Full-backs have gone from being the least fashionable position to one that can be almost anything. Every team now uses them in a variety of ways, from defenders to playmakers to central midfielders. So, how does each Premier League team deploy their full-backs?
Speaking on Monday Night Football over a decade ago, Jamie Carragher perfectly summed up attitudes of the time towards full-backs:
“A full-back [is] either a failed winger or a failed centre-back,” he jeered before landing the killer blow to his co-pundit:
“No one wants to grow up and be a Gary Neville.”
For his part, Neville did not exactly rebuff the accusations. But that was in 2013.
Now, over a decade later, the role of the full-back has blossomed into something far more than we’d ever imagined it could be. Full-backs can now be traditional defenders, overlapping wingers, playmakers, and even central midfielders.
So with that in mind, we can look at how each Premier League team deploys theirs. By analysing the average touch location of each side’s full-backs, we can get a picture of what teams are trying to do with them in possession. The results are interesting.
The below graphic shows where the full-backs on each team take their touches on average, and is sorted by the average height of those touches.
The team at the top, Manchester City, are somewhat of an outlier. When are they not?
Pep Guardiola’s men are the only team whose full-backs get on the ball over 60 metres away from goal on average. This makes sense: City dominate territory so much that they can push their full-backs right up into the opposition’s half. Kyle Walker has been particularly advanced at right-back, averaging 59.6 touches in the opposition’s half per 90, compared to just 21.3 in his own half. He’s basically been playing as a winger so far this season, though his numbers will be skewed by the crazy game against 10-man Arsenal when City were camped on the edge of the opposition’s box:
At an average width of 35.7m, City’s full-backs also play the narrowest. Again, this is not surprising given Rico Lewis has often inverted from right full-back, while Walker has taken up advanced positions in the right half-space.
Nor is it a surprise to see Tottenham’s full-backs so high. Spurs are well-known for their high defensive line out of possession, and that is a shape they adopt with the ball as well. Only Man City (63.5% possession) see more of the ball than Tottenham (62.4%), and only Guardiola’s team start their possession sequences further away from their own goal (47.4m) than Ange Postecoglou’s cavalier charges (44.9m).
Crystal Palace and Southampton come next, but that is partly because they’ve both played with wing-backs, rather than full-backs, for large parts of the campaign.
Palace’s wing-back pair are particularly critical in how they progress play. Only Rico Lewis (24) – who has spent plenty of time in midfield – has received more progressive passes among defenders than the Palace pair of Daniel Muñoz (22) and Tyrick Mitchell (19).
Playing with wing-backs is becoming somewhat of a dying art form. The vast majority of Premier League teams have played with four at the back this season and only Palace (87%) have used wing-backs more often than full-backs. Last season in the Premier League there were four teams (Luton Town, Sheffield United, Wolves and Brentford) who used wing-backs more often than a back four.
Back to where full-backs are getting on the ball, and aside from Man City, it’s Aston Villa, Bournemouth and Ipswich Town who play with the most asymmetric full-backs. For each of those teams it’s their left-back – Lucas Digne, Milos Kerkez, and Leif Davis – who plays far more advanced than the right-back, and all sides clearly use them as a way to generate chances.
Davis has created the most chances in open play for Ipswich this season, Digne has delivered the most open-play crosses for Villa and Kerkez has received more progressive passes than any other Bournemouth player.
Given their change of manager over the summer, the average height of Liverpool’s full-backs is interesting. In their last season under Jürgen Klopp, the Reds’ full-backs had the fourth-highest average touch location in the league. Now, under Arne Slot, it’s the 12th highest, with Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold playing a lot deeper. This does marry up with Slot’s slightly more controlled approach in possession.
Robertson in particular is far more reserved, making his touches almost five metres deeper on the pitch compared to last term (51.5m vs 56.4m). He is also getting on the ball close to the touchline less.
For a team like Chelsea who have a lot of the ball (56% possession – sixth-highest in the league), it might be surprising their full-backs playing the deepest of any team. After all, as the below style graphic shows, they do adopt a similar in-possession style to teams like Tottenham, Liverpool and Aston Villa.
Villa and Spurs play with high full-backs and although Liverpool’s are more reserved, Slot’s side still start their possession sequences over 42m away from their own goal, the sixth-furthest in the league.
Chelsea begin their moves from a lot closer to their own goal than those sides, though. Only four teams (Ipswich, Leicester and Nottingham Forest) start their attacks from a deeper position than Chelsea’s 39.3m. Unlike those sides, however, Chelsea look to hold on to the ball for a lot longer and have the capability in possession to progress the play through the lines. They average 14.5m metres of upfield progression per sequence, the third-highest average in the league.
The demands on full-backs are higher than they’ve ever been, and it’s not an exaggeration to say they are now one of the most important positions on the pitch. Sure, people don’t grow up wanting to be Gary Neville, but they do grow up wanting to be Trent Alexander-Arnold.
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