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If you are unfamiliar with the concept of Individual Point Percentage (IPP) this initial post should provide the background to the concept, which is essentially a way of measuring the effectiveness of an individual player on his teams attacking performance.
What we do is take their total points (goals plus assists) and calculate this percentage against not the total goals their side has scored, but the total number of goals scored whilst they are on the pitch. This strips out goals where they are on the bench, out injured or have been substituted in order to get a truer worth of their contributions. An additional measure is Individual Goal Percentage IGP), which discounts all assists, measuring only goals scored.
Ahead of this Sunday's semi-final I have looked at the top five from each side, which in order of highest IPP% is as follows:
| Goals | Assists | Points | IPP | IGP | |
| Demba Ba | 15 | 0 | 15 | 50.00% | 50.00% |
| Tevez | 10 | 7 | 17 | 44.74% | 26.32% |
| Mata | 10 | 10 | 20 | 39.22% | 19.61% |
| Aguero | 9 | 2 | 11 | 37.50% | 31.25% |
| Dzeko | 12 | 2 | 14 | 36.84% | 31.58% |
| Lampard | 12 | 0 | 12 | 32.43% | 32.43% |
| Hazard | 8 | 7 | 15 | 28.85% | 5.38% |
| Silva | 4 | 7 | 11 | 25.00% | 9.09% |
| Torres | 7 | 4 | 11 | 22.44% | 14.29% |
| Yaya Toure | 5 | 4 | 9 | 18.75% | 10.42% |
It is no surprise that strikers head the list - although it is fair to say that Demba Ba's percentage is largely due to his goals from his time at Newcastle this season - but what is particularly impressive is Juan Mata's return, contributing on almost 40% of Chelsea's goals whilst he has been on the pitch. Both this and Frank Lampard's total outshines the City midfield pair of David Silva and Yaya Toure, whose return this season has been at times disappointing in this regard.
This area is also further represented in the following graphic, which charts IPP along the x-axis, IGP along the y-axis and the larger the bubble, the higher the points total:
We can now look at the individual players moving average over the course of the season, Moving percentage over the season. In general, from around week seven or eight is when the chart has a more consistent look to it, but we can see some trends. Demba Ba's total clearly dip over the second half of the season but we can see a noticeable improvement in Frank Lampard and David Silva's numbers.
We can perhaps better view this by splitting the moving average by team. For City we can that Edin Dzeko and Sergio Aguero have dipped slightly as the weeks have progressed, whilst David Silva's improvement is clearer to see. For someone average in the mid-40's Carlos Tevez has seen relatively few minutes and City have also scored plenty whilst he has not been on the pitch.
As for Chelsea, we can see a huge surge from Juan Mata after the first few games and he has maintained an excellent total (the highest midfield return in the Premier League in this category) throughout the season. We can the contrasting return of Lampard and Eden Hazard, with the former, now back in favour, being more productive of late.
The much-maligned Fernando Torres has at times shown improvement, but this has been in short bursts which have then given way to periods where his numbers have dropped. A total of just over 20% is a very poor return given the top 15 throughout the Premier League are all consistently over 40%.
Looking at the formations both sides are likely to play it is clear we will not see all ten players featured start the game. It will interesting though to see which options Roberto Mancini and Rafa Benitez opt for given there are indications within these numbers of who is showing better form of late.