Good morning, folks. I spent a few minutes talking about Pablo Mari and Cedric Soares with Andrew on the Arsecast yesterday and since it was a stats-heavy podcast I wanted to provide those same numbers here in long-form text format.
I also want to provide a transcript of the conversation but the first company I used produced a laughably bad transcript. I found a much better service and they want me to sign up for a year at $20 (plus $6 an hour) which is very reasonable. This post will have to serve as a sort of transcription for now.
It’s incredible to think that Arsenal started this season with six center backs and yet still needed to buy in January, but here we are. The reason we needed to buy is both coverage for injury and because what Arsenal have in the center backs is a bit of a magpie’s nest. That’s not to say that it’s all bad but rather that it seems to be pulled together from a variety of different parts.
From Six Four
The six center backs to start this season were Dinos, Mustafi, Holding, David Luiz, Chambers, and Sokratis.
Despite early promise Dinos Mavropanos has gone out on loan after failing to impress four different managers. Meanwhile, Holding is one of my favorites but looks to be a bit far off from full fitness. Arteta also only handed him one start this year (ok, the year is a month old) so he looks fairly far down the pecking order in Arteta’s system. So, despite having six bodies on payroll that leaves four CBs that we can talk about and compare to Mari; Mustafi, David Luiz, Chambers, and Sokratis.
| Stat | Mari | David Luiz | Mustafi | Chambers | Sokratis |
| Long Pass completion | 53% | 50% | 66% | 40% | 47% |
| Regular passes | 93% | 92% | 85% | 88% | 94% |
| Tackles | 1.4 | 1.9 | 1.8 | 2.3 | 2 |
| Was dribbled | 0.4 | 0.6 | 1.3 | 0.3 | 0.8 |
| Tackles won | 1 | 1.3 | 0.5 | 2 | 1.2 |
| Tackle % | 71% | 67% | 29% | 89% | 61% |
| Possessions won | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.3 | 1.5 | 0.7 |
| Interceptions | 1.1 | 1.1 | 2.1 | 1.2 | 1 |
| Blocked shots | 0.4 | 1.1 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 1.3 |
| Blocked passes | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.6 | 0.7 | 0.4 |
| Was dribbles | 8 | 13 | 5 | 3 | 14 |
| Aerials | 2.5 | 1.6 | 3.8 | 2.6 | 3 |
| Attempted | 3.6 | 2.9 | 4.8 | 4.9 | 4.4 |
| AD% | 69% | 55% | 79% | 53% | 68% |
Mustafi
I want to talk about Mustafi first. I’m not trying to hammer the guy but for a player who’s had some bad seasons at Arsenal this is one of his worst.
Using the data from FBref (which is supplied by statsbomb), Mustafi has only won 29% of his tackles this season. That means he’s been dribbled past over 1 time per game. Whoscored (via Opta) has him slightly better, there he’s won 4 of 7 (57%) tackles and only been dribbled past 0.8 times per game. And in addition to a weakness in one-v-one challenges he’s also only completing 85% of his short to medium passes.
If you have a center back who is consistently beat off the dribble and susceptible to the press that kind of uncertainty in the back causes chaos. His overall stats for Arsenal are better than they are this year, but I suspect that the club are very concerned that his confidence is at an all-time low.
Chambo
Chambers on the other hand won 89% of his tackles this season according to FBref and 84% according to Opta. In almost 1300 minutes of football in the Europa League and Premier League, Opta has marked Chambers down as being dribbled past just 6 times. According to Opta, Mustafi has been dribbled past 6 times in 786 minutes.
Sticking with the Opta data for a second, Sokratis has a similar problem of being dribbled past as Mustafi. Mustafi is dribbled 0.8 per90, Sokratis is dribbled past 0.6 times per 90, Chambers is dribbled 0.4 times per90 and David Luiz was dribbled .333 per90.
And Chambers was not just stopping dribblers, he was also winning possession well. Using the FBref data, Chambers was winning possession in a tackle 1.5 times per90. And with 1.2 Interceptions per90 he was winning possession for Arsenal 2.7 times per90. The highest of all the center backs.
I think partially this is down to some of the systems we used this season and Chambers being deployed wide right. But either way, when you have a player who is stopping the opponent from ghosting past you, that’s a good thing! So, Chambers’ injury is a pretty big miss.
