Friday, November 8, 2024

Sagna, Debuchy, Jenks, and Chambers: (adjusting) By the Numbers

Bacary Sagna has had a great career at Arsenal and been a wonderful servant for the club. And now at the age of 31 (will be 32 before the season’s out) he has moved on to Manchester City’s home for wayward Gooners to collect a big final few years wages before retirement. Meanwhile, Sagna’s deputy right back, Carl “Arsenal Bedsheets Klaxon” Jenkinson, has been loaned out to Wet Hams and in so doing left Arsene Wenger free to completely reconstruct the right side of Arsenal’s defense. Wenger has done so in dramatic fashion, splashing £30m on Newcastle’s Matty Debuchy and Southampton rising star Calum Chambers. It was a bold move by Wenger, and one which I think represents an upgrade on the previous two players.

Sagna had been a player in decline the last few seasons so it wasn’t a surprise to see him let go. Earlier in the season, I tweeted a comment about how I was disappointed by how little defense Sagna played anymore. The response from my followers was an avalanche of anger. “Typical 7amkickoff” was probably the nicest thing anyone said. The stats, however, back up my observation.

Sagna-per-game

What’s remarkable about Sagna’s drop in numbers is that Arsenal played more defensively this year than last. For example, Arsenal as a team attempted 138 more tackles this year over last. I would expect to see Sagna’s tackles numbers go up or stay the same but instead they dropped 0.5 tackle per game. His INT numbers went up, but so too did Arsenal’s. And you might think with this new-found defensive style, that might account for his lower crosses completed numbers but he actually tried more crosses this season than last, 123 v. 106 in 2012-13. He was, in fact, not defending as much and spending more time trying crosses.

Sagna’s aerial duels numbers, however, went up every year that he was at Arsenal. This is because over the last three years it seems like Szczesny has become more dependent on kicking the ball out to that side of the pitch. Sagna isn’t at the back heading the ball away in defense, he’s much more likely to win an aerial duel near the center circle.

This is not to say that I don’t love the guy, but rather simply that it might have been a good time to move him on.

Wenger replaced Sagna with Mathieu Debuchy and I have compared the two player’s stats in several places already. In almost all comparisons Debuchy looks like a significant upgrade on Sagna. Almost twice as many tackles, more interceptions, and (significantly) a similar aerial duels won rate and percent.

Debuchy defense

aerials

But, I hear some folks say, maybe Debuchy’s stats are inflated because Newcastle don’t have as much possession as Arsenal? The theory behind that argument goes that the team who has more of the ball has fewer chances to tackle and vice-versa. Thus, if Arsenal have 57% of possession on average, Newcastle have 49%, and Jenkinson’s new team West Ham have 43% (all true stats) then we should see a pattern of fewer to more tackles and thus we should adjust Sagna’s stats up, Debuchy’s down, and anyone on West Ham should be adjusted way down. Only one small problem: the actual numbers don’t work like that.

Arsenal attempted 1173 tackles last season, 19 more than Newcastle’s 1154, and a whopping 118 more than West Ham. Newcastle did make more interceptions than Arsenal, 596 compared to 541, but again West Ham only made 400 interceptions (141 fewer than Arsenal) all season.

Why are West Ham’s numbers so weird? I suspect Fat Sam’s anti-football. To put it bluntly, West Ham don’t do anything: they don’t pass, they don’t tackle, they don’t intercept, they don’t foul, they don’t shoot, and they don’t dribble. They are near the bottom of the table in all of those stats categories because they sit back in their shape and don’t do anything.

But the problem with adjusting stats for possession is that teams are all over the map in terms of defensive numbers. Most of the teams who lead the League in possession numbers are also some of the top tackling teams. Swansea is one of the best teams for interceptions, Man City is a top tackling team, Arsenal are oddly average, and so on. When it comes to defensive stats it turns out that teams have different “personalities”.

So, what happens if we look at a team’s variation from the League average and use that percentage to adjust a player’s numbers? In a way, try to correct for the team’s propensity to either be more or less tackly, more or less intercepty, more or less crossy, more or less passy, and more or less anti-footballish? Well, one of our readers built a spreadsheet that adjusts player’s individual numbers exactly for these tendencies.

So, let’s look at the four right backs that either played for Arsenal last year or will play for Arsenal next year: Sagna, Debuchy, Jenkinson, and Chambers.

