CASTROL RANKINGS ANALYSIS

Thierry Henry retains his position at the top of the October 2009 Castrol Rankings while Barcelona’s overall dominance has been increased with the Spanish club now providing seven of the top ten performing players over the past 12 months.

Castrol has applied the same expertise they apply to the development of their oils to create the Castrol Rankings – using objective analysis and highly advanced technology to measure every pass, every tackle and every single move of over 2,000 players and games from Europe’s top 5 leagues over the last year.

That analysis shows that Barca striker Henry – who headed September’s inaugural Castrol Rankings - has out-performed team-mate Lionel Messi and Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo who both remain second and third respectively.

Barcelona players accounted for five of September’s top ten.

The impact of the Catalan club’s outstanding run of success over the last year – a year in which they won the Champions League, La Liga and the Copa del Rey - is demonstrated even more strongly following the arrival of Seydou Keita and Daniel Alves into the top ten to join Gerard Pique, Carles Puyol and Rafael Marquez as well as Henry and Messi.

Castrol Ambassador Marcel Desailly, a Fifa World Cup winner with France, said: “Barcelona have been the outstanding team over the last 12 months and the presence of so many of their players at the head of the Castrol Rankings shows just why they have enjoyed such success.

“Players like Henry and Messi often catch the eye because of their goals but trophies aren’t simply won by strikers. You need quality throughout the team and the Rankings show that coach Pep Guardiola has just that.

“Marquez, Pique and Puyol are outstanding defenders, Daniel Alves gives great support at both ends of the field and Keita brings control to the midfield.”

Henry has been injured throughout October but remains top because the Castrol Rankings measures performance over a 12 month period. The France international’s exceptional shooting accuracy has helped him stay ahead of Messi with Henry finding the target with 71% of his attempts on goal compared to the Argentine’s 64%.

Keita, though, has emerged as the biggest mover at the head of the table, rising from 25th to ninth partly because of a dramatic improvement in his scoring form last month.

The midfielder has now scored nine goals over the last year and four of those came in October, including a hat-trick in the 6-1 win against Real Zaragoza in a game that saw the Mali midfielder record the second highest number of points in the month behind Didier Drogba’s performance in Chelsea’s 4-0 defeat of Bolton Wanderers.

One player on the rise and who may well enter the top 20 next month is Arsenal’s Andrey Arshavin. The Russian forward has had an impressive start to life in England, scoring nine goals and assisting five more in the English Premier League and has risen from 248th in September’s rankings to 25th this month.

Arshavin has only been playing in the Premier League since January and his Castrol Rankings score will improve when he has played more games and clocked up the minimum 2000 minutes of action required to provide a comprehensive analysis in the Castrol Rankings.

Fernando Torres is the highest ranked English Premier League player, having bagged 18 goals – more than any other player in that competition – in the last 12 months.

Perhaps the biggest surprise in the top ten is Claudio Pizarro of Werder Bremen. After a largely unsuccessful period with Chelsea, the Peru international returned to the Bundesliga last season and immediately rediscovered his form.

He has scored 18 league goals in the last 12 months and only Wolfsburg’s Edin Dzeko (16th) has fired in more shots on target in the German Bundesliga. Pizarro has also weighed in with plenty of defensive clearances from set-plays making him a key contributor at both ends of the pitch.

Nicolas Douchez of Rennes (22nd) has replaced AC Milan’s Christian Abbiati as the highest ranked goalkeeper. Douchez made 118 saves in Ligue 1 in the last year – more than any other ‘keeper – and has saved a very impressive 81% of shots on target faced.