Finding The Best Full-Backs in the Championship
Based solely on statistical analysis
Full-backs play an important role in both attacking and defending in modern football. Liverpool’s right-back Trent-Alexander Arnold booked 4 goals and 13 assists this season. On the other side of the pitch, Liverpool’s left-back Andrew Robertson got 2 goals and 12 assists for himself. This means that Liverpool’s fullbacks were directly involved with 37% of all of the team’s goals this season.
However, England’s highest level football league is not the only place where fullbacks play a crucial role when it comes to defending and attacking. The following report will analyze the data from full-backs in the EFL Championship during the 2019–2020 season and how they influenced the game.
The analysis will use different metrics imperative to top-level full backs and will only include players who have played over 900 minutes during the season to avoid any skewed or biased data. Another important distinction will be that the final list will be composed of players under the age of 25, since these are most likely to be far from reaching their full potential. It is also important to note that different teams have different play-styles and tendencies that should be taken into account at the end of the report.
Defensive Duels
Defensive duels are an essential part of being a defender. Fullbacks are responsible for trying to dispossess attackers and preventing the plays from progressing. While it is true that every team’s play-style differs, defensive duels and the percentage of defensive duels won will always be important metrics to take into account when evaluating a defensive player.
Let’s take a look at the stats in the scatter plot. The furthest to the right and up a player is in the plot, the better the player performed under this metric. Ideally, any player on the top-right quadrant would have performed above average on both percentages of duels won and duels per game.
Immediately, West Brom’s Dara O’Shea stands out. With the league’s highest average 13.31 duels per game and 61% of duels won, the Irish 21- year-old seems to have had a great season and might be a promising player to keep an eye on when West Brom plays the Premier League next year. Similarly, the league’s highest percentage of duels won goes to Barnsley’s 20-year-old Jordan Williams. With 294 defensive duels in 30 games, Jordan won 66% of his duels and averaged 9.8 duels per game.
Kristian Pedersen from Birmingham City, Luke Ayling from Leeds United, Joe Bryan from Fulham, Mathew Pennington from Hull City, and Andrew Hughes from Preston also place at the top of the upright quadrant. They all average between 10.5 and 12.1 duels per game and between 61% and 62% defensive duels success rate.
Getting Back Possession
We will be using sliding tackles per game and interceptions per game as the measurement for disrupting and dispossessing the opponent without committing a foul. This means a player’s ability to get possession back to their team by either tackling them or intercepting offensive passes.
Antonee Robinson from Wigan Athletic and Mathew Pennington from Hull City both lead the league on interceptions per game with 2.026 and 2.143 respectively. However, Pennington’s tackle per game is well below average while Robinson stands at a respectable 2.184 tackles per game. Derby County’s Max Lowe also stands out with 3.655 tackles per game and 1.621 interceptions per game.
Some other names that stand out are Kristian Pedersen and Maxime Colin from Birmingham City with 1.6 and 1.5 interceptions per game, and 2.4 and 2.5 tackles per game respectively. We will later analyze some team trends and play-styles that might explain the deviations between teams and players. Joe Bryan from Fulham and Matty Cash from Nottingham Forest are also worth noticing with both averaging above 1.3 interceptions per game and 2.6 tackles per game.
Defensive Duel Efficiency
While we already analyzed players’ ability to disposes of opponents through tackles and interceptions, it is important to also note how efficient they are when it comes to dispossessing attackers 1-on-1 without committing a foul. For this plot graph, we will look for players who are further down and to the right in the down-right quadrant. These would be the players who have the more defensive duels per game and commit the least fouls per game.
Kristian Pedersen from Birmingham City, Luke Ayling from Leeds, Antonee Robinson from Wigan, and Jay Dasilva from Bristol City all stand out.
Luke Ayling and Jay Dasilva had 11.3 and 9.7 defensive duels per game respectively while only booking .68 and .41 fouls per game. Kristian Pedersen and Antonee Robinson both averaged 12 duels and .8 fouls per game.
Creating Attacking Opportunities
More on the attacking side, crossing and creating attacking chances are important attributes that play a big role in modern football. Most assists that come from fullbacks stem from crosses that find their targets in the box, which is what we will evaluate next.
In terms of crossing accuracy, Stoke City’s Thomas Smith stands out with 39% accuracy, 3.433 crosses per 90 min, and 5 assists this season. We should be wary of assists since many players play as both fullbacks and midfielders. While such versatility is actually a big plus for players, we will take it into account later. This means that some players are predisposed to have more assist due to playing more games in more attacking positions.
Ryan Manning is also a great example of this. While he plays most of the league’s games as a left-back, he has also played as a left-midfielder, and a left-winger for QPR. This versatility has given Manning 4.294 crosses per 90 minutes, 23% cross accuracy, and 7 assists.
Other players worth noting on the outline of the upper-right quadrant are Derby County’s Max Lowe, West Brom’s Darnell Furlong, Millwall’s Mahlon Romeo, and Preston’s Darnell Fisher.
Passing Accuracy
Another important attribute for a fullback is their ability to complete accurate passes that put their team in a favourable attacking position. There is an interesting trend here. Players from the same teams tend to perform with a similar pass accuracy and passes per 90 minutes.
For instance, Luke Ayling and Barry Douglas from Leeds United immediately stand out. They both complete over 60 passes per 90 minutes with over 80% accuracy. This might be a reflection of Leeds’ possession-oriented play-style. Denis Odoi from Fulham also leads the league with an 85% pass accuracy and a respectful 51.43 passes per game.
Fulham’s other fullback, Joe Bryan is also worth noticing here. With 80% pass accuracy and 50.53 passes per game, he books similar stats to his teammate. However, he alone has booked 7 assists this season, which only two other players have achieved this season.
Brentford’s Henrik Dalsgaard and Rico Henry, Swansea City’s Connor Roberts, Kyle Naughton, and Jake Bidwell, and Huddersfield Town’s Harry Toffolo and Trevor Chalobah all performed above average on both metrics and at similar levels.
Maintaining Possession
Since we have stated how important is for a fullback to have both defending and attacking attributes, their ability to move the ball through the field through completing passes and dribbles without losing possession is equally important.
Here we can have it either way, depending on what each team is looking for. Teams that like having the ball and attacking through the wings may benefit from players like Jay Silva from Bristol and Jayden Bogle from Derby County. Dasilva averages 2 successful dribbles per game with an 80% pass accuracy and Bogle averages 1.7 successful dribbles with also 80% pass accuracy.
On the other side, some teams might look for players who don’t take on many 1-on-1s but rather move the ball often and successfully. Fulham’s Dennis Odoi and his 85% pass accuracy would suit that kind of team. While he only has .6 successful dribbles per game, he has the highest passing accuracy rate in the league (only counting fullbacks).
Final List
After all these metrics, we should recognize the best full-backs statistically in the Championship. The list will only take into account players with over 900 minutes played and are 25 or younger (since it is likely they are yet to reach their peak and can still improve). An important clarification is that statistics only serve as an output for certain behaviours and let out external influences and subjectivity. Things like team styles, coach instructions, work ethics, team composition are not taken into account here but also influence a player’s performance. These metrics are a good way to find a starting point on where to look and use them as a reference to see how certain players perform under certain aspects. You can find the full list of players in the link below:
