The Debate: Why Emi Buendia is the most underrated player in the Premier League

Emi Buendia plays for Norwich, who are currently rock bottom of the Premier League. They have - alongside Newcastle, scored the joint-fewest goals in the league with a paltry 25.

The former Getafe man has assisted seven of those - or nearly 30 per cent of all of Norwich's league goals. Only Riyad Mahrez, Trent Alexander Arnold and Kevin Dr Bruyne have assisted more this season. Furthermore, he has the created the fourth most chances (73) in the league this season, behind only De Bruyne, Alexander Arnold and James Maddison.

To put it simply he is producing championship-challenging numbers at the worst team in the league.

Yet where is the praise?

Where are the incessant links with top-four clubs?

They are pretty much non-existent.

Why? Because he is criminally underrated - even, it appears, within his own club.

Daniel Farke has a reputation for being a progressive coach - expansive football led his Norwich to the Championship title ahead of Chris Wilder's overlapping centre-halves at Sheffield United and Marcelo Bielsa's Leeds no less. They have remained true to that philosophy in the Premier League, producing some impressive performances and, occasionally results, beating Manchester City 3-2 earlier in the season for example. Buendia and Farke should not be strange bedfellows.

Yet Farke recently used the most reductive and agricultural of stats to justify a decision to drop the Argentine in February, citing the player's poor points-per-game return.

Here are the full quotes:

“It’s always about the team success and the most important statistic is the point average in the starting line-up. He has fantastic statistics but his points average in the starting line-up; no other winger has worse,” he added.

Some of the above are valid criticisms. However, to this observer's eye it is incumbent on a manager to construct a system that accommodates the weaknesses of a team's best and most productive attacking threat. That is Farke's job. Perhaps he felt the best way to coax a more rounded performance from Buendia was to drop the 23-year-old. He would later clarify those comments further saying that he was 95 per cent happy with Buendia but the point holds.

In the three matches he did not make the startling eleven in February – against Newcastle, Liverpool and Wolves - Norwich scored zero goals. His return to the team saw them beat Leicester 1-0, their first league win in five games; that is of course not to say that the said win was solely down to Buendia. Of course it wasn't, but, equally, dropping a player - or later justifying dropping a player - with the use of one arbitrary stat is as baffling and counterproductive a stance to take.

If Norwich go down, Buendia will be available for a relative pittance in today's market, and represents a low-risk addition to any team with designs on breaking the top four next season, particularly considering he already plays for a team who attempt to be ball dominant and play on the front foot.

Signing a player from a side who operate with a more agricultural, direct style of play and asking them to adapt to a more progressive brand of football is fraught with risk. Teams lower down the league take a more practical, base approach to football - lacking in frills but effective and easy enough to adapt to - but Norwich are an exception. This means the Argentine will be well prepared to the more complex attacking structures that will be in place at the aforementioned teams higher up the table.

Buendia has put together an exceptional season during a very difficult campaign for Norwich, putting up numbers that shame players at better clubs. His season has been criminally underrated, but should he get a move this season to one of the big clubs then his production levels should - given the superior players he will be playing with - be even more impressive, and, thus in retrospect, this season will look even more impressive.