Premier League Team of the Season: Liverpool and Manchester City dominate stats based XI while Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur have inclusions

The 2022 PFA Award winners are set to be announced on Thursday evening but rather than waiting for the Professional Footballers Association to determine this season’s top performers, data analysts have taken matters into their own hands.

Using data scouting techniques, football analysts at BetVictor have assessed every Premier League player by their statistical performance over the 2021-22 season.

Players have been given a performance rating which is a measure - on a scale of 1-100 - of how well they have performed compared to other players in a similar position.

A score of 50 would mean a player is performing averagely. The higher the score the better a player has performed statistically against other players in that position.

The algorithm is designed to find the starting XI with the most optimised output per 90 minutes.

Goalkeepers were judging on their shot-stopping performance, distribution, command of box, sweeper ability, and 1v1 ability while defenders were ranked on things like blocked shots, interceptions and progressive passes.

Midfielders were assessed on actions such as expected goals, average shots on goal, key passes, successful tackles and successful presses. Forwards were then ranked on factors such as goals, expected goals and their creativity.

Given they finished first and second in the table, Liverpool and Manchester City dominate the stats-based XI while Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur have one inclusion each.

In a 4-3-3 formation, here is the Premier League Team of the Season according to the data - agree with these picks?

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