Interesting analysis: Romero is most "active" CB in the EPL while Dier is the least "active".
Some charts and diagrams are missing as I wasn't able to post them
theathletic.com
Active vs passive centre-backs: What the data tells us about different roles
By Mark Carey
Sep 24, 2022
The truth is, evaluating any defender based on the data will rarely show one is better than another, but will instead give you an indication of a player’s — or team’s — style.
We could compare players in high-pressing sides with those in low-pressing ones; we could contrast ball-playing defenders with those who have a more no-nonsense approach; we could even identify centre-back partnerships by cat or dog-like behaviours.
On this occasion, we ask: What does the data tell us about active and passive centre-backs in the league?
Before we start, a quick refresher.
Reporting a player’s volume of defensive actions (eg tackles, blocks, interceptions) per 90 minutes is a near-useless method of appraising their off-ball performance.
Why? Well, by definition a player can only perform a defensive action when their team don’t have the ball. If a team have less possession, their players naturally have more opportunities to defend.
To assess a player’s tendency to make a certain action, we can adjust defensive statistics by counting the number of times they perform it for every 1,000 opponent touches. This is not a perfect measure, though, and there has been some fantastic in-depth discussion on the topic within the football analytics sphere. Team style, game state and opponent strength can all affect the overall output of a given player.
Nonetheless, for this exercise we will adjust per 1,000 opponent touches, allowing us to compare players’ styles across a more level playing field.
To begin, which centre-backs would you expect to be high in their volume of active, front-foot defensive actions?
Here, we define active defensive actions as “true” tackles (ie, tackles attempted plus fouls plus challenges lost) and “true” interceptions (ie, interceptions plus blocked passes). Essentially, these actions are more likely to show players who are looking to “stick a foot in” or step out to engage with their opponent when the ball is on the ground — irrespective of their success in those challenges.
Last season in the Premier League, the leader here was Tottenham Hotspur’s Cristian Romero with 11.5 active defensive actions per 1,000 opponent touches. This is unsurprising, as the Argentina international has developed a reputation as an aggressive, physical defender since joining from Atalanta in Italy last summer.
The above list is interesting from a tactical perspective.
Romero’s metrics are likely to be influenced by his role as the right-side centre-back within Antonio Conte’s back three system. From there, he has a remit to step out vertically towards midfield areas and horizontally to defend wide ones — covering for Spurs’ advanced wing-backs when necessary.
One example of this was against Leicester City last season. As the ball runs loose, Leicester striker Patson Daka is the favourite to retrieve it — but Romero makes up the ground, flying forward…
…and winning a battle that was stacked against him. Note the shape of Conte’s back line in this next screengrab, with wide centre-backs Romero and Ben Davies more advanced and Eric Dier holding his position in the middle of the three.
The momentum of Romero’s challenge with Daka leads him to another ground duel, with Caglar Soyuncu the favourite this time as the ball runs towards him.
But Romero remains aggressive and makes a strong second challenge that sends the ball to his team-mate Dejan Kulusevski.
It is from Romero’s tackle on Soyuncu that Kulusevski is able to run towards goal, playing in Son Heung-min…
…to finish in the bottom corner.
It’s a counter-attacking move that was started by Romero, who finds himself advanced as far as Leicester’s defensive third as the goal goes in.
This role within a back-three system is also likely to explain why we see Cesar Azpilicueta and Trevoh Chalobah at Chelsea, Joel Veltman at Brighton, plus Wolves duo Willy Boly and Romain Saiss all rating highly in this measure for last season.
It’s not better or worse defending, just indicative of player and team style.
Meanwhile, Leeds’ style last season showed just how much their defenders were nipping at the heels of their opponents, as they placed four players in the top 10 for volume of front-foot, active defensive actions. This was largely under then-head coach Marcelo Bielsa’s man-marking defensive approach, where his players’ remits were to shadow their direct opponent, before his sacking at the end of February.
Again, this shows how an individual’s output is so dependent on team style.
It is too early to truly assess any numbers from this season, but the signs show just how much of a front-foot defender Kalidou Koulibaly is for new club Chelsea. The long-time Napoli star currently tops the list as the central defender with the most active defensive actions per 1,000 opponent touches among players with 300-plus minutes played.