First, passing. I won’t bore you with how important passing is at Arsenal.

Passes

Comparing Jenkinson, even on a per90* basis, is a bit problematic because his numbers are so small owing to the fact that he had just seven starts and seven subs all season. But setting aside his anomalous numbers you can see that Debuchy is very close to Sagna in each category. Chambers, who plays on a cross-friendly team, is quite the crosser of the ball. His 18% crossing rate seems low but when you consider the fact that the League average is 20% and add in the fact that that 20% counts all crosses, including dead ball situations, he’s getting in to some really decent numbers at 18% on the fly. And remember, that’s adjusted down because of his team’s propensity for crossing. His actual success rate is 20%!

On the defensive side it’s a similar story:

tackles

As I said above, Arsenal are (oddly) an average tackling and intercepting team. Newcastle and Southampton on the other hand are both very active defensive teams putting in a lot of tackles and interceptions and thus lowering what we might expect from those two players on an average team. Despite that adjustment Chambers and Debuchy are putting in some impressive numbers compared to Sagna when it comes to defense with Debuchy putting in almost double the defensive work rate that Sagna put up last season. Incredible, really, until you look up to the chart up above and note that Debuchy attempted 17% of his team’s tackles. He was worked and worked hard — and yet still able to get forward. As hard as he was worked, he punched right back.

Thus, taken as a whole, the two new players look like solid acquisitions. Chambers and Debuchy put up similar offensive numbers to Sagna and both also put up bigger defensive numbers. This paints the picture of two players who were highly active for their teams offensively and defensively and I love a hard working player.

Does that mean they will put up the same numbers for Arsenal next year?

I can’t answer that. There are too many variables at play here. Maybe teams will target the left flank more than the right next year? Maybe Chambers will be used mostly as a center back? Maybe Arsenal will win the League without putting in a single tackle or getting a single cross from the right backs?

I do know that having looked at these players numbers, having seen them play, and adjusting their numbers for their team’s “personality” I feel like both players are a significant upgrade on the players we have let go.

@7amkickoff

*Prorating a player’s stats as if they played a full 90. So, if you play 45 minutes and got 1 tackle the per90 tackles would be 2. If a player subs a lot or doesn’t play much it’s a way of raising his stats to make him more like a starter.

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Subhankar Pasalapudi

Sorry about what I said about the quality of the blog the other day, AA!

@AAllenSport

Heh. No worries. Criticism isn’t a bad thing.

DöubleDöubleDöuble

And I apologise for saying I’d go to Le Grove.

They are really whiny fuckers over there, and think it’s the cutting edge of wit to write ‘first’, ‘second’, ‘third’, ‘fourth place trophy’ in the comments of every single article.

Bunburyist

That picture. Put two black suits on them and it’s a cover for an 80s electro-pop band.

Nelly

I just made the pic but they wont let me post it…. the bastards lol

Master Bates

post it on imgur or anywhere and give us a link then

Daft Aider

If you see the full picture zoomed out they are flanked by Kraftwerk and Podolski

Diawara, Kaba

I has came.

Captain's Armband

Make sure you clean it up, or mum will go potty

Dick Law

I thought Per90 was a reference to a 90 foot Per.

butters

We need more articles like this! It really changes the way I watch the game in TV. AAA

AnnArborGooner

Blogs well done…very good look at our Right Back situation

Wen(gunn)er

Hey, wouldn’t it be better to even include defensive errors leading to goals / penalties? Also stats wouldn’t really mean much considering they play with a different set up / mentality in their respective teams – for eg., Sagna did very well to ensure Per wasn’t caught out on overlaps from opposition left flank players due to Per’s lack of pac

Tim

I included errors in my other posts.

Sagna, Chambers, and Debuchy all made just one error last season, none that led to a goal. Jenks had 0 errors.

Actually, I thought Sagna exposed Per more than the German deserved. I lost count of the number of times that Sagna was caught too far up the pitch, trundled back, and then struck the “what did you want me to do?” pose with Mertesacker.

SquishyNick

Could Sagnas rise in crosses be that he became an outlet for Arsenal and the decline in tackles down to teams targeted the other flank due to him being perceived as a solid defensive player?

