“If you’re playing for five hours you don’t want to score goals all the time and I loved dribbling. I could score a goal, but I preferred to dribble.”
While the current crop of Premier League players may not share Ronaldinho’s unadulterated passion for dribbling, several players remain masters of the classic take on.
Statistics guru WhoScored.com define a successful dribble as “taking on an opponent and successfully making it past them whilst retaining the ball”.
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With that in mind, here is the top 10 players with the most successful dribbles in the top flight so far this term:
10. Mousa Dembele (Tottenham): 29 from 34 attempts
9. Yannick Bolasie (Crystal Palace): 30 from 59 attempts
8. Sadio Mane (Southampton): 31 from 55 attempts
7. Jefferson Montero (Swansea): 32 from 68 attempts
6. Santi Cazorla (Arsenal): 32 from 41 attempts
5. Ross Barkley (Everton): 33 from 59 attempts
4. Wilfried Zaha (Crystal Palace): 42 from 88 attempts
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3. Eden Hazard (Chelsea): 44 from 70 attempts
1. Riyad Mahrez (Leicester): 44 from 68 attempts
1. Alexis Sanchez (Arsenal): 44 from 68 attempts
Eagles’ winger Zaha has been in fine form this season and was tipped by many pundits to be called up to the England squad after Michael Carrick and Jamie Vardy were ruled out from the Three Lions camp with injury.
However, the 23-year-old has failed to build on his two caps which were awarded after a consistent run of performances in 2012, with Roy Hodgson opting to call up Jesse Lingard.
Bolasie, meanwhile, is enjoying a productive spell under Alan Pardew and scored in the Eagles 2-1 victory against Liverpool prior to the international break.
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