Premier League 2018-19: Arsenal and City stars included in top 5 fastest players
Football is made of beautiful goals, breathtaking skills, last grasp defending and high flying saves. But an essential, and often discussed aspect of the game is speed. Each and every tactics deployed in the modern game of Football has an element of speed it in, be it lightning fast counter attacks or tiki-taka.
The game has always loved speed, there is nothing more exciting than the sight of striker breaking away with pace, leaving the defence behind and racing towards the goal. Unless of course, you are the defending team, in which case, a speeding defender who races back, matches speed for speed with the attacker and wins the ball is a great asset.
Football loves speed, but not everyone is blessed with it. These are a rare breed of players, the speedsters, who can almost race away with your heart. When they run, they give the engrossed viewers the feeling that they are running themselves.
They are the wind to the sails of the fans, who cheer them on as they race through the turf, almost tearing it away and burning up their tanks. In the stands and through out the world, these speedsters make the spectators stand up in anticipation, in excitement, as most of the time, their pace helps determine the outcome of the game.
The top flight club competition in England has always been blessed with players with quick feet. There have been dashing wingers, lightning quick strikers and turbo wing-backs. There have also been fast footed central defenders and midfielders.
Last season, the Premier League saw a lot of meteoric pace, from Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane to Manchester United’s Anthony Martial and Marcush Rashford. From Arsenal’s Hector Bellerin to Chelsea’s Eden Hazard, from Manchester City’s Leroy Sane to Crystal Palace’s Wilfred Zaha, all lit up the season with their pace.
However, after the first month of the new season, none of them feature among the five fastest players in the league.
The Mirror, along with Opta, tracked the statistics of the footballers after the opening month of play and narrowed down the list of the fastest footballers in the league. Today, we take a look at the five fastest Footballers so far in 2018-19 season.
#5 Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang (34.753 Km/h)
When City came to visit Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on 12 August, Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang started as the focal point in attack, with Mesut Ozil, Aaron Ramsey and Henrikh Mkhitaryan behind him.
Pep Guardiola's side won the game 2-0, while Aubameyang missed a couple of chances. However, during the game, the Gabon international showed his raw pace on quite a few occasions and as per Opta, he clocked up a speed of 34.753 km/h, which makes him the fifth fastest player this campaign.