I’m sad he has gone, but fingers crossed that Jenks comes back as a first team option and that Chambers and Debuchy enhance us defensively.

Though a young team of Gibbs, Chambers, Wiltshere, Ox, Ramsey and Walcott could be a thing of beauty!

Pearson

You’ve named half of the England team right there (include Jenkinson for England) and I can see The Arsenal winning the world cup.
Just get Wenger to manage England in his spare time,

DR

I’d demand that someone else picks the squad though, as I reckon it would be hilarious to see Wenger tying to train Townsend to play the Arsneal way.

‘Nice short passes, Andros.’

‘And then I smack the ball towards goal or swing in a random cross?’

*sigh*

Tim

I can’t rule out the idea that teams just didn’t want to attack him so he didn’t tackle much. The only problem with that is that 40% of Arsenal’s attack went down the right side and plenty of goals were conceded from that side as well.

We can say this for certain: Between Gibbs and Sagna, Gibbs made more tackles and interceptions, Sagna made more passes and crosses.

Black Hei

Sadly let’s face it. Sagna is on a decline due to injuries and age. No slight on the player since nobody fights father time. His greatest decline is in agility. Notice how attackers nowadays attack down our right, targeting Sagna. It has happened for 2 seasons (unless Monreal is on the pitch, which is when he gets targeted instead). Still if we kept him, he would have been a great asset. Good as Debuchy and Chambers are, nobody beats Sagna as the guy that can play on the left, middle and right. He would have made an awesome CB with… Read more »

Black Hei

Hmmm….I am being moderated.

karthik Shandilya

As usual, a wonderful article by 7amkickoff.
Its a pleasure to read his articles 🙂 .
How are these adjustments done to stats ? Any particular algorithm used ?

Any ways its nice to see us getting great players in place one great player.

_

I guess you just normalize it to the average of the league, i.e. if a player S has an average of 1 tackle per game, his team makes 500 tackles per season and the league average is 1000 tackles per season, you multiply S’s numbers by 2. If, on the other hand, S would play on a team with 3000 tackles per season,you would divide S’s numbers by 3.

rawgooner

You lost me after ‘I guess…’

TR7 > CR7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQEvQ83sTzI&t=2m50s

Gonna miss Jenko and his “jolly ups” down the right next season.

rainy

I’m not sure if we could conclude debuchy is an upgrade to sagna based on these stats, althoughfor the sake of us, i certainly hope so. That should not take away the fact that it is another good piece of analysis which i enjoyed, as usual from your column. Your 2 paras on the correlation or the lack of it between stats and possesion actually quite attest that stats and numbers alone do not paint the full picture. sagna was a faithful servant of the club and i personally think his consistency, commitment and professionalism helped added some stability and… Read more »

Captain's Armband

Agreed. These stats pieces are great, but the variables you listed can’t be number – crunched. I bet Tony Adams, in pure stats terms, would have stood up against any of the slew of quality centre halves around at that time – and there were plenty – Mark Wright, Terry Butcher, Des Walker, Gary Pallister, Steve Bruce, Colin Hendry, Paul McGrath etc. – and just like all of those guys, he had that immeasurable talent to raise the level of his defensive colleagues through setting the example, reading of the match situation, and when the chips were down, sheer willpower.… Read more »

Aysun

Remember, Sagna wasnt the first choice in French team!!!! Debuchy was preferred on the right!!!

Tim

Let me be the, umm, first person to point out that stats don’t tell the whole story.

To tell the whole story we have to go back, way back. Once upon a time there was a big bang…

No, seriously, don’t take stats too seriously. They give us some insight (at best) and often conceal competing realities (at worst).

FourMinuteSmiler

I got the impression with Sagna that after after he returned from his second broken leg he was less keen to tackle, preferring to move up the pitch early and intercept.

I’d like to know what percentage of those aerial duels won were up by the half way line. I’d guess that it’s higher than the average full back.

TomC

“Typical 7amkickoff”

Excellent

Nelly

Damn it, i just photoshopped them in to 80’s popstars for Bunburyist and you cant post pics on here…. Back to work i guess

WindsorGooner

Load to a website and post the link

Phenmzee

Yea as usual never get bored when ever I get on board here….COYG

Trex d' Gunner

Nicely written, the stats tell their own storey. And on another note, Steven Gerrad is an idiot

the only sam is nelson

needs more detail

Comedian

Sorry but had to share this Arsenal video link. Nice editing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKuTtRfSi5k

DöubleDöubleDöuble

Hats off to the maker, that’s well produced.