David Luiz and Sokratis – the preferred pairing
When it comes to distribution you can see why Arteta picks David Luiz and Sokratis: both are outstanding distributors. Let’s stick with FBref stats (statsbomb) again because they provide a little better detail into player’s passing than I can get from the publicly available Opta sources.
David Luiz is amazing at the back. He completes 78% of his long passes, 93% of his medium passes, manages 3.6 final third passes per90, and 0.4 passes into the penalty area per90. Sokratis has even better long (81%) and medium (96%) completion rates but attempts far fewer long passes than David Luiz and only averages 1 final third pass per 90.
Mari
Ok, so we know why David Luiz and Sokratis are the two main starters: they are relatively secure at the back and they both distribute very well. But when you read the chart above you can see that Pablo Mari (who was named best defender in America – according to his interview with the dot com) has stats that are almost exactly the same as David Luiz.
Mari completed 93% of his medium/short passes. Mari won 71% of his tackles and was only dribbled 8 times in 22 matches. He won possession the exact same number of times as David Luiz (nearly 2 times per game). And he also won 69% of his aerial duels.
Tim Stillman in his column on Mari described Flamengo’s playing style as similar to Arsenal in terms of possession football. So, while I don’t have the same FBref stats as I do for David Luiz, I looked at his match against Liverpool and in 120 minutes he attempted 7 passes in the opposition final third which would translate to 5.3 per90. He also played in an extremely left, extremely forward position for Flamengo in that match:
The ceiling is very high with Mari and I’m excited to see him at Arsenal. He’s an extremely left footed player (again, Stillman’s words) and I know this is a bit controversial but I wonder if Arteta might play him and David Luiz together. He’s naturally left footed so he slots into the left side perfectly and in matches where you want to have maximum control, natural balance, and a one-two punch for getting the ball forward I think Mari and David Luiz might make a good pair.
Cedric
Cedric Soares is another player Arsenal are loaning in and there have been a lot of questions as to why. I have to admit I’m just as confused as most of you. Here is the comparison chart:
| Stats | Soares | Bellerin | AMN |
| Tackle | 3.2 | 1.3 | 2.5 |
| Attempts | 4.6 | 3.9 | 4.1 |
| % | 70 | 33 | 60 |
| Was Dribbled | 1.4 | 2.6 | 1.6 |
| Won possession | 1.7 | 0.8 | 1.6 |
| Interceptions | 1.3 | 1.5 | 1.9 |
| Blocked crosses | 0.5 | 0 | 0.4 |
| Blocked passes | 1 | 1.3 | 0.7 |
| Final third | 2.41 | 3.85 | 3.36 |
| PPA | 0.83 | 0.51 | 0.37 |
| CrsPA | 0.48 | 0.26 | 0.07 |
| xA | 0.09 | 0.02 | 0.11 |
| Dribbled past | 20 | 10 | 22 |
| Attempts | 66 | 15 | 55 |
Bellerin
Bellerin is returning from injury and he’s only played 8.4 combined p90s this season. So, some of his stats are understandably pretty poor at the moment.
For example, Bellerin has only made 33% of his tackles and has already been dribbled past 10 times out of 15 attempted tackles (FBref data). Bellerin’s interceptions numbers are still good (1.5 per90) so he’s reading the game well which makes me wonder if there isn’t a problem with lateral movement or as Arseblog pointed out something lingering mentally from the ACL surgery.
Maitland-Niles
Maitland-Niles has done a fairly good job as cover for Bellerin. On the one hand his tackling is 60% which isn’t atrocious – it’s mid table, teams rank from a high of 66% and low of 55%. But on the other hand he is dribbled past 1.6 times per90 and in all competitions has been bypassed 27 times (in the equivalent of 18 matches). But then on the third hand, his interceptions numbers are good, 1.9 per90 and he wins possession with his tackles 1.6 times p90.
Maitland-Niles’ weakness seems to be crossing and getting the ball into the 18 yard box. Passes in the final third are fine, 3.4 per90 which is right up there with Bellerin’s 3.9 but passes into the penalty area are just 0.37 p90 and crosses into the penalty are are less than 0.1 per90.
Soares averages 0.9 passes into the 18 yard box and 0.5 crosses into the penalty area per90. He’s also a 70% tackler.
That said, Soares is not a great dribbler. He’s worse than Maitland-Niles in terms of both number attempted and success rate, which is not good since Maitland-Niles is a 64%+ career dribbler. Soares also only averages 1 attempted dribble every five games. While Maitland-Niles at least attempted 1.69 per90.
Overall, I think they wanted Soares for his tackles and his ability to put the ball into the box but this is still a strange aquisition for a number of reasons. First, because he’s injured so we have a bit of a Kim Kallstrom situation. And second because he’s not leaps and bounds better than Maitland-Niles, who looked to be progressing under Arteta.
Agents, Soares and Maitland-Niles
Signing Soares makes me wonder where Ainsley Maitland-Niles will play the rest of the season? As backup to Torreira in midfield? Is that really a promotion? As a right wing player? He doesn’t seem to have the passing stats to back that up and he would still be backup to Pepe.
Some folks see Soares as a rolodex signing, arguing that Arsenal’s Raul Sanllehi is just signing a player to appease his agent Jorge Mendes. I kind of understand the sentiment behind that because I don’t trust these agents at all. But this signing basically pushes Maitland-Niles out the door. And Arteta praised Soares in his Thursday presser, saying that he’s followed the player for a few years now.
And that would mean that Arteta and Sanllehi are willing to sacrifice a promising young player in order to appease an agent. Maitland-Niles is a young British talent and that means leaving a lot of money on the table (in terms of developing Maitland-Niles’ future sales potential) in order to appease an agent.
Arsenal spend like a poor club. We can’t afford to leave any money on the table. And I get that people in power do dumb things but if the club are appeasing an agent at the expense of developing young players then that means that Sanllehi and Arteta are willing to sacrifice a ton of potential transfer money and possibly even lose matches (if Soares is lower quality than AMN) in order to grease the skids.
If that’s the case then it better damn well be worth it come this time next season. But I hope that’s not the case.
Sources:
fbref.com
whoscored.com (be prepared for an annoying “I am not a robot” thing)
Any sense of how Cedric plays in the air? I think both Bellerin and AMN are not strong heading the ball, and I’m wondering if that’s part of the equation. It’s a baffling signing, as you say. BTW – which transcription service did you settle on? I’ve used rev.com for their very cheap, automated transcriptions when I don’t need perfect accuracy. Their more detailed transcripts are much higher in quality, but a lot more expensive.
I think I like https://transcribe.wreally.com
Soares is very bad in the air, 41%.
Bellerin is worse, 33%
Maitland-Niles is 64%
Either: Arteta just doesn’t rate Maitland-Niles at all or this is all being pushed by agents. I think it’s the former.
I will try the transcription site.
I would be really surprised if he doesn’t rate AMN. I’ve thought he’s been very very strong. When I saw the Chelsea game in person, he stood out over everyone else – literally told my son he was our best player that day. Different perspective live. Then he took Zaha completely out of the CP match. I haven’t seen anything to make me think he should lose his spot.
Maybe he’s thinking of moving him to midfield? I would be sorry to see AMN lose playing time.
I cannot see Maitland-Niles playing in midfield in anything above a reserve role. His touch is poor, man. He can’t control in tight spaces. He’s ok as a pure destroyer in midfield but under pressure he turns the ball over a lot. But another less emotional way to look at this:
If he plays RB – third choice
If he plays DM – 2nd choice (or lower, I think Arteta has Xhaka playing an actual DM role)
If he plays CM – 5th choice (Willock, Xhaka, Guendo, and Torreira all ahead of him)
If he plays RW – 2nd choice (or lower, depending on if you rate Nelson over him)
So, this looks for all intents like a serious demotion. Unless Soares doesn’t play. In that case, then we should wonder how Mendes slipped this junk player on our payroll.
His touch is what has always concerned me. But he was really strong in the CP and Chelsea games in that respect. I was specifically watching for that in those games. Having said that, he is a man without a spot as you say, although DM is exactly what I was thinking for him. He may not have Xhaka’s passing range, but tackling and recovery speed are way above Xhaka’s. I’m hoping he gets a shot there.
I know the stats don’t entirely back this up but he also doesn’t seem to be able to dribble. Especially in tight spaces. Again, I think this is a touch thing.
Never saw Mari in action but did see Cedric quite a few times.
He looked quite a useful player for the Soton when I watched him play so it will be interesting to see how Arteta delegates him and AMN the rest of the season.
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via your PayPal account.
Tom! I think you have sent me money before and I just want to say that I appreciate it.
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Long time reader/ lurker here. Really enjoy your writing – Arsenal and beyond. Glad there’s a way to express my appreciation. COYG!
