Interesting discussion on stats. If we want to judge our midfielders, though, we have to be looking at the stats for the things midfielders are supposed to do, on the attack and defence side of the ball. Unfortunately, though, there are no stats openly available for things like penetrating runs, blindside runs, overlaps per game, etc. So we have to, as always, satisfy ourselves with what can be measured, which is usually on-ball actions. When we talk about on-ball actions, there are only five things that a player can do on the ball - shoot, dribble, pass to feet, pass to space, or clear it. Only one of those is a defensive action, but the other four, attack-wise, are measurable. We can look at shots on target and goals, duels won and lost, pass completion (and forward pass completion more importantly), and then through balls, key passes and assists. After that, we're kind of stuck with subjectivity, as there is not a lot of definite on-ball actions that can be measured objectively. If we look at those attacking criteria though, we should get an overall measure of how a player compares with others - but of course we won't have a measure of how they are working off the ball, which is also so very vital to good play.
