Data Scouting Right Back Targets

I have been playing around with a rating system to help narrow down interesting players to look at.

I have gone through a few iterations but the current method takes the z-score of statistics for a player compared to peers, then takes the sum of the z-scores and takes the percentile rank to produce an overall score for a player. I also look at how the z-scores look for different categories to help get a sense of how a player's profile looks.

It is a nice quick way to narrow down a big list into interesting names worth looking at.

I decided to take this method based on inspiration from a Twitter thread by Adam Rae Voge.

Adam Rae Voge @adamvoge

The Arsenal RB situation...It's among the most mentioned issues with the starting XI, but the club have been linked to few solutions...so who should they sign? I analysed 34 somewhat realistic options on a nine-metric scale. Here's who stood out to me... (1/x)

So for this, I set the parameters that the players I wanted to see played primarily right back, were 24 or younger, and played 900 or minutes in the Big 5 Leagues plus Erdevisie, Jupiler Pro League, and Championship.

These are the top 25 players:

Player Rating Creating Receiving Progressing Defending Trent Alexander-Arnold 99.4 99.6 97.5 98.7 39.8 Achraf Hakimi 98.8 97.5 99.7 98.1 72.6 Hugo Siquet 95.7 98.2 84.1 90.9 55.7 Joakim Maehle 95 96.5 96.7 92 49.3 Reece James 91.4 81.2 96.3 96.9 69 Sergiño Dest 91 89.9 99.3 93.9 33.2 Silas Wamangituka 90.9 91.3 98.9 50.3 67.4 Clement Michelin 86.7 95 61.6 55.7 59 Gabriele Zappa 84.4 90.4 70.3 77.2 61.3 Joakim Maehle 83.9 87.1 93 82.4 40.9 Emerson 82.6 77.7 90.3 60.1 82 Diogo Dalot 81.9 79.3 68.5 69.6 89.1 Aaron Wan-Bissaka 81.3 64 74.9 84.3 93.9 Nahuel Molina 80.3 86.8 83.1 56 62.9 Pol Lirola 79.2 77.6 89.1 72.9 62.8 Nordi Mukiele 78.4 63.2 91.2 75.4 81.1 Tariq Lamptey 77.8 69.1 92.9 89.8 46.8 Mateu Morey 76.5 80.6 84.7 85.3 40.5 Wilfried Stephane Singo 76.2 82.6 69.9 90.5 38.8 Mehmet Zeki Çelik 74.5 65.7 78 70.7 83.3 Deyovaisio Zeefuik 68.4 70.5 74 37.3 76.6 Pablo Maffeo 65.5 80 64.7 65.6 39.2 Matthew Cash 64.7 45.4 32.1 28.7 98.4 Paolo Ghiglione 64.2 78.6 66.8 35.1 54.1 Mert Müldür 60.5 31.5 86.6 61.8 87.9

The players at the top are not a surprise, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Achraf Hakimi, and Reece James are easily among the best right-backs in my opinion. Some of the others are interesting and will require more investigation.

Hugo Siquet - Standard Liege

I will be 100% honest and say I have never seen him play. It is an impressive statistical profile but also from a league with a relatively lower quality. I would be nervous to sign him as the starter but to be the understudy it could be intriguing to do further scouting on.

Joakim Maehle - Atalanta

Maehle's age is on the upper bound of the filter and I would wonder if the Atalanta effect is juicing his attacking numbers. The big question mark here is about defending.

Sergiño Dest - Barcelona

An American! Dest rates really well across the board (outside slightly below average defending), is the right age to match the rest of the core that Arsenal is building, and would make a lot of sense. Barcelona probably doesn't want to sell but hey a financial crisis could cause movement where there wasn't before.

Silas Wamangituka - currently banned so we will skip this one.

Clement Michelin - Lens

Looks like a good all-around right back, not exactly world-class at anything but also doesn't look like Michelin would be a liability at anything.

Gabriele Zappa - Cagliari

The radar doesn't look all that impressive but the rating says that he is a good all-around player, maybe slightly more defensive but it could be an artifact of playing on a 16th place team.

So I think that this was a fun exercise and it might be one that I try a bit more in the future when there is transfer speculation swirling around.

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