I seem to remember mentioning the Castrol Football Index a couple of months back as I had hopes that I’d be able to use it as a regular feature here in addition to the Actim Top 100 Index. Unfortunately, Castrol only post updates once a month, usually a couple of weeks in arrears, so it’s not been current enough for me to use as I hoped.

However, I like the way it works and they’ve just posted the final update for the season (in fact they work in a rolling 12 month cycle) so if I’m going to make much use of it, now’s the time.

Here’s the basics of how it works and why I think it has a lot of potential. Firstly, they use the same raw Opta data popular around Europe these days, but they’re actually interested in the quality of what’s happening on the pitch, rather than just numbers.

For instance, in the recent head-to-head between Luke Young and Carlos Cuellar, I can tell you that Cuellar completes more successful passes on average per game than Young, but I can’t put any value on those passes. Passing backwards and sideways to fellow defenders retains possession, but sooner or later the ball needs to be moved forwards if you want to score.

Here’s how Castrol themselves explain their system:-

Castrol’s team of performance analysts award each player a Castrol Index score for every match based on their every touch of the ball on the pitch and assess whether it has a positive or negative impact on a team’s ability to score or concede a goal.

A key factor for all areas of performance in the Castrol Index is which zone on the pitch the action takes place. Players receive points for each successful pass they complete but the number of points awarded depends on which zones the ball is passed from and received in.

A player’s Castrol Index match score out of 10 is then converted into a Castrol Rankings points total and weighted depending on the importance of that tournament.

Always Read The Instructions

It turns out that the phrase “and weighted depending on the importance of that tournament” above is quite key and if I’d read it properly earlier I could have saved myself quite a lot of work. Indulge me a moment as I share my tale of woe with you.

I decided to grab the data from Castrol for the 498 players in the index who are currently based in the Premiership and combine it with my season review data for what should be pretty close to all players in the league over the last season… give or take, about 670. It’s not completely straightforward, but with a little time and effort I was able to combine the two so that I’d be able to break down the Castrol Index scores by the number of minutes played and compare the players on an even playing field.

Unfortunately, I’d pretty much done all the donkey work when I ran into an anomaly. A young defender at Arsenal by the name of Tom Cruise – not that Tom Cruise – was showing up with 30 Castrol points, but didn’t have a single minute playing in the Premier League. With a little investigation I found that he had one appearance for Arsenal in the Champions League against Olympiakos…

…and then the penny dropped.

It turns out that Castrol rate the players in Europe’s 5 top domestic leagues and also in the Champions League. At first I didn’t think this would be a huge problem, I’d just get the Champions League data for the Chelsea, Liverpool Arsenal and Utd squads, no biggie, but then I came across this “weighting” thing.

Castrol adds extra weight to the Champions League, considering those games more important than the league, which we might not like, but that is the reality we’re heading toward I suppose. They go further and increment the weight the further the tie is into the competition. There are far fewer CL games of course, so they shouldn’t overly distort the rankings, but without knowing what the weighting factor is, there’s absolutely no chance of removing it from the equation, making a true apples-to-apples comparison impossible.

Then, as with many things in life, once defeated, I decided to read the instructions.

Apparently Castrol have done the hard work for me and already base the scores on the number of minutes played. In fact, they’ve been even smarter and decided to use a minimum of 2,000 minutes if players have played less in the last 12 months. The rationale is quite simple and I want you to remember the 2,000 minutes as it’s relevant to a future post:-

There is no minimum number of minutes a player has to play, however a player’s points total is divided by the total number of minutes played in the last 12 months. Those who have played less than 2,000 minutes will still have their points total divided by 2,000*, therefore penalising players who are either injured, not selected or suspended for a considerable period of time.

*2,000 minutes is the average number of minutes played by a player who has played in at least 50% of his team’s league matches. This equates to 65% of a Bundesliga season and 58% of a season in the other four leagues – excluding Champions League matches.

Aston Villa

So here’s how the Villa players make out in the Castrol Index (I’ve included their rank in the full index and also within just the players playing in England):-

I notice that goalkeepers tend to make out pretty well in the index, so without wanting to underestimate Friedel’s contribution to our season, I’m tempted to look past him.

No shock I presume to spot Milner running Brad a close second, but how about Stewart Downing right behind him? Could it be that when he gets it right it’s in a useful position and when he gets it wrong it’s less important? Or perhaps he’s just better than some people give him credit for.

It’s interesting that the gap in points between Warnock and Luke Young is larger than anything above. It’s no coincidence I suspect; everyone from Luke down played less than the 2,000 minutes mentioned above so their score will suffer an adverse affect.

The Premier League

Here’s the top 20 plying their trade in England:-

If Castrol Picked The England Team

Just for fun, since I did this with the Actim Index, here’s the top rated English players in each category.

Top 5 Goalkeepers

Top 15 Defenders

Top 15 Midfielders

Top 10 Strikers

Oh, and if you noticed that the Premier League’s best player, Didier Drogba, was ranked 3rd overall and are wondering who is ranked above him overall….

…but you already knew that, right?