The holding midfielder has become a prominent role in the majority of sides in the Premier League. In our opinion the lack of a “midfield enforcer”, effectively, cost Manchester United the title last season. I’ve heard a lot of Manchester United supporters bemoan the lack of strength (in terms of power not finesse) centrally in their midfield.
What we’re analysing here is the amount of tackles placed by these defensive midfielders and the amount they win to break up the play of the opposition. It’s important that they attempt challenges often but even more important they win them often too.
Getting quickly to the stats from our EPLIndex.com Stats Centre (Subscribe Now!) you can see the raw stats for tackling, ground duels (50-50 challenge on the ground) and aerial duels (50-50 challenge in the air) stats below.
The problem with raw stats are that you cannot judge by the highest number of challenges because the players haven’t played an equal amount of time. Therefore we’ve used the minutes played attribute and divided the number of minutes played by each statistic displayed above to give a minutes per tackle/duel won statistic.
We’ve also combined the all the challenges (tackles, ground duels & aerial duels) together to give a total figure to try to see which player makes a challenge most often and which one wins challenges the most often.
The stats are rather impressive for Liverpool midfielder Lucas Leiva. Playing just over 1,000 minutes last season he has come in the top 3 for each statistic and topped four out of the eight and come 2nd in 3 of them so in the top 2 for seven out of eight.
Top ‘Midfield Enforcers’
Mohamed Diame, Sandro and Fellaini also have some impressive stats with Diame attempting ground duels most often (2nd in minutes per ground duels won) whilst Sandro wins ground duels every 9.77 minutes – the best out of the midfielder enforcers covered in this comparison. Fellaini takes the aerial duel stats by topping both most often attempted aerial duels and wins them on a more regular basis than his rivals here.
Lucas tops the tackling statistics by attempting tackles every 15.37 minutes and wins a tackle every 20.1 minutes which is more often than his rivals, Sandro comes in second place for attempting and winning tackles is Sandro and Diame comes third for both too.
Top 3 ‘Midfield Enforcers’
Lucas is in 1st place attempts a challenge every 3.87 minutes and winning a challenge every 5.97 minutes. Diame attempts a challenge every 4.08 minutes coming 2nd in the attempts statistic and whilst Sandro comes second in winning challenges averaging 6.47 minutes per challenge won. Fellaini comes third in both attempting a challenge every 4.38 minutes and winning one every 7.36 minutes.
With Lucas returning to pre-season training for Liverpool could he be the key to a turnaround of their fortunes? They clearly missed his combative spirit in the midfield and his enforcing of that role.
Mohamed Diame is clearly an excellent purchase for West Ham United and should offer plenty of steel to their midfield. An article from one of our writers was written on Mohamed Diame here.
Parker – Over-rated?
Tottenham’s Sandro is very under-rated and the stats show that he’s actually better than Scott Parker at the defensive midfielder role and outshines him in every single department. I’d recommend playing Sandro (when fit) in this role and Spurs obviously have the ‘midfield enforcer’ role covered with two very capable players however Sandro, according to these stats, should be the first choice.
Everton’s Star
Everton have a star player in Marouane Fellaini. The stats shown only cover the combative nature of the midfield however Fellaini has much more to this game and Everton have a real Premier League star in their squad to build around as well as their star striker Jelavic.
Lucas Leiva best combative midfielder?
I don’t think many Liverpool fans would have expected this a few years ago but the stats show that Lucas Leiva performed at the very highest level in those 1045 minutes he played last season. If he has fully recovered from his knee injury his return will be the most welcomed at Anfield where Charlie Adam and Jay Spearing struggled last season.
There is a lot of continued hype over brand new signings at Anfield and frustration that no signings completed at the time of writing. What Liverpool fans may not realise is that the return of Lucas may be their best “signing” of the summer window.
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Categories: Arsenal (NN), Chelsea, EPL Index Featured Article, EPL Index Player Profiles, EPL Index Statistical Comparisons, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester City, Newcastle Utd, Sunderland, Swansea City, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United, Wigan
Tags: Allen, Arteta, Barry, Cattermole, Central midfield, De Jong, diame, epl opta stats, EPL Stats, Fellaini, holding midfielders, lucas, makelele role, midfield destroyers, midfield enforcers, Obi Mikel, Opta Stats, Parker, Ramires, Sandro, Song, Tiote
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Forgot to add the Table Key! It has now been added – duh! Apologies!
