Which Premier League Players are the Coldest on the Pitch?

The Premier League is the world’s most-watched sporting league, harnessing a potential viewership of billions. With devoted fans across the globe, players are under a lot of pressure to perform, but which stars remain the calmest when it counts?

We have collected data from the top-performing stars over the last three Premier League seasons to determine which football players are most ruthless on the pitch. To accompany this, we have also ranked the league’s biggest hot-heads and the most iconic football celebrations over the years.

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The coldest Premier League football players

1. Cole Palmer – 8.67/10

Cole Palmer was nicknamed “Cold Palmer” last year due to his ability to perform in big moments for club and country. Despite being young and inexperienced, Palmer cemented himself as Chelsea’s star man after signing for the club last summer.

As last season was Palmer’s first full year as a first-team regular, he has scored fewer goals than many others in this list in the past three seasons, but he scores when it counts the most, evidenced by his 32% match-winning goal statistic. Another factor that ratifies the “Cold Palmer” moniker is his incredible record from the penalty spot. His first goal for Chelsea was a penalty, and since then, he has cemented himself as the club’s go-to penalty taker with a 100% record from twelve yards.

2. Darwin Núñez – 8.56/10

Perhaps a surprising inclusion near the top of this list is Liverpool’s Uruguayan striker Darwin Núñez, who has a reputation for missing big chances and underperforming. This reputation may well be undeserved, according to the data.

Núñez’s shot conversion rate is poor compared to other high-profile strikers (13%), but he converts chances when it matters. This is evidenced by the fact that 40% of all the goals he has scored in the league have been match-winning, and 15% of all his goals have been scored in stoppage time.

3. Erling Haaland – 7.67/10

If you have recently followed the Premier League, you have likely heard of Erling Haaland. Although he has only played in the Premier League since 2022, he is already regarded as one of the greatest goalscorers the league has ever seen.

Of the factors contributing to Haaland’s 7.89 /10 overall score, he has an average shot conversion rate of 31% and an average goal every 85 minutes, both of which are the best scores of our top three entries in their respective categories.

The coldest Premier League footballers for…

Average minutes per goal

Erling Haaland – 85 minutes

After being revealed as having the biggest goal total over the last three Premier League seasons, it may come as no surprise that Erling Haaland features here, too. Haaland puts a goal away every 85 minutes on average, which equates to around one per game.

Average minutes per assist

Kevin De Bruyne – 172 minutes

Kevin De Bruyne has scored many goals in his career, but he is better known for setting up his teammates. The Manchester City attacking midfielder’s selflessness, passing ability, and vision, paired with his talented goal-scoring teammates, have resulted in De Bruyne earning an assist once every 172 minutes.

Match winning goals

Alexis Mac Allister – 45% of all goals scored

Alexis Mac Allister may not be the top goalscorer, but he puts them in the back of the net when it counts, evidenced by his nine match-winning goals, accounting for 45% of his goals across the last three Premier League seasons.

Of his match-winning goals, Liverpool fans will look back fondly on the central midfielder’s rocket of a shot, which saw the Reds take the lead over Sheffield United earlier this year and contributed to a 3-1 win which saw them temporarily retain their position at the top of the table.

Stoppage-time goals

Yoane Wissa – 15% of all goals scored

Stoppage-time goals can often be the difference between points or no points, and Yoane Wissa has a better record than most. The French left-winger has scored 26 goals across the last three Premier League seasons, and more than 15% of these have come during the added injury time at the end of matches.

Shot conversion rate

Alexander Isak – 32%

Since moving to English football’s top division in 2022, Alexander Isak has made a considerable impact at his current club, Newcastle United. He scored 21 goals in the last Premier League season alone. Isak’s shot conversion rate has stayed consistently high in the previous two seasons, averaging 32%.

Penalty conversion rate

Callum Wilson and Cole Palmer – 100%

Newcastle striker Callum Wilson and Chelsea midfielder Cole Palmer are two players in our study who have taken over five penalties and scored 100% in the past three seasons. Neither of them has missed from twelve yards.

Palmer’s penalty kicks came in the latest season when he converted an incredible nine from nine spot kicks. Meanwhile, injury-prone forward Wilson has taken seven, spread over each season, and converted all of them.

The biggest Premier League hotheads

The coldest players in the Premier League are those that you can rely on to ice a big moment, delivering big for their team in attack to help them win matches. Defending is equally vital in football as most of the best sides have built success on the back of good defence and winning the ball.

However, when trying to win the ball back, sometimes mistakes happen, resulting in fouls and the possibility of further punishment from the referee. Some players are more prone to a hot head, playing recklessly, clumsily and sometimes aggressively in the attempt to win the ball or change momentum for their team. Some players may even see red metaphorically and physically in the form of a red card being shown to them, resulting in a send-off.

By studying data on players’ fouls, yellow cards and red cards, we have determined who some of the hottest-headed players in the Premier League have been in recent seasons.

1. Mason Holgate – 8.49/10

Defender Mason Holgate is the hottest-headed player to have played in the Premier League in recent years. The Yorkshire-born defender made his debut for Everton in 2016 whilst still a teenager, and he has gone on to make 136 Premier League appearances for both the Toffees and, more recently, Sheffield United.

Holgate is one of just three players to have received three red cards in the past three seasons. This means he averages a send-off every 1,119 minutes of football played. Sky Sports pundit Jamie Redknapp described his most recent send-off as “one of the worst tackles I have seen in years,” and it was widely regarded as a moment of madness from Holgate. On top of this, he has a pursuant for yellow cards, as he gets one nearly every 224 minutes on average.

