In our latest pre-season article on the Sky Sports game, we turn attention to its most arbitrary of scoring methods – the Man of the The Match (MoTM) award.
While it’s often easy to overlook the significance of this accolade, it should be noted that MoTM is worth five points in the Sky Sports game – the same amount as a goal or clean sheet (for defenders).
As the award is dished out by a match reporter and can sometimes differ from the televised opinion, it is far more difficult to predict and quantify than likely goals or clean sheets.
Using the last four season’s data, however, we can look to highlight certain players and positions and their potential chances of securing future awards.
Top Overall Recipients
Let’s take a look at the players who gained five or more MoTM awards last season.
| Name | Starts | MoTM | Starts-MoTM % |
| Eden Hazard | 36 | 9 | 25% |
| Philippe Coutinho | 28 | 9 | 32% |
| Alexis Sanchez | 36 | 9 | 25% |
| Wilfried Zaha | 34 | 7 | 21% |
| Harry Kane | 29 | 7 | 24% |
| Kevin De Bruyne | 33 | 5 | 15% |
| Raheem Sterling | 29 | 5 | 17% |
| Ross Barkley | 32 | 5 | 16% |
| Marc Albrighton | 29 | 5 | 17% |
| Diego Costa | 35 | 5 | 14% |
| Sergio Aguero | 25 | 5 | 20% |
| Zlatan Ibrahimovic | 27 | 5 | 19% |
Here are a few points to note:
Seven midfielders and five forwards make up the top players here, with not a defender or goalkeeper in sight.
Eden Hazard has now topped the MoTM charts in three out of the last four seasons.
Philippe Coutinho has the highest starts to MoTM ratio and so possibly would have topped the total MoTM awards last year if not for injury.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the list is generally made up of expensive players from the top sides.
Flair appears to be a theme. Aside maybe from Marc Albrighton, the remaining players are known for their showmanship.
Position % of total MoTM awards by season
| 13/14 | 14/15 | 15/16 | 16/17 | Total | |
| Goalkeeper | 6% | 8% | 6% | 6% | 6.4% |
| Defender | 15% | 13% | 13% | 18% | 14.7% |
| Midfielder | 52% | 52% | 58% | 52% | 53.8% |
| Forward | 27% | 27% | 23% | 24% | 25.1% |
Over the last four seasons the consistency here is almost frightening – midfielders dominate while forwards also claim a healthy piece of the pie.
Considering that most teams only field one forward, it does make their tally all the more appealing, however.
Defenders made a slight jump in 16/17, possibly due to the success of wingbacks. If this trend continues expect a slight increase in this area once again.
This Season’s Benefactors
So let’s try to predict a few of the players likely to gain from awards for this season.
The table below lists my view on the key MoTM candidates by team.
| Team | Player |
| Arsenal | Sanchez |
| Bournemouth | King/Defoe |
| Brighton | Knockaert/Gross |
| Burnley | Heaton/Vokes |
| Chelsea | Hazard |
| Crystal Palace | Zaha |
| Everton | Rooney/Klaassen |
| Huddersfield | Mooy/Ince |
| Leicester | Vardy |
| Liverpool | Coutinho/Salah |
| Man City | De Bruyne |
| Man United | Pogba |
| Newcastle | Shelvey/Ritchie/Atsu |
| Southampton | Stephens/Gabbiadini |
| Stoke | Shaqiri/Butland |
| Swansea | Sigurdsson/Llorente |
| Tottenham Hotspur | Kane |
| Watford | Pereyra/Gray |
| West Brom | Phillips |
| West Ham | Lanzini |
As always, I’ll be tracking the allocation of the MoTM awards and offering an updated view in my weekly Sky Sports Focus article.
Podcast and Weekly Article
I’ll be talking through the week’s action and upcoming plans with FFS posters Buffrey and Lewis on our regular podcast – the latest episode can be found here.
We also have the dedicated RMT community article to exclusively deal with Sky Sports Fantasy teams. Those looking to get involved should click this link.
Fantasy Football Scout League
We have already set up our Fantasy Football Scout League and, after winning the League of Leagues for each of the last four seasons, we’re looking to defend our crown in 2017/18.
Get your teams in – the name is FFScout and the pin number to join is 8300422.
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