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Appreciate it it nonetheless, I don’t claim to be an expert on every club so if there are any glaring issues I’m happy to update accordingly.
End of Season - % PL Minutes Played Analysis - United Worst Hit? Top 10 DONE (Rest of league - Please request individual teams)
- Thread starter BenitoSTARR
- Start date
I did some analysis in another thread which compared 'no. of starts in each position' for defenders at United, Newcastle and Aston Villa.
Aston Villa
Pau Torres started 27 / 38 games
Konsa started 35 / 38 games (some at RB I know)
Diego Carlos started 20 / 38 games
Lenglet started 14 / 38 games
Mings started once and Chambers started once.
At LB, Lucas Digne started 27 / 38 and Moreno started 11 / 38.
Conclusion - Pau Torres, Diego Carlos and Clement Lenglet basically shared CB duties with Konsa filling in the odd game. All natural CBs, all experienced professionals in their prime.
LB was either Lucas Digne or Alex Moreno, both natural LBs and senior professionals in their prime.
Newcastle
Fabien Schar 36 starts from 38 games
Sven Botman 17 starts from 38 games
Lascelles 16 starts from 38 games
Paul Dummet 5 starts from 38 games
Dan Burn started 33 from 38, presumably mostly at LB.
Keiran Trippier started 28 from 38 at RB
LB and RB were basically covered by first-choices Burn and Trippier, with Livramento and Hall (both £30m purchases) acting as natural understudies.
Conclusion - Schar was virtually ever-present and was partnered almost exclusively by either Botman or Lascelles. All natural CBs, all senior professionals in their prime.
No issues at full back. Burn and Trippier available most of the time, covered by two good young natural full backs when not available.
Manchester United
Martinez started 8 / 38 games
Varane started 16 / 38 games
Maguire started 18 / 38 games
Lindelof started 14 / 38 games
Kambwala started 3 / 38 games
Johnny Evans started 15 / 38 games.
Casemiro started 5 / 38 games at CB.
Luke Shaw, our first choice LB and arguably 5th choice CB started 12 / 38 games.
Malacia, our 2nd choice LB, started 0 games...in fact, didn't play a single minute.
Conclusion - bit of a car crash! Not one of our defenders started more than 18 games. That in itself is in stark contrast with Villa and Newcastle, who both had at least one first choice CB available most of the time.
You can also see the sheer number of players used regularly at CB is in stark contrast to Villa and Newcastle. Both used three, in the main...and the period that another player had to fill-in were highlighted by the press and demonstrating an "injury crisis". We used five on the regular, plus had to have other lads fill in at CB or be prematurely promoted from the Academy.
What you can see is a total lack of consistency and stability. Kambwala wasn't ready, Casemiro should never be at CB and Evans did great, but under normal circumstances would never be starting 15 games for a top-half team...or even really any PL team at his age.
LB is a car-crash. We basically didn't have one for more than two-thirds of the season. We ended up loaning a bit-part player from Spurs, who was also injured / ill for a good chunk of his time at the club.
If you dive even further into the stats, you can see that our problems didn't end with pre-game selection, but that we were forced into changes in defence game after game.
Martinez was subbed off 6 times from those 8 starts.
Varane was subbed off 4 times from those 16 starts.
Evans was subbed off 7 times from those 15 starts.
Lindelof was subbed off 7 times from those 14 starts.
At LB, Shaw was subbed off 5 times from 12 starts and, as we know, Malacia didn't play at all.
Some of those might have been tactical but a good chunk were in-game injuries, causing further disruption in the backline.
Great post and provides further context for what the more logical amongst us can already see!
The main thing I take away from it all is that usually what fans and the press label an "injury crisis" is just first team players missing.
In modern football, that happens to every club and is accommodated for with 23 man squads. Most clubs have two senior international (at least) as backup in each position.
I'd say we need to reframe what "injury crisis" means in a modern context. Its not really about 'total number of unavailable players' necessarily, it's about number of injuries in one specific position and consistency of injuries (i.e. how often did the manager have to change the line-up pre-game and in-game)
For example, a club might have ten players injured and it might not really hurt them that much, if it's mainly fringe players and the odd starter in positions with good cover.
In contrast, a club might have three injuries all season...but if those three injuries are to your goalkeepers, or your best three CBs, best three CMs or best three CFs...then that is clearly going to have a huge impact.
I mean I’ll take your word for it and yes you did list the height and ages but I think it just didn’t make a lot sense. Not in my head anyway.
You’d done all this detailed analysis and then to go from that to then implying Chelsea had a significant advantage over United defensively…. because the height and ages of their players is more similar than Uniteds (who’s is also very similar but not as similar) was quite bizarre.
