Data analyst Ballity has ranked 50 Premier League midfielders this season on how they perform in two roles: as a creator and as a deep-lying playmaker. Rice comes out as the best overall, top for deep-lying playmaking and near the top for creating.

The Arsenal midfielder leads the Premier League with five assists this season, all from open play, already matching his tally for the whole of last season.

Whatever is left of the anti-Rice narrative, the numbers have put it to bed. He isn’t quite the league’s top creator, though. That title belongs to a Hale End graduate.

Alex Iwobi ranks as the Premier League’s top creator

Indeed, it’s actually Alex Iwobi. The former Arsenal playmaker has been one of the most reliable players in the Premier League since leaving for Everton in 2019, before moving on to Fulham.

At the weekend, he made his 329th Premier League appearance, overtaking Mohamed Salah for the most by an African player. Only Kolo Toure (353), another former Arsenal man of course, has more. That’s quite an achievement, given how many managers he’s played under along the way.

What could Mikel Arteta have done with Alex Iwobi?

It’s a shame we never got to see Iwobi under Arteta, who would surely have liked him as a player. The Nigerian was sold just months before the Arsenal boss arrived, and the team were badly short in attacking midfield by the time he took over.

As one fan put it on X: “I still wonder what Arteta could’ve done with Iwobi if we didn’t sell him to Everton… Certain we’re not 15th by Xmas 2020 as he would’ve been a useful body alongside ESR.”

Of course, around that time, it was Emile Smith Rowe — now a teammate of Iwobi’s — who had to carry much of the creative burden before Arteta’s project took off. Unai Emery oversaw the departures of Iwobi, Aaron Ramsey and Henrikh Mkhitaryan in 2019, leaving the Gunners short of that sort of profile.

That said, nobody at Arsenal will be losing sleep over it now, especially with Declan Rice in midfield. Have we ever seen a midfielder this good defensively yet so influential creatively? He’s the best midfielder in the country.