Arsenal has a big Zinchenko question to answer

What to do with enigmatic leftback beyond this season?

At the end of this season, Arsenal will be at the major decision point with Oleksandr Zinchenko.

When he joined from Manchester City in the summer of 2022 he reportedly signed a four-year deal running through 2026 and that puts him squarely in the middle of the extend, sell, or just deal with the uncertainty of an asset potentially dropping stage this summer.

There are a few rumors of clubs like Newcastle United and Bayern Munich poking around but the sources linking the moves don’t have the greatest track record of doing much beyond filling inches and trying to get to the top of Google News searches. There hasn’t been much news at this stage from people plugged in at Arsenal of what is happening in the background but there is a sense within a certain subset of the fanbase that they are ready to move on from Zinchenko.

I understand that he isn’t for everyone but the quickness that people have wanted to move on and replace him has surprised me more than it should.

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I have a soft spot for Zinchenko and a bit of a contrarian streak that makes me want to zig when others have zagged regarding certain players and I think this is an example of that to a certain extent.

What Zincehnko Brings

When you look at his stats it is pretty clear that he is a unique talent and exceptional player.

What makes him special and unique is that he has midfield-level ball progression playing from left back, while being a passable defender. With him in the team it is possible to add another more attack-minded player with the extra progression and creating a double pivot in possession responsibilities he can pick up.

Looking at his stats and where they rank among Premier League League players is still a little mind-blowing.

He is second to just Rodri on final third entries, leads all Premier League players on progressive passes, and ranks 5th overall (first among defensive players) in open play passes into the penalty area.

Trent Alexander-Arnold is often considered the prototypical special ball progressor for a fullback but Zinchenko surpasses him in these categories this season.

I feel like I can hear people screaming at me through the computer but what about his losses and his defense? He is a good passer but at what cost?

What Zinchenko takes away

On the ball, he loses the ball 1.6 times per 90, which is below average for a Premier League fullback who loses the ball an average 2.3 times per 90 this season. He loses the ball 8.7 times per 90 with his passes which is again below the average Premier League fullback who loses it 10.3 times passing per 90.

He isn’t perfect on the ball but he is still more secure than most fullbacks in the Premier League. Here is where he ranks among players that have played at least 14 90’s this season with 75% of their minutes coming at a fullback spot.

It may feel like Zinchenko is responsible for a lot of shots for when he loses the ball but the reality and the stats suggest that he is far from an outlier, especially considering how much he is on the ball.

His defensive impact is harder to measure statistically but let’s take a stab at it.

When you look at his ball-winning numbers they look fine and borderline very good. He challenges in a fair amount of duels (97th percentile) and comes out the winner more often than you would expect based on where he attempts them (wins about 30% more than expected). He is solid with interceptions (60th percentile) and blocked passes (91st percentile) and recovers possession at a high rate (94th percentile).

Defensive metrics are imperfect and tell you more about how a team and the player defends compared to a bit less specifically about how well they do it. Defensive metrics don’t paint the full picture obviously but even trying to widen the view and looking at other metrics he still isn’t an obvious weakness. I remain adamant that they must be mixed with watching to understand the context but they are an important check to ensure that a few moments and highlights don’t overpower the opinions.

With Zinchenko in the team, Arsenal have allowed less than a goal per 90 (0.72) which is fewer than the 0.86 they have allowed in total per match this year. On xG Arsenal’s defense is a touch worse, with 0.84 allowed while Zinchenko has been on the field compared to 0.69 (#NICE) total this season.

So that’s a bit fewer goals allowed (16% better), a bit more xG allowed (22% more) but overall not a massive difference with both metrics still looking elite compared to peers.

It is easy to say that Zinchenko is a weakness and he is probably the area that teams try to exploit considering the other defensive players Arsenal put on the field but it is still tough to show this statistically as something that hurts the team considerably.

One thing I have always been interested in looking at is how a defender does compared to the main opponent they are matched up against “typical” output. I have thought this is a decent proxy measure for how well they defend and how much they are exploited as a weakness. If a player consistently has the player they are up against putting up better-than-average numbers that is probably a signal about the quality of defending that they do.

For fullbacks, I have looked here at how they have done against the winger that they are up against. So for left backs, it would be measured against the right winger and the opposite for right backs.

This is again an imperfect measure because the winger is not the only defensive duty and the fullback is not the only person who affects their output but it does probably have a directionally correct signal. Looking at the list I think things roughly match with my mental expectation of a player’s defensive output.

It might be surprising to some to see Zinchenko at the bottom of this list but I think this is more a factor of people underrating the 95% of his defensive work and relying too much on memory, feeling of how secure he is, and highlights for their rating. He is far from a perfect defender and he gets help from Gabriel Magalhães and Gabriel Martinelli but he will often make things tough for the player he is up against.

This is a reoccurring theme with Zinchenko; he is rated as not a good one-on-one defender but has ball-winning and duel numbers to suggest he is above average at this, he has a reputation as a player that imbalances a defense but the numbers show with him in the team and out of the team the defensive numbers are comparable and stable, he has a reputation as a weak link that teams target but the main players he matches up against have performed worse than numbers in other matches.

Maybe it is still just something that isn’t being captured in the data, but when there is this level of mismatch between a player’s reputation and the actual measurables I tend to think that certain memorable moments are having an outsized impact and it might be overstated.

So what to do with Zinchenko?

This is the big question and I think the answer is probably nothing. I don’t think that with his injury and time spent on the field he needs a new improved contract (at least right now) nor should the team be desperate to try and move on from him.

There is probably a fee that would tempt me if I was the director of football but it is probably well above what other teams would pay. I would guess that it needs to reflect his unique skill set and would be in the 50m plus range. With Arsenal needing to replace the player, I don’t think there is a good reason to not ask for a major fee that would almost certainly be fully spent and probably then some if he left.

He is a unique player and one who can do special things that would be hard to replace in this team. Just for fun here is the list of most similar players.

Inside Arsenal, there are a few more options to replace him but it still feels like the options have their own question marks next to them.

Takehiro Tomiyasu previously would have been the first choice to fill in but he has had even less availability this season. He is in a similar spot of a decision needing to be made about him with his contract situation hitting two years remaining. Interestingly, he has had reports of a contract extension being completed for a while but it hasn’t been officially announced.

Jackub Kiwior has stepped in and looked competent but he has often needed others to help pick up the slack in ball progression with Jorginho called upon more often and Ben White asked to play more midfield and final third roles.

There is also the Jurriën Timber wildcard.

He played the community shield and the first half of the first match filling in for Zinchenko as he came back from an injury. This has made people think that perhaps his long-term position might be on the left side of the field. I remain skeptical about this, even if I was impressed with how he performed there.

I had always expected that Timber would be more of a wide player, I just expected that it would be primarily from the right. He is right-footed and not nearly as ambi-footed as Tomiyasu.

I still think that long-term is more likely for him to be challenging White vs Zinchenko but I am less sure than I was 8 months ago. I think some people are over-indexing the early minutes on the left, commenting that he was bought to be the left-back and that Arsenal has been without their first-choice left-back all season but that might be a stretch.

So what to do? That is the big question and one that will probably be a storyline of the summer.

Round 29 Odds

It is an FA Cup weekend and that means that the fixture list is going to be messed up with postponements.

We do end up with four matches but they are far from the biggest and most marquee fixtures.