Demarai Gray is now a name known throughout English football, his performances last season and his hat-trick against Reading made sure of that. The Birmingham City youngster is now to embark on his second full season, but here we take a look back at just how he did last time out.
Gray mainly operates on the left hand side, as an inside winger. Twisting and turning he forces the opposition’s back line to retreat and often draws in missed tackles and creates mayhem at times in the penalty area.
The 19 year old, born in Birmingham, has made 48 league appearances for his boyhood club. He has also appeared from the bench twice in the FA Cup and made two appearances in the League Cup.
Gray sadly doesn’t make the top 10 offensive suppliers in the league, but given his age it is perhaps credit worthy that some might expect to see him in there.
No 33 for Blues made 41 appearances last season, that is 2557 minutes of game time. He scored 6 goals, assisted just once and was booked twice. The winger averaged 1.9 shots per game, his pass success rate was a good 76%. Gray managed just 1 key pass a game, an average of 1.6 completed dribbles per game and was fouled at a rate of 1.3. He received a man of the match award 3 times.
Now lets compare that to the stats of former Birmingham City winger, Nathan Redmond. Also born in the city and produced by the clubs academy.
Redmond played 43 times last season, he racked up 2977 minutes of playing time. With that he found himself 4 goals and impressively 12 assists, that is the 4th best in the division. He averaged 2.5 key passes a game for his teammates and completed 2.3 dribbles.
Interestingly he was fouled 1.1 times per game.
When comparing the two players we can see that Gray still has some way to go before being a player that really leads a club through the Championship. But what is seen from the stats is that Demarai Gray last season proved at just 19 years of age that he is more than capable of playing in this league.
Would a move to the Premier League benefit him? I would have to say no based on the evidence here. Far more established players have tried and failed, Gray right now seems ready to really test the Championship this season and he will do that remarkably well under Rowett.
It has dawned on me, that had we not brought in Rowett and achieved 10th, would Gray already be gone?
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