Arsenal have added their third player of the summer, with the signing of Ezri Konsa from Aston Villa.
For the second straight signing, they have broken the record to make him the most expensive player in his age group for his position. Konsa will join on a 4 year plus option deal on a transfer that is worth £51m plus up to £4m in bonuses.
Arsenal have added another versatile player that should be able to contribute in a number of positions.
Let’s take a tour of what his numbers say we are getting in the player.
Ezri Konsa: The Debrief
Starting off with the old classic, here is Konsa’s radar.
Here is the full suite of graphics showing another center back template and what he has also done compared to fullbacks.
I threw in some full back views here but that’s not where he has played primarily and it would be unfair to do deep analysis comparing him against other fullbacks having not played in those positions much.
Here is the minutes by position break down for him over the last three seasons in the Premier League.
He’s primarily played right center back but in a pinch can cover as a right back.
The stats below are for his Premier League production last season and are normalized to per 90 minutes, they are compared against other center backs with at least 900 minutes played in the top five leagues going back to the 2011-12 season.
Passing, Ball Progression, and Carrying Metrics
61.9 - Pass attempts, percentile: 84.8
95.2% - Pass completion percentage, percentile: 99.8
104% - Pass efficiency (the ratio of actual pass completion compared to expected pass completion, 100 is completed as many passes as expected and higher is better), percentile: 80.3
3.44 - Final third entry passes completed, percentile: 70.2
28.9 - Forward passes attempted, percentile: 68.6
46.6% - Forward passes as a percentage of all his pass attempts, percentile: 7.1
1.38 - Progressive passes completed, percentile: 39.0
193.4 - Progressive pass distance in yards towards goal, percentile: 7.5
3.62 - Long passes attempted, percentile: 4.2
2.41 - Long passes completed, percentile: 14.2
66.7% - Long pass completion percentage, percentile: 86.5
0.07 - Expected threat added through completed passes, percentile: 43.2
Konsa’s stats paint an interesting profile as a passer.
He has one of the highest pass completion percentages and has been able to do that on above average passing volume. He also backs that up, completing more passes than the expected completion rate.
The flip side of this is that his mix of passing skews towards the very safe side of passing. He is well below average on progression with his passing and being able to contribute to increasing threat with his passing.
Comparing him to William Saliba you can see the similarities in the profile but with the ball progression quality the outlier.
The passing comparison between Konsa and Cristhian Mosquera is the one that actually shows the largest overlap.
The sample and track record for Mosquera is shorter and less robust but the overall difference, at least from last season, isn’t all that large.
Looking at some of the passing numbers from Gradient sports to get a bit more of a rounded out picture.
0.32 - Balls over the top, percentile: 43
1.05 - Passes breaking the midfield line, percentile: 50
0.4 - Passes into dangerous positions, percentile: 34
90.9% - Pass completion percentage while being pressured, percentile: 100
Switching gears to ball carrying.
2.00 - Progressive carries, percentile: 70.8
0.02 - Expected threat added through carries, percentile: 77.1
0.41 - Carries into the final third, percentile: 62.2
0.44 - Dribbles attempted, percentile: 64.1
0.23 - Dribbles completed, percentile: 55.7
53.3% - Dribble completion percentage, percentile: 33.7
1.18 - Fouls suffered, percentile: 90.7
2.97 - Offensive duels contested, percentile: 75.7
85.6% - Offensive duel win percentage (dribbles completed, tackles rode and fouls won, as a share of every attacking duel he entered), percentile: 82.4
0.18 - Times dispossessed on the ball, percentile: 50.9
2.62 - Turnovers (possession lost through a bad pass, a bad shot or losing the ball on the dribble), percentile: 99.5
With the ball at his feet Konsa is willing to take a bit more risk. He’s still good at making sure that he doesn’t lose the ball and that is probably the biggest plus here, and speaks to his ability to know how to balance that when you are playing in the last line a mistake can be incredibly costly.
