The Premier League is returning on Wednesday following the COVID-19 mid-season postponement. Many of the leagues around Europe have already returned, Primeira Liga being one of them, but for many, this is the league they’ve been waiting for. At Próxima Jornada we are just as excited for the league’s return espeically given that there are so many exciting Portuguese players in the division.
Aaron Barton for Próxima Jornada dives into some of the numbers so far concerning Portuguese contribution in England’s top flight.
19
Portugal has 19 players in the Premier League, making it the nation with the sixth most amount of players (joint with Holland). Only England, Spain, France, Ireland and Brazil have more.
122
That is the number of tackles made by the Premier Leagues leading tackler, Leicester City’s Ricardo Pereira. Ricardo also tops the table for tackles made in the defensive third with 71, dribblers tackled with 56, as well as placing second for tackles won with 68, 2 behind West Ham United’s Declan Rice on 70.
10
A fun statistic this one, 10 is the number of nutmeg’s Diogo Jota has completed, the most of any player in the entire division. Marcus Rashford is 1 behind with 9. Diogo is also unsurprisingly in the top 10 for dribbles completed with 64, ranking him in 7th place.
2
Rui Patrício is 1st (joint with Tim Krul) for penalties saved in the Premier League this season with 2, a 100% save ratio. He is also one of 7 goalkeepers to have played the maximum minutes so far with 2,610
19
That is the age of Pedro Neto of Wolves, the youngest Portuguese player to feature in the Premier League this season. He was born in the year 2000 and has made 21 appearances so far in his first season in England. He has 2 goals and 2 assists in 735 minutes. West Ham United’s Gonçalo Cardoso is the youngest Portuguese player classed as a ‘first-teamer’ but is yet to make a senior appearance.
8
That is how many first-team Portuguese players are at Wolves. 7 of those have featured this season, with the only one not to have played a minute is Bruno Jordão. Out of the 6 Wolves players to have played in all 29 matches thus far, 50% of those are Portuguese (Rúben Neves, Rúi Patricío and João Moutinho)
6
That is the number of players that have played at some time or other, at Alcochete, Sporting CP’s famed youth academy. Sporting CP is the biggest producer of Portuguese players in the Premier League. (Eric Dier, Daniel Podence, Rui Patrício, João Moutinho, Cédric Soares, Ricardo Pereira)
SL Benfica’s Seixal academy is 2nd with 5 players produced. (Bernardo Silva, Éderson, João Cancelo, André Gomes, Gedson Fernandes)
9
That is how many clubs in the Premier League have Portuguese players on their first-team books.
(Manchester City, Manchester United, Wolves, Everton, Watford, Tottenham Hotspur, Southampton, West Ham United, Leicester City)
