Everybody, including Wenger, is comparing Fabregas with Scholes.


"The frame, intelligence in the game, passing ability and knowing when to go into the box.
He is only 20 and people forget that." Said Wenger in his Portsmouth post match conference.


They are indeed similar players. They both play in central midfield and they are both playmakers of their respective sides.

Excellent football players.


But Fabregas is a better footballer for Arsenal than Scholes is for Manchester United.
A very bold statement you might say especially coming from a very biased Arsenal supporter.


Well, is it however?


Because they occupy the most influential parts of the pitch, midfielders are more likely to influence the outcome of a match than other positions, especially if they have vision for a good pass or ability to score.


It is generally accepted that outstanding midfielders need to posses a number of attributes on top of fitness: technique and ball skills, tackling, retaining possession and distribution, shooting and scoring as well.


We have managed, with great difficulty, to find statistical data for each player's performance on most of the above attributes.

They are presented in the table at the end of this article.


Now on which of those do you think Scholes is better than Fabregas?


Technique and ball skills


I would place Fabregas above Scholes in this area. Scholes is more of an energetic type of player who possesses average technique and ball skills. And by average I don't mean that he is not good at it. He is average and Fabregas is above average.


Scholes does tend to release the ball much earlier than....



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