Of course, Koulibaly has already had a warning during his short time in the Premier League — his dismissal after two yellow cards against Leeds highlighted his overeagerness sometimes when getting tight to his man.
At the other end of the scale, we can look at those less likely to engage actively with their opposite number.
The language is difficult here, as the term “passive” might suggest a centre-back who is ambivalent or apathetic in their defensive responsibilities.
Far from it. We don’t need to pull out the famous Paolo Maldini quote, but a low volume of defensive actions could be for multiple reasons.
One of these might be the specifics of their role: someone deployed in the centre of a back three might not be tasked with engaging in defensive actions. Instead, these players often act as a sweeper or “insurance policy”— organising those around them and only getting their hands dirty when absolutely needed.
Another reason for such low-volume actions can be explained by the “defensive forcefields” of the league.
Put simply, no attacker wants to go anywhere near a defender they know they are going to lose a battle to. You’d do well to get much change out of Virgil van Dijk or Aymeric Laporte, as two examples, so a team may look to attack in areas away from that strongest central defender — meaning the player in question is less likely to engage in a high volume of actions.
When assessing the players with the lowest “active” defensive actions per 1,000 opponent touches, the above profile of players does pop out.
Propping up this list we see Dier, a defender rarely tasked with stepping out to make a tackle or interception himself, instead acting as the co-ordinator of Spurs’ back three. Not much busier were Brighton’s Lewis Dunk and Wolves’ then-captain Conor Coady — both of whom were integral in orchestrating their side’s defence within a back three.
You can see Dier’s defensive action locations below compared with his most common defensive team-mates, including Romero. While Davies and Romero were more likely to engage higher and wider out of possession, Dier’s average defensive territory is far smaller — performing actions that are out of necessity in and around his penalty area.
Van Dijk understandably also appears towards the bottom of the list, as a player who is unlikely to go flying into challenges but oozes class as one of the most dominant centre-backs in the league.
He is a player who is more likely to hold his position defensively, compared with Joel Matip — his most common defensive partner for Liverpool last season — who would be more inclined to get tight to his man to try to win the ball high up the pitch when his opponent had their back to goal.
A strength of Van Dijk’s game is his tendency to retreat during opposition counter-attacks, using strong body orientation to shepherd a player in a particular direction — never performing a defensive action but buying time for his team-mates to recover their positions.
The best example of this came in the Champions League last season, during the first leg of their round of 16 tie with Inter Milan at San Siro. Edin Dzeko plays a pass beyond Liverpool’s midfield to give Lautaro Martinez a one-v-one with Van Dijk. As the pass is struck, note how the Dutchman is not even looking in the direction of the ball.
Instead, his body orientation is superb in slowing Martinez down and daring the Argentinian to make it a foot race between the pair of them — all while other red shirts stream back.
As Martinez runs out of ideas and shows us he hasn’t got the confidence to take on Van Dijk, the recovering Thiago is able to get involved and nick the ball away, averting the danger.
It is a sequence where Van Dijk did not perform any action that would show up in the event data, but from the eye test it is a world-class piece of defending to prevent his opponent from progressing further up the field.
This links to another misused metric within defensive football parlance — that of being “dribbled past”.
Van Dijk was lauded as not having been dribbled past for more than a year in the Premier League, but this gives no context of the situation at hand.
Examples like the Martinez one above show two things — players rarely attempt to dribble past Van Dijk and if they do try, his defensive style will rarely look to engage in a one-v-one that might allow it to happe
These metrics provide some insight from the barely quantifiable elements of a centre-back’s role. That is before you zoom out to the wider team style of high defensive lines, a transition-heavy approach, or bunkering within a low block.
Of course, there are so many unquantifiable attributes associated with any form of defending.
With good positioning, you don’t even need to engage in a defensive action. With good communication, you can place your team-mates in positions to cut out any prospective threat. With good team structure, a centre-back can judge their performance on how little they had to do in a game.
All of the above make it difficult to truly appraise the style of a defender using data, let alone who is better at it.
There’s nuance, there’s complexity, there’s context required — but it doesn’t stop us trying to figure it out.
