The Premier League is one of the UK’s biggest and most-popular competitions. It is broadcast to 189 countries, with 900 million homes across the world able to watch it.
With millions of eyes on the league, players can’t escape the praise and scrutiny that comes with it. But which players are the most negatively perceived or the most adored?
Eager to find out, Live Football Tickets have analysed how the Premier League’s football players are perceived in online news coverage over the last two years.
Key Findings
- Liverpool’s Caoimhín Kelleher is the most hated player in the Premier League, with 62% of his online news coverage being of a negative tone.
- Manchester City’s Rúben Dias ranks second, having 60% of his news coverage being negative.
- Crystal Palace’s Dean Henderson is the most loved player, with 74% of his news coverage being in a positive tone.
- Strikers are the most positively perceived in the Premier League.
Top five most negatively perceived players in the Premier League
| Rank | Player | EPL Team | Positive Tone (%) | Neutral Tone (%) | Negative Tone (%) |
| 1 | Caoimhín Kelleher | Liverpool | 11% | 26% | 62% |
| 2 | Rúben Dias | Manchester City | 26% | 14% | 60% |
| 3 | Enzo Fernández | Chelsea | 24% | 18% | 58% |
| 4 | Lisandro Martínez | Manchester United | 24% | 22% | 54% |
| =5 | Altay Bayındır | Manchester United | 32% | 17% | 52% |
| =5 | Levi Colwill | Chelsea | 33% | 15% | 52% |
The full data set including all players and positions analysed is available to view here.
Liverpool’s Caoimhín Kelleher is the most negatively perceived player in the Premier League, with 62% of his online news coverage being of a negative tone, and just 11% of his news coverage being positive. Despite recently making it clear that he wants to leave Liverpool, the goalkeeper was part of the team’s recent starting XI against Bournemouth, due to Alisson currently being injured.
Rúben Dias ranks second, with 60% of his news coverage being negative. The Manchester City defender has made 122 appearances for the club, however, news coverage appears to be more critical than positive – with one of his most recent performances against Arsenal being described as ‘wasteful’.
Chelsea’s Enzo Fernández ranks third, with his negative online coverage amounting to 58% of his online news. Chelsea broke the British transfer record upon signing Enzo Fernández for €121m (£106.8m), however, this hefty price tag hasn’t come without negative press on the midfielder.
Manchester United’s centre back Lisandro Martínez ranks fourth, with 54% negative media coverage. The defender signed for United in 2022, and has since become one of the team’s key players, yet his positive media coverage only amounts to 24%.
Fifth place is shared by Manchester United’s goalkeeper Altay Bayındır and Chelsea’s defender Levi Colwill, both having 52% negative media coverage.
Top five most positively perceived players in the Premier League
| Rank | Player | EPL Team | Negative Tone (%) | Neutral Tone (%) | Positive Tone (%) |
| 1 | Dean Henderson | Crystal Palace | 13% | 13% | 74% |
| 2 | Eberechi Eze | Crystal Palace | 16% | 13% | 71% |
| 3 | Jarrod Bowen | West Ham United | 18% | 15% | 68% |
| 4 | Mohammed Kudus | West Ham United | 21% | 13% | 67% |
| 5 | Ollie Watkins | Aston Villa | 13% | 23% | 65% |
Crystal Palace’s goalkeeper Dean Henderson takes the crown as the most positively perceived player in the EPL. An impressive 74% of his media coverage is positive, and last season, the keeper made 58 saves – and was most recently hailed as a “great goalkeeper” following his superb display against his former club.
Henderson’s Crystal Palace team mate, Eberechi Eze, follows with 71% positive news coverage. The midfielder has already achieved a tackle success of 88% already this season. West Ham United’s Jarrod Bowen ranks third, boasting 68% positive online coverage. The Forward bagged himself 16 goals and 6 assists last season, and has already bagged 1 goal and 1 assist this season.
Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins ranks fifth, with 65% positive media coverage. The striker finished last season on 19 goals, and has already scored 3 for his club this season – not to mention scoring one of the most ‘important England goals ever’ during the 2024 Euros semi-finals.
Which position is the most positively perceived in the Premier League?
Strikers are the most positively perceived in online news coverage (52%), having just 21% of their coverage in a negative tone. The most loved striker is West Ham United’s Jarrod Bowen.
Midfielders rank as the second most positively reported position. Crystal Palace’s Eberechi Eze takes the crown as most loved Midfielder in the Premier League, having an impressive 71% positive online coverage.
Goalkeepers find themselves in third, with 40% positive coverage. Crystal Palace’s Dean Henderson takes the crown for goalkeepers with 74% positive coverage. Arsenal’s David Raya follows with 64% positive online news coverage.
Defenders in the Premier League are the most hated, with just 38% of their online coverage in a positive light. Arsenal’s Riccardo Calafiori boasts the most positive coverage (62%), with his Arsenal team mate Ben White following closely behind (56%).
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Methodology
- Live Football Tickets sought to analyse the perception of Premier League’s football players in online news coverage.
- To do this, data on the top 20 players of each position was collected from transfermarkt.co.uk (Strikers, Midfielders, Defenders and Goalkeepers).
- The GDELT Summary tool which uses the dataset of Global Online News Coverage within the GDELT Event Database was then used to search each individual player. The data that was gathered from the Global Online News Coverage dataset was filtered to include only news coverage from the past 2 years as well as only news from the United Kingdom.
- The data collected includes Tone Barcharts, Tone Timecharts and Volume Timelines. Tone Barcharts show the count of articles which were written in negative, neutral and positive tones. Tone Timecharts present the tone of reporting in a given day. Volume Timelines indicate how big news coverage was on a given day.
- The tone analysis was done by calculating the percentage of news articles in which the tone was positive, neutral and negative for a given player. The results were then compared against other players playing at the same position as well as all players.
- Sources:
- Data was collected September 2024, and is accurate as of then.
