. Samir Nasri (26 per cent), Sergio Aguero (21 per cent) and Yaya Toure (17 per cent) have made the biggest gains
Defenders, on the other hand, and goalkeeper Joe Hart have seen Moyes-like levels of deterioration.
The charts are based on the performances of the nine most regular starters in both teams over this season and last. Kickdex uses Opta data to calculate a value for each player, like a share price, that fluctuates in real time according to performance.