Some charts and diagrams are missing as I wasn't able to post them
Active vs passive centre-backs: What the data tells us about different roles
Some defenders are passive, some are active. Passive does not mean bad or reluctant. It can mean a defender manages opponents better
theathletic.com
Active vs passive centre-backs: What the data tells us about different roles
By Mark Carey
Sep 24, 2022
For those coming to this article to discover who is the “best” Premier League centre-back statistically, you are going to be disappointed.The truth is, evaluating any defender based on the data will rarely show one is better than another, but will instead give you an indication of a player’s — or team’s — style.
We could compare players in high-pressing sides with those in low-pressing ones; we could contrast ball-playing defenders with those who have a more no-nonsense approach; we could even identify centre-back partnerships by cat or dog-like behaviours.
On this occasion, we ask: What does the data tell us about active and passive centre-backs in the league?
Before we start, a quick refresher.
Reporting a player’s volume of defensive actions (eg tackles, blocks, interceptions) per 90 minutes is a near-useless method of appraising their off-ball performance.
Why? Well, by definition a player can only perform a defensive action when their team don’t have the ball. If a team have less possession, their players naturally have more opportunities to defend.
To assess a player’s tendency to make a certain action, we can adjust defensive statistics by counting the number of times they perform it for every 1,000 opponent touches. This is not a perfect measure, though, and there has been some fantastic in-depth discussion on the topic within the football analytics sphere. Team style, game state and opponent strength can all affect the overall output of a given player.
Nonetheless, for this exercise we will adjust per 1,000 opponent touches, allowing us to compare players’ styles across a more level playing field.
To begin, which centre-backs would you expect to be high in their volume of active, front-foot defensive actions?
Here, we define active defensive actions as “true” tackles (ie, tackles attempted plus fouls plus challenges lost) and “true” interceptions (ie, interceptions plus blocked passes). Essentially, these actions are more likely to show players who are looking to “stick a foot in” or step out to engage with their opponent when the ball is on the ground — irrespective of their success in those challenges.
Last season in the Premier League, the leader here was Tottenham Hotspur’s Cristian Romero with 11.5 active defensive actions per 1,000 opponent touches. This is unsurprising, as the Argentina international has developed a reputation as an aggressive, physical defender since joining from Atalanta in Italy last summer.
The above list is interesting from a tactical perspective.
Romero’s metrics are likely to be influenced by his role as the right-side centre-back within Antonio Conte’s back three system. From there, he has a remit to step out vertically towards midfield areas and horizontally to defend wide ones — covering for Spurs’ advanced wing-backs when necessary.
One example of this was against Leicester City last season. As the ball runs loose, Leicester striker Patson Daka is the favourite to retrieve it — but Romero makes up the ground, flying forward…
…and winning a battle that was stacked against him. Note the shape of Conte’s back line in this next screengrab, with wide centre-backs Romero and Ben Davies more advanced and Eric Dier holding his position in the middle of the three.
The momentum of Romero’s challenge with Daka leads him to another ground duel, with Caglar Soyuncu the favourite this time as the ball runs towards him.
But Romero remains aggressive and makes a strong second challenge that sends the ball to his team-mate Dejan Kulusevski.
It is from Romero’s tackle on Soyuncu that Kulusevski is able to run towards goal, playing in Son Heung-min…
…to finish in the bottom corner.
It’s a counter-attacking move that was started by Romero, who finds himself advanced as far as Leicester’s defensive third as the goal goes in.
This role within a back-three system is also likely to explain why we see Cesar Azpilicueta and Trevoh Chalobah at Chelsea, Joel Veltman at Brighton, plus Wolves duo Willy Boly and Romain Saiss all rating highly in this measure for last season.
It’s not better or worse defending, just indicative of player and team style.
Meanwhile, Leeds’ style last season showed just how much their defenders were nipping at the heels of their opponents, as they placed four players in the top 10 for volume of front-foot, active defensive actions. This was largely under then-head coach Marcelo Bielsa’s man-marking defensive approach, where his players’ remits were to shadow their direct opponent, before his sacking at the end of February.
Again, this shows how an individual’s output is so dependent on team style.
It is too early to truly assess any numbers from this season, but the signs show just how much of a front-foot defender Kalidou Koulibaly is for new club Chelsea. The long-time Napoli star currently tops the list as the central defender with the most active defensive actions per 1,000 opponent touches among players with 300-plus minutes played.
