Who are the footballers having played the most minutes in the big-5 leagues during the last five years? This is the question answered in issue number 249 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post. Samir Handanovi? (Inter) tops the table for goalkeepers, while César Azpilicueta (Chelsea) heads the rankings for outfield players.

No team in the 35 European competitions surveyed needed as few shots to score as Paris St-Germain. The French side scored so far every 4.7 shots. According to the exclusive InStat data, this ratio was inferior to five for another big-5 league club only: Borussia Dortmund. The top three per league is available in issue number 248 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post.

Issue number 247 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents big-5 league players whose current estimated value exceeds the most the fee paid by recruiting teams during last summer. Rodri Hernández (+€45 million) tops the table for fee-paying transfers ahead of Lucas Torreira (+€44m), while Emre Can (+€45m) heads the rankings for free agents ahead of Stefan de Vrij (+€39m).

Issue number 246 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post analyses the pitch production of big-5 league clubs during the first part of the current season to highlight if they have over- or under-performed in terms of points achieved. The findings suggest that Manchester City will finally beat Liverpool in the English Premier League title race.

The first Weekly Post of the year presents the 100 big-5 league players with the highest transfer value according to the exclusive CIES Football Observatory algorithm. The 20-year-old French prodigy Kylian Mbappé (€218.5 million) tops the list ahead of Harry Kane (€200.3m) and Neymar (€197.1m).

The last CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post of the year 2018 highlights players whose teams have achieved the most or least points per match when they were in the starting 11 than when this was not the case. The most positive gap in absolute was recorded for Christophe Jallet (OGC Nice): 7 wins out of the 7 matches that he started compared to only 0.44 points per match for the remaining games.