flobaba for the record, I think the record you refer to is suspect, as it also says teams like Southampton, Fulham, Chelsea and Wolves conceded only two goals from counter attacking situations all season. I find that extremely hard to believe. I would like to see how they define a counter attack.
And outside of last season, I’m pretty sure Xhaka had very few touches inside the box. It depends on where and how you’re deployed. Rice’s engine and technique are good enough to do whatever Xhaka was doing, even better
Data comes from Opta. Per Opta, it presumably is under the "Fast break" category of "Pattern of Play for Goals/Shots":
Fast break – an attempt created after the defensive (sic) quickly turn defence into attack winning the ball in their own half (counter attack)
Seems like a pretty normal definition. Also, I'm genuinely unsure what is even meant to be eyebrow-raising about defensive teams that don't have the ball a lot not conceding a lot of counterattack goals.
As for Rice, it really boils down to the fact that the questions "Is Declan Rice possibly a better attacking midfielder than Granite Xhaka?" and "Given the opportunity to go after any available player to fill the attacking midfield slot, would the single player that you covet the most be Declan Rice?" are two very different questions with totally different answers.
