Finding a new defensive midfielder for Spurs – data analysis

Upon taking over Tottenham Hotspur in November last year, José Mourinho made positive strides with his new club. The team finished sixth in the Premier League compared to the 14th position at the start of Mourinhos tenure, qualifying for Europa League football for the 2020/2021 season.

However, there were issues from the squad building perspective in the past two years which led to a big drop off in results at the start of this season. Despite better results since the appointment of a new coach, squad rehaul is needed if Tottenham want to catch up to the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool like the rest of the big teams.

One of the most problematic positions according to many is the defensive midfield position. Despite having some quality players in Winks, Lo Celso and Ndombele, Spurs need a player that will provide defensive stability and boost that midfield. So, in this data analysis, we are going to be looking at U24 midfielders with at least 900 minutes played this season in four leagues  Ligue 1, Bundesliga, La Liga and Serie A. We will compare them across several offensive and defensive metrics, and then will take a couple of most fitting players for that position.

Requirements

Jose Mourinho implemented a 4-2-3-1 formation right from the start and stuck with it until the end of the season. This, of course, wasnt a rigid formation, transforming in a 3-4-3 or 3-4-1-2 in the attacking phase with right-back Aurier pushing upfield, and 4-4-2 in the defensive phase with one of the wingers dropping deep into midfield. Next season will be the first full season for Tottenham Hotspur under the direction of Mourinho and we will be able to see true signs of what the Portuguese is trying to build.

For the midfield spot that we are focusing on in this analysis, Mourinho likely wants a player of a more defensive profile to accompany either Winks or Ndombele in a double pivot. So, he needs a player who is disciplined playing without the ball and has good defensive attributes. Moreover, its important that a player for this position can keep the ball for his team under pressure and can progress the ball with his runs or passes.

For these reasons, we will evaluate midfielders in a couple of categories:

• Defensive contribution

Here we will use tackles+interceptions and pressures per 90 minutes to evaluate midfielders defensively.

• Aerial prowess

We will use the volume of aerial duels and how efficient they are in the air by looking at their win percentages. Even though its not the best way to evaluate aerial ability, it will be important to see how some players that we might shortlist are doing in terms of aerial duels.

• Keeping possession

In order to identify the best players in terms of winning the ball back and not giving it away, as well as carrying the ball in midfield, we will use two metrics  net possessions and carries per touch. The first one is calculated as ball wins  ball losses, so, the closer this number is to zero, the better the player is at keeping the ball. Carries per touch show how much a certain player drives with the ball forward in midfield, and by using these two statistics, we will be able to tell which players are the most efficient at recycling possession.

• Ball progression

Finally, here we will delve into the ball progression, and progressive passes+crosses and carries are a good way to identify midfielders that can get the ball upfield with their passing or dribbling.

Ligue 1

We start off with Ligue 1 and some defensive statistics  tackles combined with interceptions on the x-axis and pressures on the y-axis (all per 90 minutes).

There are a couple of outliers in both categories, and the first one is Valentin Rongier, who made 5,63 tackles and interceptions plus recorded 30,9 pressures per 90 minutes.

Lucas Tousart from Olympique Lyonnais and Ibrahim Sangaré from Toulouse are also contributing to their teams a lot defensively. The Frenchman records 4,74 tackles/interceptions and 25,2 pressures, while the Ivorian records 5,08 tackles and interceptions and 23,3 pressures per 90 minutes.

Tiémoué Bakayoko continues his resurgence with good performances for AS Monaco and making a name for himself with 5,13 tackles and interceptions plus 21,7 pressures per 90 minutes.

Next up we evaluate midfielders in terms of their aerial prowess. Sidy Sarr is a clear outlier in terms of his volume in this category with 9,92 aerial duels per 90 minutes and 68,8% winning rate. You can see that other midfielders are close to each other and there is not much volatility.

Moving on from defensive metrics, here we ev