Here are 4 reasons to like the Soares signing:
1. We have needed a viable alternate at RB for two seasons now. AMN has filled in there, Chambers has filled in there, Lichtsteiner has filled in there, we’ve even had to play Mustafi or Sokratis there at times. None of them have made a compelling case in Bellerin’s absence and there is no academy player knocking down the door either.
2. AMN had a few excellent games recently but has not been consistent. He has said himself he is not a RB. But if he wants to challenge for his place, why shouldn’t he be able to beat out an average player like Soares? Now AMN is no longer the RB2 by default and I don’t see the problem with that. This is Arsenal and places should be won on merit. That means somebody has to lose. If it’s AMN, then we wish him well, collect a decent fee from a club in need, and move on. Or maybe he’ll rise to the challenge, learn to cross and improve his tackling, and then we have an improved player on our hands.
3. Sure, Soares isn’t the greatest RB ever but it’s not like we sold the farm to get him. We may sign him as a free agent for depth in the summer or we may not. This move gives the club cover in the short term and flexibility in the near intermediate term to scope out a player they might like to sign to a position in need of depth.
4. This is not a gamble on an unproven player. He’s PL tested, in his prime, playing for a manager with a modern mentality. He is ready to slot in right away as a specialist RB. We didn’t have that yesterday. Bellerin is far from his best and we are involved in multiple competitions that will require depth at every position.
The stats on Mari are interesting, thanks.
Soares – is there really confusion out there in the internet? I’m glad I’ve been offline for a while. It’s clear from the stats what I’ve thought for a long time watching him play – he’s a classic fullback, in that he’s good at everything and athletic, and he has an excellent attitude. In my taxonomy of positions, fullbacks are basically defensive midfielders with a better engine and a bit of a wildcard f-u attitude instead of DM self-possession. Soares is actually remarkably self-possessed, he has a great balance between attack and defence, and he makes a lot of sense as a signing given that Arteta likes his fullbacks to tuck in, and given that he will provide a more defensively robust alternative to Bellerin, who is more of a converted winger (like Saka).
All this stuff about agents and Maitland-Niles reads like conspiracy / Kremlinology to me. Soares is a good player, and I’ve thought so for a while.
On Mustafi, I just want to say that Mr Catastrophe has looked more confident in the few outings we’ve seen this season, and given the level of criticism he was receiving, that speaks volumes about his mental strength (and Arteta’s man management).
Overall your statistical analysis of our CBs illustrates very clearly the different styles of CBs that we have, and the data makes sense when you put it together with the knowledge we already have of those styles. Mustafi is all front foot, interceptions, fast recovery, good in the air, but gets rolled and dribbled too often.
Chambers does a bit of everything – a coach’s dream – but we’ve seen him ball-watch and lose his position from time to time – a coach’s nightmare.
The way David Luiz backs off and backs off and keeps his man in front of him, it’s no wonder that he rarely gets dribbled because he doesn’t challenge – this is not entirely a good thing.
PS The last time I was this bullish about a RB was Lichtsteiner, so make of that what you will.
I’ve gone off into a train of thought about the psychology of football positions – if you’re a good player you can basically learn the technique for most positions, but where were you born to play?
Me and my mate who I played 5-a-side with for 10 years are now dads, and watching our very young kids play in the park we both had the same reaction. You can see the character and personality of the kids amplified as soon as you put them on a pitch. I had midfielder technique but a fullback personality – lie in wait, spring traps, back up my CBs, fight like a SOB, do a job, go past people whenever I could. I didn’t want the responsibility of being a midfielder.
I wonder what being a defender says about you, Tim?
Agree with your assessment of AMN Tim. It’s likely he’ll be up for sale come season end. I don’t see Arteta sharing Arsene’s love for utility players preferring specialists who excel in their respective roles.
As for the new signings let’s see what they can do but the reality is with fourteen games left it’s unlikely either will make a discernible difference or impact on the remainder of our season. Unless you’re truly world class (Auba) it just doesn’t seem to happen. Arteta seems happy with the two acquisitions so if nothing else it should be instructive of how well he might re-model the squad this Summer.
I see Soares as a specialist in the right back position albeit not the highest quality. My take on this signing is that Arteta wants a 5 month stretch to see how trainable he is. I don’t see him playing that much. I imagine Arteta has some ideas on how to make him a better player. It‘s up to Soares to prove how coachable he is and show his commitment to developing himself. If it works out with both loanees we‘ll have done our summer signings in January. Don’ t forget Saliba arrives next season too. Forward thinking’s at low outlay.