Ball Winning Metrics
14.6 - Defensive actions (tackles, interceptions, blocks, recoveries, clearances, shields, offsides won and defensive fouls), percentile: 7.6
4.11 - Defensive duels contested, percentile: 1.3
1.25 - Tackles attempted, percentile: 1.9
0.79 - Tackles won, percentile: 4.0
62.9% - Tackle win percentage, percentile: 63.8
0.82 - Interceptions, percentile: 6.1
0.54 - Blocked passes, percentile: 41.4
1.04 - Blocked shots, percentile: 87.8
3.86 - Ball recoveries, percentile: 25.0
1.29 - Second balls won, percentile: 60.9
4.47 - Clearances, percentile: 41.4
0.12 - Times he was dribbled past, percentile: 97.6
11.4% - Percentage of his tackles and challenges where he was dribbled past, percentile: 85.8
0.39 - Fouls committed, percentile: 97.1
Ball winning metrics, especially for a defender, tell you more about how the player is asked to play in the tactical set up than it does about the quality of defensive work that they do.
What the metrics here point to is that he is much more of the anchor/sweeping up player than the one that will go and attack play to win the ball back. He relies on being in the right position to stop things developing and actually having to engage an attacker is often more of the Plan B, than the Plan A.
Looking again at the unique metrics from Gradient Sports illustrates that he is quite good at this.
1.08 - Positional mistakes made, percentile: 68
0.47 - Positional mistakes leading to a chance, percentile: 50
0.16 - Mistakes made closing down on an attacker, percentile: 88
Aerial Metrics
1.59 - Aerial duels contested, percentile: 3.0
0.88 - Aerial duels won, percentile: 3.6
0.71 - Aerial duels lost, percentile: 93.2
55.6% - Aerial duel win percentage, percentile: 27.4
Given his aerial profile, I wouldn't expect much of an attacking threat.
For his Premier League career he has scored 7 goals in 224 nineties from set play. Last season he was able to generate about 1 expected goal from 11 shots, that was roughly in line with what he has done longer term. He’s not a zero, but this isn’t a major strength in his game.
Final thoughts
Adam put things like this in his post on the transfer:
Arsenal’s reported pursuit of Ezri Konsa is one of those transfers where I find myself nodding along to all the logic while simultaneously not quite loving it.
I might have worded things a bit stronger than not quite loving it but I largely feel the same way.
Konsa is a good player. Just how good is open to debate with some thinking that he is a very good player to people more like myself who view him more like a solidly above average player.
This is one that stats don’t offer a ton of help on, with center backs being one of the positions where it is hardest to pull signal out of the data.
I have built a rating system that tries to capture a bit more, including how when the player is on the pitch the effectiveness of the attackers changes, plus additional credit for playing in a good defense. I don’t think that it is perfect but I think that it can help give you a ballpark idea for a player’s contribution.
Here is Konsa over his career.
This sets the Premier League average at 50 but compares everything to the full population of players in the “Big 5” leagues. He has been an above average center back and compared to the rest of the “Big 5” quite a good player.
I think that this is about right, if Saliba is healthy, it is a no-brainier that you start him above Konsa. The gap between him and and Cristhian Mosquera probably isn’t that large and any difference would largely come down to Konsa having the extra experience that would give him the decision making and positioning.
It would be the same at right back where I think that he is a player that can do a job but that isn’t his strength, you would take healthy Jurriën Timber and Ben White over him.
This would be my expectation for where he fits inside of the squad, slotting into a rotation center back role and as a back up for the right back position.
With the current injuries to Saliba and Timber, plus the injury history of White and to some extent Riccardo Calafiori, adding an additional player to make up the numbers makes a lot of sense.
He is an insurance policy on the season and should help provide peace of mind.
Welcome, Ezri.
I think that Konsa is a good signing to add some depth, particularly in the first couple of months with Saliba (a d probably Timber) out.
The issue I have with the deal is the price. £50 million is a hell of a lot for a player who is going to be, at best, 2nd choice for RCB and really could just as easily be 3rd choice there given how similar he seems to be to Mosquera.
If the right side of our defence stays healthy then I would not expect Konsa to get many minutes at all.
Of course this will be the season, when all are healthy, that we have no more injuries and players are unhappy with the lack of PT. Perhaps, if this happens, we can sell Ben White in January.