Lucas only played 12 games for Liverpool at the start of the 2011/12 season and didn’t play after November. He hasn’t had to maintain his performance across a whole season unlike most of his other contenders. He’s a good player and I would hope he gets a full season next up, but these stats are just a little misleading.
Just posted Lucas stats above from 2010. All very similar and in some places better than those in the tables above proving that he’s not only consistent but that he has continued the form over a full season. Thanks for your comment!
But you’re missing the big picture completely! as blewmoon has already pointed out.You’re a stat freak and football ent that.I’d love to see your fantasy team based purely on stats.
ypure in fantasy land fantasy football? bwaaaaaaaahgahaha
Also you are completely missing out the possession factor which is vital.
That should be enough for those calling him inconsistent.
The number of tackles/duels that a player makes/wins is not just down to that individual players ability. Consideration must be given as to how the actions of the rest of the team affect that player. To give a very simple example an important part of Man City’s game is to retain possession. They often have have 60%/70% even 80% possession in games. As City’s possession stats are greater than any other teams, that to me seems to give less time for Nigel de Jong to do his work than any other player. Your stats pay no reguard to this. Nor do they include interceptions, surely an important tool in an enforcer’s locker.
Well said that man!
Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, City and Swansea are separated by 4% in average possession per game. Liverpool, Chelsea & Spurs by 1.6%. The point of the article was an enforcer not a reader of the game. If we wanted reading of the game we’d state it with interceptions however we wanted to show the combative side – players that will attempt to win the ball and actually win it!
Lucas Leiva 2010 (Full Season) MPG:5.57, MPGW: 9.65, MPA: 23.23, MPAW: 44.64, MPT: 16.61, MPTW: 25.74, MPC: 3.54, MPCW: 6.07
Also the fact that parker goes for every thing possible when spurs aint got the ball doesn’t get any credit in you’re little chart even tho’ just by puttin so much pressure on the opposing team forces mistakes which is great.But you’ve incorporated these ‘tackles lost’ into your misleading article.
I think we’ve all watched the England games – he’s (Parker) a credit when it comes to hard work however we’ve looked at players that will attempt challenges and win – unfortunately Sandro was better at that than Parker although Parker’s stats aren’t bad at all here.
not so big on stats as a measure of a players influence and value to a team. i think parker is great because he also offers a lot in the synergy of tottenhams play and i think he’s a big reason why tottenham had their best season in a while.
as an arsenal supporter, Song may have more of an impact than Arteta, but i think Arteta brings most to the team with his ability to keep possession under pressure and the intensity he brings, unlike Song.
Most Liverpool fans realise how important Lucas is for us, when he was injured at chelsea last year, most Liverpool fans knew we lost our best player, even though Suarez has performed throughout the season.
These stats only reinforce our thoughts of him being our (and the leagues) number 1 holding midfielder. One of the most underrated players in the EPL, much like how man u fans will argue about Carrick being underrated.
Liverpool didnt have their best two players for at least 1/3 of last season.
Possession stats also show how overrated Parker is. Can’t remember the game but in one where Spurs had over 70% of the ball in the first half, Sandro had 11 tackles. Parker never got close to that when Spurs had to fight for the ball.
Add to that Sandro can run with the ball and actually pass it forward to someone on the same team.
Would suggest that interceptions have become as important and tackles in the modern game. Would be interesting to see these incorporated into the stats above.
As stated above we would have mentioned interceptions if we were talking about the reading of the game – this article is purely on challenges and tackles/duels etc.
Pls stop giving us stupid stats! Games are nt won on stats if u think it is, that means sandro is better than alex song, joe allen is better xavi & iniesta put together and valdes is a better goalkeeper than casilas cos he has more clean sheets in the past four seasons. I don’t think so
Where have I mentioned that games are won on Stats? This article is about enforcers/combative midfielders. No where in the article does it state that games are won on stats? As that is the basis of your comment the rest of it can be ignored.
Well said. sharp and clear.
This may be one of the most idiotic comments I’ve read in a while. Please don’t come back to this site.
Recon, why visit a stats site if you don’t like stats?
I can assure, the majority of Liverpool fans DO realise the importance of Lucas’ return!
What do you think LFC fans are tackle-blind?
Mikel Obi, anyone?
To call Lucas a combative enforcer seems a bit odd. He’s much more about intelligent reading of the game, positioning himself perfectly and timing his tackles. I mean out of all the players listed here he is definitely the least strong, quick or athletically gifted yet appears to be the most effective stats-wise. Plays the game with his head. Combative enforcer suggest something he is not to me.