Andre Schurrle: EPL Player of the Week

Andre Schurrle

Chelsea midfielder Andre Schurrle kept Jose Mourinho’s side top of the Premier League this week, providing a display of clinical finishing to score all three goals in their 3-1 win over Fulham on Saturday and extend their lead at the top of the table to four points.

The German, who has only featured sporadically for Mourinho’s side so far this season, was starting his second game in succession, having produced an encouraging display against Galatasaray in the Champions League, and put Fulham to the sword with a trio of well taken goals that also helped land the Squawka Player of the Week award.

Squawka Top Three Performers of The Weekend By Performance Score

The Chelsea man scored a Squawka Performance Score of 106, beating Aston Villa’s Christian Benteke and Chelsea teammate Eden Hazard to the week’s highest total.

Schurrle Opened The Scoring in the 52nd Minute, Before Adding Two Further Goals

This came largely due to his match-winning hat trick, which saw him strike three times in 16 second half minutes to secure the points for the away side. The hat trick means that Schurrle has scored six Premier League goals this season, giving him a better goals to minutes ratio than any of his Stamford Bridge teammates this season.

Schurrle has played 20 matches, but has started 12 of those from the bench, and has scored a goal every 127 minutes.

Schurrle’s hat trick came from eight shots on goal, three of which were blocked. The German accounted for almost half of Chelsea’s 17 shots on goal and peppered the goal with more shots than the combined efforts of Fulham’s entire team, who managed just seven.

The former Bayer Leverkusen man started the game, but gave no signs of what was to come in the second half during the game’s opening 45 minutes. His performance score rocketed after half time, thanks to his proficiency in front of goal, helping him to the man of the match and player of the week gongs.

Nominally starting on the right hand side of Chelsea’s fluid attacking midfield three, Schurrle frequently interchanged with Hazard and Oscar – as shown by his action areas map above, which is also notable for the high percentage of touches within the Fulham penalty area.

Schurrle Headed Duels

Aside from his goals, Schurrle was solid enough across the rest of the game. While he didn’t create any chances for his team mates – preferring to finish them off himself – he completed 73% of his passes, misplacing just seven – of which three were headed, and was successful in every headed duel that he contested.

His opening season at the club has been frustrating for Schurrle so far, but his recent performances have suggested that he has heeded the advice handed to him by Jose Mourinho on the training ground and could be set to make a Willian-esque transformation from frustrated new signing to first team regular.

Should he do so, then his combination of industrious play and coolness in front of goal could make him a key man over the title race’s final ten games.