2. Oliver McBurnie – 7.78/10

Sheffield United were described as being one of the worst Premier League teams in history when they finished bottom last season. They conceded the most goals any team has ever managed, which was not helped by very poor discipline and multiple send-offs for their players.

Striker Oliver McBurnie was one of these hot-headed players who contributed. The striker is known as a handful for opposition defenders, but he is also no stranger to yellow cards. Amazingly, he received one every 183 minutes on average, and almost 40% of all his fouls resulted in a booking.

3. Junior Firpo – 7.68/10

Leeds United left-back Junior Firpo was the first Dominican player to play in the Premier League when he signed from Barcelona in 2021. Unfortunately, during his two-year stint in the League before relegation to the Championship, Firpo was known as one of the league’s hot-headed players.

Firpo gave away a foul every 51 minutes on average, and almost 30% of his fouls resulted in a yellow card being shown. The cherry on top of the cake for Firpo came with a straight red card against Newcastle in a must-win game for his side to avoid relegation, and earlier in the same match he gave away a penalty from which his team conceded.

The most hot-headed Premier League footballers for…

Average minutes per foul

Wataru Endo – 37 minutes

Having joined Liverpool from VfB Stuttgart in 2023, Wataru Endo is already one of the most hot-headed players on the pitch. He has played 1,722 minutes so far and has clocked up 47 fouls—this is an average of just 37 minutes per foul.

Average minutes per yellow card

Junior Firpo – 171 minutes

A Leeds player since 2021, Junior Firpo knows something about high-pressure situations. However, he does tend to push some plays too far, with 18 yellow cards over the two seasons his team were in the Premier League. With 3,081 minutes to his name during that time, this translates into one yellow card every 171 minutes played.

Average minutes per red card

Oliver McBurnie – 642 minutes

It’s no surprise that McBurnie was the second most hot-headed player in the Premier League, given his red card record — he received one every 642 minutes he played, on average. However, all red cards resulted from a second yellow rather than straight reds.

The coldest football celebrations

1. Lionel Messi – 95,800 Google searches

Regarded by many as the greatest football player of all time, Lionel Messi needs no introduction. In 2017, the Argentinian centre-forward celebrated his 500th club goal for Barcelona, which also happened to be a stoppage-time winner in the El Classico fixture. The goal was made more iconic after Messi removed his shirt and showed his name and number to the opposition’s fans.

Despite taking place more than seven years ago, this celebration remains one of the most legendary in football history, with almost 96,000 Google searches in the last two years alone.

2. Cristiano Ronaldo – 30,260 Google searches

Cristiano Ronaldo’s iconic ‘Siu’ celebration is next on our list, with more than 30,000 Google searches in the last two years. Translating from Spanish to ‘Yes’, the Siu has become Ronaldo’s trademark post-goal commemoration. Over the years, the popularity of this power stance has soared, with athletes such as Manel Kape and Odell Beckham Jr. having been spotted imitating CR7’s celebration.

3. Ángel Di María – 26,650 Google searches

Completing our top three list of the coldest football celebrations, with 26,650 Google searches in the last two years, is Ángel Di María’s ‘heart’. The Argentinian attacking midfielder has scored more than 170 goals across his career, including a short stint at Manchester United. After celebrating so many goals over the years, it is no surprise that Di María has developed a trademark move in which he shapes his hands into a heart shape.

Methodology

All data is accurate as of 06/08/2024.

Using Premier League statistics, we sourced the top 20 goalscorers of the past three seasons (2021/22 – 2023/24) and used this to create a seeding list of the league’s top goalscorers.

We used FootyStats and Transfermarkt to find the following data for each player for each of the last three seasons:

• Goals scored
• Total minutes played
• Total assists
• Match-winning goals
• +90 min goals
• Penalties taken
• Penalties scored and missed
• Shot conversion rate

We added the figures for each of the three seasons to provide each player with one three-year total for each factor.

We divided the total minutes played by the total goals scored to calculate each player’s minutes per goal. This calculation was also used to determine the minutes per assist.

We divided the number of match-winning goals by the total number of goals scored to calculate each player’s match-winning goal prevalence. This calculation was also used to determine the prevalence of stoppage time goals.

To calculate each player’s penalty accuracy, we divided the number of converted penalties by the total number of penalties.

We averaged each player’s shot conversion rate over the last three seasons to find the average shot conversion rate.

We used football-related factors (goals scored, minutes per goal, assists, minutes per assist, % of match-winning goals, % of stoppage time goals, penalty accuracy, and average shot conversion rate). We then normalised each factor out of 10 before taking an average of those scores to get our overall ‘cold football star score’.

The same process was repeated, this time using any player to have received multiple red cards over the past three seasons and the 20 players with the most yellow cards in each season between the 2021/22 – 2023/24 seasons. For this ranking, the following factors were used:

• The percentage of tackles that resulted in a foul (for some players, this may be more than 100%, as fouls can be given for incidents not resulting from a tackling action, such as handball).
• Average minutes per foul
• Percentage of fouls which resulted in a yellow card
• Average minutes per yellow card
• Total number of red cards
• Percentage of fouls that resulted in a red card
• Average minutes per red card
• Percentage of red cards that were a straight red card

We then normalised every factor and created a score out of ten for each player to determine their hot-headedness.

Finally, we used a series of listicles and online content to create a third seeding list of famous football player celebrations. We used a range of search terms relating to each football celebration and Google Ads Keyword Planner to find the total number of global Google searches for each celebration between June 2022 and May 2024.