There simply isn’t a tangible difference between the ages and heights of Uniteds defenders to Chelsea’s for it to be emphasised as a point of advantage for Chelsea.
Chelsea have two 6’4 defenders, and two 6’1 defenders. United have two 6’4 defenders and two 6’2 defenders. Chelsea’s are younger bar Thiago but Uniteds more experienced bar Kambwala.
Do you see what I’m saying? In isolation what you’re saying whilst strange probably wouldn’t bat an eyelid but it’s massively out of context to the rest of your postings in this thread. It’s on the very low and basic (borderline irrelevant) end of the scale in terms of detailed analysis. Hence me presuming what you actually meant by profile of player were the players actual abilities and traits of which of course are deffo not more similar in Chelsea’s case. And I think that is probably a lot more important than height and age when it comes to continuity in a squad.
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Lovely post to add to this thread so thanks for sharing.
Part of the rationale of using %mins played is it also accounts for the above scenarios where players who started and were “available” end up leaving the pitch injured which has been a unique feature of our season too.
I can see why you’d take it the way you did. I didn’t do a great job explaining that aspect.
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UPDATE: Newcastle is now complete
It is not a perfect analysis (that’s impossible) but pretty good.
Amad: played when he was match ready and became a starter after a couple of good cameo’s. No complaints from me there.
Starting him after a cameo where he contributed nothing would have been too soon.
This analysis looks incomplete without knowing the %age of minutes a player was available for vs the %age of minutes he played.
For example, the OP lists that Varane played 40.1% of the total Pl minutes this season but, iirc, he was available for many more than that and was kept on the bench with the manager giving some weird excuse to not play him. It must be true for other players too.
For example, the OP lists that Varane played 40.1% of the total Pl minutes this season but, iirc, he was available for many more than that and was kept on the bench with the manager giving some weird excuse to not play him. It must be true for other players too.
That’s kinda true, but I’m sure Garnacho wants to play everything. We need to rotate more.
Varane has been explained and discussed.
It would be doable to
add a minutes available stat, but sometimes a player can only play 30 minutes (when coming back from injury).
Obviously the stat comparisons aren’t perfect, they never are though.
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Yeah and I'm not presenting it as perfect. Merely a convenient and clear way of showing who exactly was able to have an impact on the pitch.
Amad obviously started the season injured and is a slight 20/21 year old. It's not beyond question to believe he'd need time to adapt and recover. But again technical availability would be higher, how many minutes he could have played is entirely speculative.
Possibly but it's not something I have time to do yet. I may add in 'available' game weeks with the BIG caveat that its not an indicator of full availability and full match fitness (e.g. capability to start and finish a game if needed).
Varane has already been addressed several times so i'd recommend looking back one page if you're curious.
Mins available is too much work for me. Other sources BBC/The Athletic have done the injury stuff anyway which shows we are the most affected from squads.
If I were to do it I'd use absence logs from Transfermarkt and base it off of that.
He actually didn't play when he was "match ready" (that would have been around after Christmas when he first debuted for the season) and after his first real susbstantial cameo (Liverpool QF where he was the match winner) he was given exactly 0 minutes in the next 4 matches.
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Before I do it does anyone actually want to see all of the bottom 1/2?
No. Appreciate the work on the other teams though.
I don't care about the discussion on Varane, he was just an example. There were other too like Amrabat, Eriksen etc. who were available for long periods but were hardly used. Without it, I find the comparison a bit disingenuous. The LB debate too as with AWB available Dalot, who is adept at the position, should have been used there. We also had one a game a week for most of the second half of the season. To me that indicated that Shaw and Malacia missing were not a big issue since AWB came back fit.
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Ok but why would you try to use Amrabat or Eriksen if better players were available in midfield?
Amrabat was unavailable for 9/38 and Eriksen for 5/38 but their lack of use isn’t considered a reason for performing below expectations.
Here’s midfield (again the assumption here is bench = available but that doesn’t mean they could have played a full 90)
Games Unavailable:
- Mount 24/38
- Casemiro 12/38
- Mainoo 9/38 (all start of season)
- Amrabat 9/38
- Eriksen 5/38
- McTominay 4/38
- Bruno 2/38
Games Unavailable:
- Malacia 38/38
- Shaw 26/38
- Reguilón 24/38* loan
- Wan Bissaka 13/38
- Dalot 1/38
- 4 Unavailable - 3/38 (all during Reguilón loan)
- 3 Unavailable - 6/38
- 2 Unavailable - 19/38
I just think you have a really silly opinion if you think having no Shaw and Malacia isn’t an issue. Dalot isn’t a specialist and he played LB the most of all our squad:
Games at LB:
- Dalot 12/38 (all 90 mins)
- Shaw 10/38 (subbed off in 4 off those)
- Wan Bissaka 5/38 (All 90 mins - 450mins)
- Reguilón 9/38 (412mins averaging 45.8 mins per game many subs on and off due to injury)
- Malacia 0/38
That's better.
