Scottish Premiership: Who topped charts for games, goals, assists, tackles & saves in 2023?
- Published
So 2023 has been and gone. The winners have been crowned and the losers castigated.
But scratch beyond the titles, cup wins and relegations and what else can we derive from the last 12 months?
Who played the most games, scored the most goals, delivered the most assists, pulled off the most saves and made the most tackles in the Scottish Premiership?
BBC Sport Scotland has delved into the numbers to find out...
Who played the most matches?
St Mirren midfielder Greg Kiltie was more involved than anyone else, appearing in 42 Scottish Premiership matches across the year.
A clutch of six players turned out 40 times, including Kiltie's Paisley team-mates Marcus Fraser and Scott Tanser plus Celtic stalwarts Callum McGregor and Kyogo Furuhashi.
Another rash of Premiership performers played 39 times, including Lawrence Shankland, Kyle Rowles, Matt O'Riley and Blair Spittal.
Who scored the most goals?
Not a great surprise, this one.
Hearts' Shankland is the division's top scorer this term and netted more than anyone else in 2023.
He edges out Old Firm duo Kyogo and James Tavernier, with all three having played broadly the same number of matches.
Special mention, though, to Kevin van Veen, who remained fourth in the chart despite having played around half as many games as everyone else around him.
How Motherwell could do with him still at Fir Park this season.
What about the most assists?
Again, those at the Old Firm are left looking up at someone from another club - this time Danny Armstrong of Kilmarnock taking the plaudits as the player who has created the most goals.
The 26-year-old Englishman set up a goal for the Rugby Park club every three-and-a-bit games in 2023. Good going for a team who were in a relegation battle for the first half of the year.
That said, a nod to Celtic's Luis Palma, who is only a couple behind despite making just 16 appearances to Armstrong's 39 since joining from Aris in the summer.
Who made the most saves?
Ross Laidlaw is the man. And by a distance, too.
The Ross County goalkeeper made 128 saves in 37 matches - an average of 3.5 per game.
But none will have been as important as the shootout stops from Partick Thistle's Kevin Holt and Ross Docherty that preserved the Dingwall side's place in the Premiership in May's play-off final.
Again, a mention for someone who was only involved for half of the year - St Johnstone's Dimitar Mitov, who has made the eighth-highest number of saves despite only signing in the summer.
And what about the most tackles?
Daniel Phillips of St Johnstone is top of this list.
The combative Trinidad & Tobago midfielder only played 33 matches in 2023 but crunched into an average of three tackles in each of them.
Paul McGinn of Motherwell also only played in 33 matches, yet took second place on the chart.
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