With fifteen games played Anorthosis Famagusta finds themselves at the top of the Cypriot First Division table. Anorthosis have done incredibly well to build a four-point lead from second place Omonoia, who have played one additional game, a seven-point lead from third place Apollon Limassol and an eight-point lead from perennial title contenders APOEL Nicosia.
Anorthosis’ lead at the top is not bereft of merit. Quite the opposite in fact. The Famagusta club have scored the most goals (34) and conceded the fewest (9). An outstanding title challenge by Temur Ketsbaia’s side.
With that in mind, we decided to delve a little deeper into the performances of Anorthosis’ main forward players: Rayo, Okriashvili, Ďuriš, Kacharava and Sadik.
Minutes Played
Rayo has featured the most for Anorthosis with 1243 minutes played. It goes without saying that he is one of the most important and irreplaceable players for the club. Okriashvili and Ďuriš follow in second and third place with 788 and 765 minutes respectively.
Passing Accuracy
Here we look at overall passing accuracy, forward pass accuracy, long pass accuracy and, finally, total assists.
Overall Passing Accuracy Percentage
Four of the five players are quite close to each other in terms of overall passing accuracy with 80.82%, 79.74%, 79.49%, and 77.36% respectively. Kachareva is somewhat further behind with 67.74%.
Forward Pass Accuracy Percentage
In terms of forward passing accuracy, Rayo leads the chart with 69.72. Okriashvili and Ďuriš follow with 63.64% and 61.54%.
Long Pass Accuracy Percentage
Sadik has the highest long pass accuracy here, although he has the second most fewer long passes per 90 minutes (0.56) and the lower Long Pass Average Distance (8.4 metres).
Although Rayo and Okriashvili are third and fourth here, they have the highest distance for average long passes among the group with 37.07 and 36.27 metres respectively.
Total Assists
Rayo has provided the most assists for the Famagusta club with 5. Kacharava follows with 4, while Okriashvilli has not registered an assist so far.
Total Goals
One of the most indicative charts here. Rayo has dominated the scoring charts this season, scoring a whopping 14 goals in 15 games played. His goal per 90 minutes ratio of 1.01 is almost double that of the next best at the club (0.66 for Kacharava).
Non-Penalty Goals
In terms of further contextualizing the total number of goals scored by the club’s forwards, we also looked at non-penalty goals. Again, Rayo leads the chart with 10 goals. Kacharava and Duris follow with 5 and 3 goals respectively.
In Focus: Rubén Rayos
We looked a bit deeper into Ramos’ goals to see how he is faring against expectations. For that, we looked at total goals, expected goals, and non-penalty goals.
It is quite clear that one word describes the Spanish forward: reliability.
Though his total goals exceed his xG figure (14 goals vs 10.37 xG), his non-penalty goal figure of 10 goals is very much aligned with his xG. Plainly, if an opportunity presents itself in which the player is more often than not expected to score, Rayos is likely to do just that.
In Focus: Nika Kacharava
Following the above look into Rayos’ goals, we did the same for Kacharava. In this instance, the player has scored zero penalties, so total goals versus expected goals (xG) is an easier comparison to make.
Kacharava exceeds expectations here, with 5 goals scored against an xG figure of 2.87. It would be interesting to see if the player keeps outperforming his xG if he is presented with a higher volume of opportunities.