I asked for the availability of Amrabat and Eriksen because iirc there were games where Eriksen was preferred before Amrabat in the midfield when in fact the reason to push for Amrabat in the summer was because we needed a back up for Casemiro. I think Palace game was a prime example where it backfired badly. Although, Amrabat isn't a player that I would like us to sign permanently, he was criminally underused even when Casemiro's performances were not up to the mark. As I have been saying, ETH's squad management and rotation is pretty poor. He doesn't make changes unless a player gets injured or it becomes obvious to even the blind that the player's form has dropped badly.
"Game at LB": this is what I was looking for. This tells me that 31/38 games we had either LB's or Dalot, who is adept at playing the position, were available and in 5 other games AWB was used there for some weird reason.
Similar will be true in central defense too as I remember Varane surprisingly starting on the bench for a lot of games. Also, iirc, Maguire was starting those games as a RCB when he in fact he has played most of his career as a LCB. The reason given for Varane was that he cannot play on the left, and then later we saw him start quite a few games at LCB too.
No idea if this is possible, but it would be interesting to see an overlap of when players were unavailable, especially in the defenders
Good thread. If this happened to Pep or Arteta they'd be moaning about it non stop.
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https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/manchester-united/ausfallzeiten/verein/985
Google “ ‘club name’ absences transfermarkt”
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This is why availability isn’t a great measure for any club because “available” and fit enough to play 90 mins are not the same.
I also think you’re overselling Dalot at LB as well as ignoring the fact that we wanted these players to develop in the long term too.
Id argue Dalot playing RB more consistently under Ten Hag and being truly available (ie actually on the pitch) is a key reason for his development.
Great work @BenitoSTARR for pulling this together.
That said, I feel to remove all assumptions, one does have to go with "available to play" as being in the match squad. It may seem crude, but can be polished by exempting players returning from a significant layoff for 2 games.
Using games played means you're assuming what's going on in the managers head for the most part which is more risky and ignores the fact that players can force their way into the starting line up with good performances (albeit quite rarely!).
We had it bad with injuries, but we genuinely don't know how many were caused by our kamikaze football adoption over the season and whatever the training methods were. Throw in the lack of use of the squad for a lot of his first season which basically results in first teamers being injury prone due to burn out and squad players being injury prone due to a lack of match fitness. It hasn't helped that we really haven't won that many games comfortably, so early subs to allow run outs for youngsters and squad players have been scarce.
Just like with the board, EtH may not just be a victim here, he could be one of the architects of this issue.
If he's here next season, I really hope he uses his squad better (I say that knowing that relying on his first teamers could be part of what has helped bring us recent cup success, but at the same time could be part of what's hampering sustained performance levels in the league).
I also hope that gap in midfield becomes a thing of the past - he pulled one of the 10s deeper (they looked to me like 10s rather than 8s) from when we played Arsenal and we looked better straight away. I have yet to see whether fit CBs who can push up sorts how porous we are on it's own, as we were just as open at the start of the season. I think the midfield gap is more about his midfield shape and the personnel he adopted for most of it.
That said, I feel to remove all assumptions, one does have to go with "available to play" as being in the match squad. It may seem crude, but can be polished by exempting players returning from a significant layoff for 2 games.
Using games played means you're assuming what's going on in the managers head for the most part which is more risky and ignores the fact that players can force their way into the starting line up with good performances (albeit quite rarely!).
We had it bad with injuries, but we genuinely don't know how many were caused by our kamikaze football adoption over the season and whatever the training methods were. Throw in the lack of use of the squad for a lot of his first season which basically results in first teamers being injury prone due to burn out and squad players being injury prone due to a lack of match fitness. It hasn't helped that we really haven't won that many games comfortably, so early subs to allow run outs for youngsters and squad players have been scarce.
Just like with the board, EtH may not just be a victim here, he could be one of the architects of this issue.
If he's here next season, I really hope he uses his squad better (I say that knowing that relying on his first teamers could be part of what has helped bring us recent cup success, but at the same time could be part of what's hampering sustained performance levels in the league).
I also hope that gap in midfield becomes a thing of the past - he pulled one of the 10s deeper (they looked to me like 10s rather than 8s) from when we played Arsenal and we looked better straight away. I have yet to see whether fit CBs who can push up sorts how porous we are on it's own, as we were just as open at the start of the season. I think the midfield gap is more about his midfield shape and the personnel he adopted for most of it.
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Thanks