Of course, Koulibaly has already had a warning during his short time in the Premier League — his dismissal after two yellow cards against Leeds highlighted his overeagerness sometimes when getting tight to his man.
At the other end of the scale, we can look at those less likely to engage actively with their opposite number.
The language is difficult here, as the term “passive” might suggest a centre-back who is ambivalent or apathetic in their defensive responsibilities.
Far from it. We don’t need to pull out the famous Paolo Maldini quote, but a low volume of defensive actions could be for multiple reasons.
One of these might be the specifics of their role: someone deployed in the centre of a back three might not be tasked with engaging in defensive actions. Instead, these players often act as a sweeper or “insurance policy”— organising those around them and only getting their hands dirty when absolutely needed.
Another reason for such low-volume actions can be explained by the “defensive forcefields” of the league.
Put simply, no attacker wants to go anywhere near a defender they know they are going to lose a battle to. You’d do well to get much change out of Virgil van Dijk or Aymeric Laporte, as two examples, so a team may look to attack in areas away from that strongest central defender — meaning the player in question is less likely to engage in a high volume of actions.
When assessing the players with the lowest “active” defensive actions per 1,000 opponent touches, the above profile of players does pop out.
Propping up this list we see Dier, a defender rarely tasked with stepping out to make a tackle or interception himself, instead acting as the co-ordinator of Spurs’ back three. Not much busier were Brighton’s Lewis Dunk and Wolves’ then-captain Conor Coady — both of whom were integral in orchestrating their side’s defence within a back three.
You can see Dier’s defensive action locations below compared with his most common defensive team-mates, including Romero. While Davies and Romero were more likely to engage higher and wider out of possession, Dier’s average defensive territory is far smaller — performing actions that are out of necessity in and around his penalty area.
Van Dijk understandably also appears towards the bottom of the list, as a player who is unlikely to go flying into challenges but oozes class as one of the most dominant centre-backs in the league.
He is a player who is more likely to hold his position defensively, compared with Joel Matip — his most common defensive partner for Liverpool last season — who would be more inclined to get tight to his man to try to win the ball high up the pitch when his opponent had their back to goal.
A strength of Van Dijk’s game is his tendency to retreat during opposition counter-attacks, using strong body orientation to shepherd a player in a particular direction — never performing a defensive action but buying time for his team-mates to recover their positions.
The best example of this came in the Champions League last season, during the first leg of their round of 16 tie with Inter Milan at San Siro. Edin Dzeko plays a pass beyond Liverpool’s midfield to give Lautaro Martinez a one-v-one with Van Dijk. As the pass is struck, note how the Dutchman is not even looking in the direction of the ball.
Instead, his body orientation is superb in slowing Martinez down and daring the Argentinian to make it a foot race between the pair of them — all while other red shirts stream back.
As Martinez runs out of ideas and shows us he hasn’t got the confidence to take on Van Dijk, the recovering Thiago is able to get involved and nick the ball away, averting the danger.
It is a sequence where Van Dijk did not perform any action that would show up in the event data, but from the eye test it is a world-class piece of defending to prevent his opponent from progressing further up the field.
This links to another misused metric within defensive football parlance — that of being “dribbled past”.
Van Dijk was lauded as not having been dribbled past for more than a year in the Premier League, but this gives no context of the situation at hand.
Examples like the Martinez one above show two things — players rarely attempt to dribble past Van Dijk and if they do try, his defensive style will rarely look to engage in a one-v-one that might allow it to happe
These metrics provide some insight from the barely quantifiable elements of a centre-back’s role. That is before you zoom out to the wider team style of high defensive lines, a transition-heavy approach, or bunkering within a low block.
Of course, there are so many unquantifiable attributes associated with any form of defending.
With good positioning, you don’t even need to engage in a defensive action. With good communication, you can place your team-mates in positions to cut out any prospective threat. With good team structure, a centre-back can judge their performance on how little they had to do in a game.
All of the above make it difficult to truly appraise the style of a defender using data, let alone who is better at it.
There’s nuance, there’s complexity, there’s context required — but it doesn’t stop us trying to figure it out.
(Top photo: Cristian Romero tackles Kai Havertz of Chelsea; by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
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