The Women’s Super League Team of the Year 2020, according to quantitative analysis
Who should be in the Women’s Super League team of 2020? Using quantitative analysis derived from investment banking, Matthew Belford and Jack Morris of Carteret Analytics have selected an XI for City PM
How the XI was selected
The players chosen for this Women’s Super League Team of the Year 2020 have been selected based on their Carteret Rating. a highly accurate and objective proprietary algorithm developed to determine how good a player is by assessing their overall contribution to their team winning football matches. The data from every WSL match played in 2020 has been analysed to select the WSL Team of the Year 2020.
The WSL Team of the Year 2020
Goalkeeper
Quantitative data analysis shows that objectively Manchester City’s Ellie Roebuck (Carteret Rating 218.8) was the best performing goalkeeper in 2020.
The radar chart below) compares Roebuck to Arsenal’s Manuela Zinsberger (Carteret Rating 215.4), the second-best goalkeeper in the WSL.
The data suggests that it is Roebuck’s Distribution and Game Control attributes that set her apart from her closest rival.
Defenders
The scatter graph below plots each defender in the Women’s Super League plotted and shows that all but one of our selected defenders are on a positive trajectory.
Jonna Andersson (Carteret Rating 214.0) is still objectively one of the best defenders in the league, however, by her own standards, she is struggling to find the form she displayed in the 2019-20 season.
Arsenal centre-back Leah Williamson (Carteret Rating 219.9) is showing the greatest level of improvement within our selection, up 5 per cent on her performances last season.
Despite this, the data suggests that overall, Maren Mjelde (Carteret Rating 221.1) is still the strongest defender in the league.
Gemma Bonner (Carteret Rating 213.0) has the highest level of consistency among the defenders when compared to 2019-20 ratings.
Midfielders
The data analysis indicates that the best performing WSL midfielders in 2020 were Arsenal’s Kim Little (Carteret Rating 281.5) and Jill Roord (253.0), Manchester City’s Caroline Weir (269.6) and Chelsea’s Ji So-yun (262.7).
The horizontal bar in the chart below shows that, of the four selected players, Weir demonstrates the strongest matchplay attributes in all but one of the five categories.
Interestingly, Weir does not have the highest Carteret Rating of the four players. She is objectively the second-best midfielder in the WSL according our scoring system, behind the highly experienced Little.
At 25, Weir is yet to reach her peak. Data analysis shows that WSL players reach their optimal performance levels between the ages of 27 and 29.
All four of the selected midfielders are in the top 25th percentile of the Game Changer attribute when compared to all other WSL midfielders, suggesting that they all have the ability to transform a match.
Centre-forwards
Recent media articles have suggested that Vivianne Miedema is one of the best centre-forwards in the world. This is supported by the data analysis which shows that Miedema has the highest Carteret Rating (389.3) of any WSL player in 2020.
The stacked bar chart below shows a direct comparison of the matchplay attributes of Miedema and objectively the second best centre-forward in the league, Chelsea’s Bethany England (Carteret Rating 299.3).
Arsenal’s Miedema dominates England when comparing their Game Changer attribute but does not offer her team as much in Defensive attributes.
Miedema has demonstrated a Carteret Rating over 370.0 in each of the previous three seasons and continues to perform at this exceptionally high level in the current 2020-21 season.
Matthew Belford is a director and Jack Morris a corporate analyst at the Carteret Group. For more details on Carteret Analytics, their research and methodology, see here.