The Premier League's 'top two' go head-to-head at The Emirates this afternoon when Leeds United's Noah Okafor meets Arsenal forward Bukayo Saka.
When data specialists Gradient Sports produced their player rankings for the first five games of the season, Saka was top of the pile with a rating of 88.5 but tucked in just behind him was Leeds United forward Okafor [87.2]. Okafor is in some esteemed company in the top 10 of Premier League players with 270-plus minutes so far this season, ahead of Marc Guéhi, Neco Williams, Rayan Cherki, Lewis Hall, João Pedro, Jan Paul van Hecke, Kobbie Mainoo and Elliot Anderson.
How they come to rate players in order to rank them is a little different to traditional data models that might simply use 'match events' like goals scored, assists made, completed passes or duels won in a very black and white sense. What they do is put a team of 'graders' to work watching games to place the execution of every on-ball and defensive action on a nine-point scale from -2 to +2, judging each in its full context to include pressure on the player, the difficulty of the action and what it led to.
So where a completed pass might just be a five-yard square ball under no pressure in a player's own half, the analysts will consider all of that in their assessment. A zero is assigned to something a player is expected to do, like the aforementioned sideways pass. A +2 might be a pass that breaks multiple lines and leads to a goal-scoring opportunity. A -1.5 could be a pass that creates a goalscoring opportunity for the opposition.
And to arrive at a place where players can then be ranked, an Overall Grade is produced to combine a player's numbers across every skill into one score out of 100. Skills are also weighted by how much it matters to the player's specific position in order to show how well they perform at the tasks their job demands. For an attacker, their ability to execute on the ball in the final third will carry more weight than say tackling.
What has helped put Okafor second in Gradient's Premier League rankings is how well he has graded at weaker-foot shooting [81.9], shoot under pressure [74.8] and crossing under pressure [76.0]. The man bought from AC Milan in the summer of 2025 has also performed above the average for centre forwards, wingers and attacking midfielders when it comes to 50-50 duels [71.3], 1v1 defending [71.5], dribbling [69.5], tackling [68.9] and ball distribution [72.9].
Okafor's pace and ability to run with the ball have been key to an impressive start to the season. According to the specialists' data he ranks second among Premier League attackers for completed dribbles per 90 minutes and first in the league when it comes to beating players on the outside.
Okafor is not alone in the Leeds dressing room in occupying top spot in one of Gradient Sports' metrics. Club captain Ethan Ampadu ranks first in the division for tackling [86.8]. Others to impress at specific skills include Anton Stach, second in the league for duels [79.9] and centre-back Tarik Muharemović [81.7] who sits third in the rankings for heading at goal.