Mpls

That’s a fun one, thanks-

9 years and counting

His interceptions go up but that’s just glossed over to pretend he wasn’t as defensive, and his crosses per game stat drops so you point to the fact that overall he delivered more crosses, erm yeah cos he played more games. Shocking use of the stats. Oh and maybe his aerial duels went up because he played more in the centre of defence?

Taylor

Is this a joke? Sagna was one of our most hard-working and consistent players last year as well as versatile. How you can even think of slandering him is beyond me.

Scott P

It’s not like anyone said he was a terrible person for leaving, etc. The notion that comparing statistics and numbers could be compared to ‘slander’ is foolish.

Goonerestgooner

Comedian, that’s a cool video, thanks for posting it. I love the X-Men football.

Joe

Hello lads Toon fan here. Good blog and great article mate. I didn’t have all these stats to back it up but I can tell you first hand that Debuchy will be a good fit for Arsenal. His first six month he was awful, but as you lads know it takes a while to get players from other leagues up to speed. Once he settled, he instantly was one of our better players (I know that’s not much!) but you could tell he was of a class above like Cabaye was in our midfield. As you’ve pointed out, Deboosh LOVES… Read more »

Goonerestgooner

Good post Joe, if only fans of other teams could do the same rather than trolling!

Dave

Love your column.

chequenrays

Excellent stuff. Back to what you’re good at. The author is hereby forgiven for the prior “Hey look at me! Off to NYC!” aberration.

🙂

chequenrays

And thanks by the way. I think we all do appreciate that Arseblog is fantastic, and totally free.

Sammy Nelsons Arse

Distance covered would be an interesting stat to include when comparing the three as it would indicate how often they get up and down the flank and how the said teams are deploying them tactically. It’s funny as I alway got the impression watching the matches that Sagna put a good a shift in defensively yet the numbers suggest otherwise. Posters above also make a good point in that teams do tend to attack us down the Podolski/ Carzola Gibbs/Monreal flank or centrally or at least thats the impression I get when watching games. These 7 am articles however are… Read more »

Scott P

“As hard as he was worked, he punched right back.”

I see what you did there. I would like it if he didn’t punch Chambers this year though.

Mpls

I’m just thankful you put these together. Nothing wrong in my view with a little fun the other day. Humor is half the reason I’m here.

Thanks 7.

James

“As hard as he was worked, he punched right back.”

Pun of the year. No more blogs allowed elsewhere til January.

Jack

Sagna’s tackles could be down in a more defensive year because other players are defending better in front of him. I would expect is tackles to be down in those years, and go up in years where he is tactically left exposed. Have you discounted this possibility?

WengersNoseHair

I’ve read a bit about possession-adjusted stats, and I always felt something was a little bit off about them, but couldn’t quite put my finger on it. For example they can make some players in very high possession teams look like defensive gods. I’m glad 7am can put my mind at rest about that. Adjusting for the team’s variation from the mean seems to make much more sense. Excellent work as always.

Santori

Meaningless drivel.

Impossible to assess players base on statistics alone.

There are plenty of factors that may contribute to why tackling numbers are down or up. Does not bear on whether the player is better or losing his abilities.

DR

I may be wrong, but it seemed like that was mostly what the post was about, adjusting the numbers and assessing them based on observations of the actual game and in relation to everything else. Or ‘analysis’ as it’s soimetimes known.

New Magic Hat

Excellent post, as always.
However, half of me wonders that if the Tackles and Interceptions data had been reported to 10 or 11 decimal places accuracy – as opposed to a *measly* 9 decimal places – I would have been able to achieve some form of football data nirvana and ascended to Jedi pundit heaven. Oh well.
Also, any data involving Jenkinson is irrelevant if it fails to adjust for his tremendous Coefficient of Banter.

Seanpoe

Stats never tell the whole story but i watched Debuchy against Monaco and he was very very good…
Defensively astute and aware and offensively, he looks like he has an eye for a cross plus i think he possesses that scary ability to “bomb” up and down that flank without wavering.

I am confident he’ll do well for us this season and please do not forget Hector Bellerin, what an athlete…

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