Pogba, Mbappe and the 10 France players to crash the last six months
Cameron Smith
- Updated: 22 Mar 2022 22:45 GMT
- 4 min read
Leeds United goalkeeper Illan Meslier is the France player who has declined the most over the past six months, according to SciSports.
The French shot-stopper has endured a tough 2021/22 season, conceding the most goals in the entire Premier League with 67 in Leeds' 30 games.
Using in-game data to calculate the performance of every player in the league, Meslier has statistically had the sharpest fall in his personal level after an impressive debut campaign in the division.
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Last season, Meslier was praised for his impressive form, but that has nosedived this campaign and he currently is the worst performing goalkeeper in the English top flight, conceding 8.8 more goals than xG predicts he should have.
Second on the list is Maxence Lacroix at Wolfsburg. The German side qualified for the Champions League last season, but now find themselves just five points above the relegation zone.
The Frenchman has played 30 times this season, and has accumulated six yellow cards and three red cards, highlighting his ill discipline.
Next up is a very surprising name in Kylian Mbappe. The Paris Saint-Germain superstar has suffered a drop off of 8.1 over the last six months, a time period in which he's scored 10 Ligue 1 goals, before even counting strikes in all competitions.
However, given his incredibly high level, he may suffer due to his own greatness.
Fourth is Manchester United's Paul Pogba, who has barely featured owing to injury problems. In fact, he's played just eight league games in the last six months, which explains his crash.
Former Arsenal man Francis Coquelin is next, followed by fellow central midfielder Lucas Tousart.
Barcelona centre-back Clement Lenglet is seventh, with the Frenchman starting three La Liga games in the past six months after being dropped for Eric Garcia or Ronald Araujo, who have been preferred in partnership with Gerard Pique.
Fellow La Liga star Anthony Martial is eighth, with the on-loan Sevilla forward starting four games in the past six months and failing to score.
Everton's Abdoulaye Doucoure and Lorient's Laurent Abergel round off the top 10.
| Club | SciSports Decline |
| Illan Meslier | -10 |
| Maxence Lacroix | -9.7 |
| Kylian Mbappe | -8.1 |
| Paul Pogba | -5.8 |
| Francis Coquelin | -5.7 |
| Lucas Tousart | -5.5 |
| Clement Lenglet | -5.0 |
| Anthony Martial | -4.7 |
| Abdoulaye Doucoure | -4.7 |
| Laurent Abergel | -4.4 |
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 French players over the last six months whose performances have declined 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)."
