Ramsey and the 10 England players to explode the last six months

Martin Macdonald

• Updated: 9 Mar 2022 11:41 GMT
• 3 min read

Bournemouth's Jaidon Anthony is the most-improved English player of the last six months, according to SciSports.

Using in-game data to calculate the performance of every player eligible to play for England, the young Bournemouth star has statistically enjoyed the greatest improvement in his personal level.

Anthony made his debut for the Cherries in the 2020/21 season but it is in 2021/22 that he has enjoyed the best performances of his career so far.

He has been a vital factor in Bournemouth's pursuit of promotion to the Premier League and has scored seven goals and recorded five assists in 27 starts in the Championship.

The improvement in Anthony's SciSports skill level can be attributed not only to his performances as a whole, but his exposure to first-team football at a good level.

In second is another entry from the Championship. Jordan James is only 17-years-old but has already made 17 appearances in the second tier in England.

He is eligible to play for the Three Lions, but has represented Wales at youth level.

In third is Max Kilman of Wolves, who is one of the breakout stars from the Premier League this campaign. He is attracting interest from the likes of Chelsea and Manchester United due to his performances.

One of the stars of Steven Gerrard's early tenure as Aston Villa boss has been Jacob Ramsey. He has scored five goals in 20 starts from midfield.

Back to the Championship now with Brennan Johnson. He has been magnificent in his first full season in the competition with Nottingham Forest, contributing 10 goals and six assists to aid his club's promotion push.

Luke Plange is currently on loan at Derby from Crystal Palace, and has come up with a few vital goals for the Rams.

There are two players with links to Chelsea in our top 10. Tino Livramento was the Academy Player of the Season at Stamford Bridge last season, but left for Southampton due to no guarantee of senior squad playing time. He has been superb for the Saints, as has Alejandro Broja, who is on loan at Southampton from Chelsea, though the latter has international appearances for Albania.

How is the SciSkill ranking calculated?

Over the course of a season, there are players who will enjoy increasingly poor performances and increasingly positive performances.

FootballTransfers, in partnership with SciSports, has determined 10 English players over the last six months whose performances have improved to a higher degree than anyone else.

SciSports explains how our development ratings are gathered:

"Among others, a positive development could be boosted by more playing time, playing time on a higher level or better performances on the pitch.

"A negative development could be due to the player being active on a lower level than he used to play, bad performances or the fact that he does not play that often as he used to do.

"A SciSkill Development of 0.0 could indicate that a player is performing exactly like our algorithm expects him to do. Another reason could be inactivity (e.g. a long-term injury or suspension)."

It should be noted that vast improvement does not necessarily mean that a player was underperforming previously.