With three months of the season played, we will now be publishing regular updates to our Plymouth Argyle player rankings, scoring each player’s impact throughout the 2019/20 season.
Read how we calculate the score
The state of play
With 16 matches of the league season gone (21 in all competitions), Danny Mayor leads the way as our highest ranked Plymouth Argyle player this season. This should come as no surprise given the rave-reviews he has earned thus far, having also won the Argyle Life player of the month for September. He is followed by August player of the month winner Alex Palmer, whose stellar start to the season saw him top the rankings initially, though he has fallen since then as Argyle started to concede goals more consistently.
Joe Edwards takes up third place having been something of a Mr Consistent thus far. Aside from his two-goal performance against Crawley, he has rarely made headlines but instead gone about his job quietly yet effectively. Hardly David Fox, but far more comfortable in possession than former defensive-midfielders, while he also has an excellent awareness for cutting out attacks. It was hardly too surprising to see Argyle keep three clean sheets in four matches once he was returned to defensive midfield.
Callum McFadzean deservedly takes up a spot in the top five having been one of the key performers this season. Despite failing to get a goal all last season for free-scoring Bury, he is currently the second-top scorer this season with four. He is also one of Argyle’s biggest creative threats and already has three assists. It’s not just his assists though, but the quality of the chances he has created. Indeed, had it not been for some profligate finishing he could be nearing double-figures for assists already.
Gary Sawyer, Antoni Sarcevic, Niall Canavan, Scott Wootton, Joe Riley and Joel Grant make up the rest of the top ten. Grant aside, none have truly hit their best form yet, but they have been important members of the team during the start to the season thus far, accumulating lots of minutes, which propels them higher up the rankings at this early stage.
They are under threat from the likes of George Cooper, whose excellent form in spite of limited minutes leaves him set to jump ahead of some of these players within weeks.
Will Aimson is also climbing the rankings after missing the first six weeks. He currently sits 17th due to a lack of game-time, but – with one of the highest average ratings – he will surely shoot into the top ten once he returns to the team. Other players who have had their game-time limited, such as Jose Baxter, Conor Grant, Byron Moore and Dominic Telford are sure to follow suit and fly up the table once they can rake in significant game-time.
Plymouth Argyle’s player rankings
Rank |
Player |
Score |
Movement |
| 1. | Danny MAYOR | 18.42 | – |
| 2. | Alex PALMER | 17.90 | – |
| 3. | Joe EDWARDS | 17.74 | – |
| 4. | Callum McFADZEAN | 17.41 | – |
| 5. | Gary SAWYER | 16.56 | – |
| 6. | Niall CANAVAN | 16.37 | – |
| 7. | Antoni SARCEVIC | 16.20 | – |
| 8. | Scott WOOTTON | 15.51 | – |
| 9. | Joe RILEY | 14.72 | – |
| 10. | Joel GRANT | 14.33 | – |
| 11. | George COOPER | 14.19 | – |
| 12. | Jose BAXTER | 14.15 | – |
| 13. | Byron MOORE | 13.92 | – |
| 14. | Conor GRANT | 13.57 | – |
| 15. | Josh GRANT | 13.43 | – |
| 16. | Ryan TAYLOR | 12.99 | – |
| 17. | Will AIMSON | 12.97 | – |
| 18. | Dominic TELFORD | 12.24 | – |
| 19. | Zak RUDDEN | 11.84 | – |
| 20. | Michael COOPER | 10.19 | – |
| 21. | Adam RANDELL | 9.25 | – |
| 22. | Klaidi LOLOS | 8.03 | – |
| 23. | Tafari MOORE | 7.40 | – |
| 23. | Billy CLARKE | 6.00 | – |
How we calculate the score
Each player receives a match rating from 1-10 and one player from each match receives a player of the match bonus. Players who played fewer than 15 minutes of a match do not receive a match rating unless they made a significant impact. The players are scored by a variety of individuals who have witnessed every match this season.
The scores are aggregated and weighted against the number of appearances, before the man of the match bonus is added. In this way, we are ranking the impact of a player across the season. The more often they have played and the better they have performed, the more of an impact they have made on the team’s season, and therefore the higher they rank.
This way of ranking players enables us to be more impartial when speaking of the impact made by each player across a season, as it significantly reduces:
- recency bias – players who hit a spell of form often have their season-wide impact overstated because of their recent performances.
- statistical bias – players with lots of goals or assists relative to their position tend to be rated above those whose performance levels have been consistently superior but are not involved in goal-scoring, often because it is hard to visualise a player’s impact across a season without resorting to these stats. It explains why attackers, or defenders involved in a high number of goals, predominantly receive most recognition throughout a season.
- confirmation bias – fans who favour some players tend to fixate on their positive performances while neglecting to factor in their bad performances when ranking them across a season.