What follows is a bold claim (and purely a personal opinion) : Sancho has been the best offensive winger in European football this season.

The tactical nuance of Sancho in numbers

For a 20-year-old, these stats are absolutely breathtaking. But rather at looking at a broad diagram, let's examine the main statistical takeaways from this plot:

Tremendous Natural Ability:

Sancho is among the best dribblers in European football. This is clear to anyone watches him. His successful dribbles ranks as amongst the best in his position. He completes a very good 55% of all dribbles completed to boot. This a guy who is getting involved in the play (75 touches a game), and progresses it very well.

World class tactical awareness:

Okay, so you have a player with great dribbling ability, and with a very good pace to boot. So what sets him out from players like Coman, Bailey, and others? The exciting fast dribbler is not exactly a unique formula. But, if you take those base qualities, and combine them with a great knack for making the correct decision on the pitch, you get your Arjen Robben's, your Neymar's and Ribery's. Without leaping to much abstract praise, let's look at the statistics:

How may I assist you ?

Sancho is efficiently progressing the ball, as well as taking the players in his way on.

From the first diagram, you get a sense of what makes Sancho so good. He is making the correct decision. He is statistically very good at giving his teammates quality chances. This, combined with very good finishing on the part of his Dortmund teammates, has made Sancho the second-highest assister in the Bundesliga with 15 assists (from an XA of 7). His ability to make accurate forward passes, combined with a good knack for making good crosses, underscores a mature understanding of the game despite his young age.

An assist map underlying Sancho's two footedness, which enables him to be equally efficient from both wings.

The second figure of this diagram underly another important facet of Dortmund's game. Sancho will often attack the inside spaces within a match, opening up spaces on the wing for the overlapping Hakimi. The explosiveness of this sequence of play is deadly for the opposite flank. Unless the opposition has a fast and physical fullback to mitigate this sequence of play (Alphonso Davies met the threat well), it will always result in a chance. PSG bore the brunt of this sequence in this first leg, and a majority of Hakimi's 19 goal contributions this season has come as result of an interplay which involved Sancho in some way.

Goals Galore:

If this wasn't good enough, Sancho is the third-best scorer in the Bundesliga. Moreso, he is innately a good finisher. Sancho is taking very good shooting chances, passing up on the poorer ones in favor of a pass. Of the shots he takes, he is converting 30% percent of them, and putting 55% of them on target. This is incredible, and even betters Lewandowski's shooting stats this season. Sancho is nearly doubling his XG. He might not be able to continue at this rate, but if the last two seasons are anything to go by, he is obviously a very good finisher.

In short, we are seeing a twenty-year-old, with a frightening knack for making the correct play, be it a shot or goal. He is linking up play with his teammates and has the pace and the creative skills to make plays for himself, and boots the efficiency to take advantage of them. This a player who has quickly established himself in the world-class category, and we are well and truly seeing it.

Miscellaneous comparisons:

I said that (this, of course, a personal opinion) Sancho has been the best offensive winger the season, and I well and truly intend to elaborate that. Without further ado, he is some Understat figures to make my point. Of course, taking into account every team's playstyle is impossible in the scope of this debate, but it's still fun to point out differences in output. As always, a healthy discussion is always encouraged.

Mane has been better able to find goalscoring positions but is a lot less able to contribute to Liverpool's attacking play than Sancho has for Dortmund. Again, stylistic differences can't be accounted for, but the raw data suggests than Sancho's has been more involved in his team's attacks and is outputting more with great efficiency.

Again, Sancho's supreme efficiency has set him out from another world class winger. Salah this time.

This one is very interesting. Mahrez has been very underrated this season, but Sancho is adding 0.26 goals and 0.23 assists/90 than what Mahrez is outputting. Mahrez has been able to progress more plays, however, and still has very good output.

Compared to Gnabry, another standout winger of this season, Sancho has been better at creating more output with less chances to do so. His decision making shines once again.

Interestingly enough, Sancho has been outputting more per 90 than Neymar has. In fact Neymar, by no means a bad finisher, is expected to score at double the rate of Sancho, but is only scoring about 15% more.

Summary:

This young Englishman is incredible. His nature ability is tremendous, and his decision making his very astute. Whichever club he will be at next season will be lucky to have him. One thing is for sure, he will not find it difficult to get into any team (based on offensive stats alone). If he is willing to put in more effort on the defensive side of the game, he will no doubt be the complete package.

Credit to all of Understat, Statsbomb, Utdarena, and Fbref for making this statistical analysis possible.

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