BTW, I‘ve been disappointed with he development of AMN. He hasn‘t learned essential skills for a midfield position. Ability to learn, being coachable, is just as essential for a top class player. He‘s not showing that for me.
Arteta spoke about AMN in his pre Burnley press conference saying:
“He can play in various positions and do really well at full-back as well. He’s a very useful player with great speed, technically gifted, a good passer of the ball and he can play as an attacking midfielder because he’s a threat every time with his runs. And he can play a holding midfielder because he’s played a lot there in his career.”
“We have some necessities in certain areas, playing some players in positions that are not really their positions. With more time I would like to have specialists for every position to do exactly what we want to do. But Ainsley has adapted really well to that position, the same as Bukayo. They have been really helpful so why not, they can still play in those positions but naturally they are other type of players.”
It sounds like the door is still open if Ainsley is willing to fight for the rb spot and for me that is still his best shot at an first team Arsenal career. I would tend to agree that an attacking role would expose his deficit in technique and passing which, at 22, are not likely to improve to a level that Arsenal couldn’t easily buy in.
All that said, Arteta does rate him and with some work may be able to conjure some minor wonders. I was wrong about AMN before, hopefully I can be wrong again.
And with regards Soares, that seems like a confluence of expediencies. Price, availability, ‘special’ agent relationship, can cover either fullback position and Arteta likes him. Plus it’s a loan so we can walk away if it doesn’t work out. Not a signing to set the loins burning but it does make some sense at least.
Would 10x rather this than Kurzawa on a permanent.
A confluence of expediencies. I’m using that.
Thanks for the post Tim
Happy we bought a CB. I assume this is a player Edu knows from watching him while in South America. So far Martinelli who in theory is the other player Edu recommnded has worked out pretty well and hopefully the same will be true with Mari.
With regard to the stats it’s always been my belief that the predictive value of passing and defensive stats are often misleading. We have seen so many players whose passing stats look great but they were never very effective players for us. Players like Xhaka, Elneny and even Lucas Perez, Denilson, Alex Song had excellent but the ability of those players to have a positive influence on the games while playing in an Arsenal shirt came no where close to what the passing stats would predict. If Luiz and Sokratis are as good at distribution as the stats say they are then why do we struggle to move the ball from back to front in a quick and effective manner? When the stats don’t match what is actually happening on the pitch then you have to question the real value of those stats. With regard to Mari do the stats he recorded for Flamengo really translate into similar stats in the PL? Pepe was true world class stat sheet superstar in France but it seems like the PL is quite a different league and he has really struggled to make an impact in the PL.
Serious question, Bill: have you ever played football?
Pepe has dropped from 0.57 npxG+A per90 to 0.37 npxG+A per game. Incidentally that’s the same xG he had in his first season at Lille when he scored 13 and assisted 5.
He’s definitely not as great as he was at Lille last season but I can’t wait to see what he can do with a real manager.
As for the predictive capacity of stats, I’ve literally said that there will probably be some differences between these player’s old clubs and how they perform at Arsenal. Thanks for reiterating that. Did you know that almost all stats are somewhat predictive? I think you do know this because I think you’ve been through college. The question isn’t whether it’s how accurate. But you know that and I don’t think you’re arguing in good faith here.
Can I offer some friendly advice? You sound really stuck on two ideas: stats lie and managers don’t matter. I don’t know why you’re stuck on these ideas but it’s super boring. I’m not going to ban you for being boring but I will just say that people will start to ignore you soon. I’m not telling you to change your mind about anything. But maybe pick a new topic to hate? Or if you really don’t understand probability and predictability, maybe you could do some research into the topic and try to understand the complexity of the topics? I doubt you would spend as much time reading about stats than you spend on coming up with semi-novel ways to say the same things over and over.
Peace.
“If Luiz and Sokratis are as good at distribution as the stats say they are then why do we struggle to move the ball from back to front in a quick and effective manner”
___________________
Vintage Bill.
If only football was the zero sum game that you seem to think it is.
This leaves a whole lot of things out… a midfield, different midfield role players and opposition tactics to name only three.
How important was Cedric to Southampton?
The minute they sell him they ship out 4 goals to the struggling Liverpool.
But seriously now, Liverpool will deserve the title but it seems the league and refs are on board in trying to make this as memorable and record breaking a season as they could possibly orchestrate.
A bit reminiscent of the Leicester title winning season.