Giggsy's season so far

For Ryan Giggs the plaudits have been justifiably deafening over the past twenty four hours after his match winning 900th appearance for United at Carrow Road on Sunday. At the age of 38, the Welsh flyer shows no signs of slowing down, displaying remarkable awareness and hunger as he strained every sinew to reach Ashley Young's cross at the far post in the last minute of injury time yesterday. To last 90 minutes in the Premier League at his age is an achievement in itself. For a 38 year old to be hurtling in at the far post toward the end of a tough, physical top flight contest is nothing short of incredible.
And yet United fans are well accustomed to such timeless displays from the evergreen midfielder. It has been another remarkable season for the Welshman; contributing well above what might be reasonably expected from a man of his age.

The season so far

Giggs has featured in 18 of United's 26 Premier League games so far this season, making 11 starts and 7 sub appearances. The reds have the following record in games involving the veteran.

P	W	D	L	F	A	PTS	GD	Pts per game
18	13	4	1	47	14	43	33	2.38

The average points per game achieved with Giggs in the side is slightly above the United's season average of 2.34.

Contribution

But of course, at 38, Ferguson must ration Giggs' game time. In his 18 league appearances, Giggs has played just 1,053 minutes (around 11.7 full games) out of a possible 1,620 mins. Even so, he has made the best use of his time on the the field as the next table shows.

www.otmcr.com Ryan Giggs	Total	Per 90 mins
Goals	2	0.17
Passes	583	49.9
Attacking 3rd passes	250	21.36
Chances created	38	3.24
Goals created	8	0.68
Shots	11	1.06

The most striking stat in the table above is the 'chances created' figure; 38 chances in 1,053 minutes or an equivalent of 3.24 chances created per game. This translates into a 'goals created' rate of .68 goals per game; put another way, Giggs creates a goal every 1.3 full matches he plays.
By comparison, Man City's David Silva averages 2.96 'chances created' per game and 0.48 'goals created' per game (a goal every 2.08 games).
In terms of overall passing, Giggs' rate of 49.9 is decent but nowhere near the best passers. Having said that, he makes a high number of forward passes and passes in the attacking third, completing over 21 passes per 90 mins in advanced areas.

Conclusion

As we said at the outset, Ryan Giggs is still making a remarkable contribution to Manchester United. These stats only serve to highlight just how profound that contribution is. Sir Alex Ferguson said yesterday that Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes were United's greatest ever players. It is hard to argue with him. They both cost nothing to sign and keep on producing great moments for the club they love. Any red would want to do the same and it warms the hearts of us all to see these two legends go on and on. But in the wake of his 900th appearance, the moment belongs to Giggs; still tearing you apart after all these years.