Pedro Neto: How does he compare to Madueke and the league's best wingers

With his preference to hug the touchline than invert inside, as the heatmap above shows, Pedro Neto, with his wand of a left peg, is one of the standout true wingers in the Premier League.

An intriguing asset for any team, the Portuguese, who is adept at playing on both flanks and even in more central roles, sees his performances peak when he's stationed on the right, especially due to a natural inclination to cut inside onto his potent left foot to create numerous scoring opportunities, as evidenced by his impressive record last season.

In sharp contrast with his less effective stints in other positions, Neto provided seven of his 11 direct goal contributions during a stint when he was predominantly used on the right wing. 

Despite his reputation as an explosive forward who finds himself in the Premier League's top 20 for dribbles with an average of 2.2 per game, Neto falls short compared to more prolific dribblers like Jeremy Doku (4.9) and Mohammed Kudus (4.5).

The former Wolves man is also outpaced by Noni Madueke, his direct competitor at Chelsea, who ranks as the league's third-best dribbler with 3.2 dribbles per game.

Neto's ball progression, however, paints a more favourable picture, as in terms of advancing the ball upward, he ranks in the top 10 among Premier League wingers with an average progressive distance of 156 yards per game.

Still, this number is a significant trail behind the metric leaders, such as Doku (276 yards), Karou Mitoma (191 yards), and Madueke (187 yards), with Neto once again not appearing superior to his younger direct competition, Noni, in another metric. 

The Portuguese forward still also doesn't seem to suggest any upgrade to the Englishman when it comes to making incursions into the opposition's penalty area, averaging 2.5 attempts per game, a figure that pales in comparison not only to Madueke (3.25), but also to the top performers like Doku (8.31), Jack Grealish (4.46), and Mitoma (3.76).

However, Neto is the league's second-best (3.87) behind only Jack Grealish (4.11), when considering progressive carries in general, whether they incursions into the opposition box or not, but is still not a significant upgrade to Madueke (3.08).

Pedro's creativity appears to be the most standout attribute in his repertoire, as he tallied nine assists and a gametime assist ratio that ranks second only to Kevin De Bruyne.

However, these stats are questionable since a detailed examination of his actual assists (9) and expected assists (3.7 xA) reveals a disparity of 143.24%, indicating that his assist total may be somewhat attributable to the finishing skill of his teammates rather than purely due to his playmaking genius. 

For comparison, De Bruyne and Cole Palmer, proven playmakers who are a benchmark for consistent quality in chance creation, both exceeded their xA by 40.25% and 33.33%. 

In addition, Neto's assist-to-big-chance ratio, which is almost 1, is another anomaly suggesting his numbers might reflect a temporary purple patch rather than sustained excellence. 

Although his average of just under two chances created per game aligns closely with other top wingers such as Bukayo Saka (2.8) and Jeremy Doku (2.5), Pedro Neto lags behind top performers like Willian (3.03), Harvey Elliott (3.0), and Mohammed Salah (2.41) for passes into the penalty area. 

These data show that Pedro has a stronger ability to find teammates than Madueke, and this is further exemplified by his excellent crossing ability, the sixth-highest in the league.

While Chelsea fans would have to deal with a broad spectrum of spectacular deliveries and abysmal mishits, given his cross completion ratio of 28.07%, Neto makes up for this by playing a significant part in goal buildup, with only seven players surpassing him in this regard last season.

Chelsea's notably inconsistent attacking output, epitomised by first-choice centre forward Nicolas Jackson missing a league-high 24 big chances last season and only two players reaching double digits in goals, presses for a reliable scorer, a demand that soberly contrasts with Pedro Neto’s goal-scoring and finishing statistics. 

Considering that Nicolas Jackson’s campaign was dubbed a failure by several sections of the media due to his ‘lowly’ goal tally of 14, Neto’s career total of 17 goals from 156 appearances as of press time is very subpar. 

The Portuguese struggle to deliver consistently in front of goal, as highlighted by his scoring rate of once every six games, which is pale in comparison to Noni Madueke’s more prolific rate of one goal every two games. 

When contrasting Neto's conversion rate of 7.41%, which ranks light years behind top-scoring wingers like Mohamed Salah (21.18%), Anthony Gordon (20.0%), and Michael Olise (32.26%), and his expected goals (xG) metrics of 12% for each of his 27 shots, it becomes clear that finishing remains a significant area of weakness for the Chelsea man that while Neto creates opportunities, his finishing remains a significant area of weakness. 

With Chelsea returning from an injury-ravaged campaign that saw 20 players collectively miss 1,745 days due to 43 separate injuries (second only to Manchester United's 45), Pedro Neto’s track record with injuries is a significant concern for Chelsea. The Blues, at one point, were without 11 players in a single game week. 

Similar to Reece James, Chelsea's most injury-prone player, Neto, since joining the Premier League in 2019, has missed 112 games, an equivalent of three full seasons, for Wolverhampton and Portugal. 

Neto's brittle legs, which have undergone surgeries for knee, ankle, and hamstring injuries, have made it difficult for him to replicate his promising 2020/21 season where he started 30 games, with the Portuguese managing only 36 appearances over the subsequent three years due to fitness issues.

Conclusion: Is Pedro Neto a good purchase for Chelsea?