Stat Scouting: Martín Zubimendi

By all reports this is very advanced and Arteta has finally gotten his man to anchor Arsenal's midfield

Picture this: Martín Zubimendi dictating play at the Emirates, his precise passes slicing through opposition lines while he calmly shields Arsenal’s back four with the poise of a seasoned general.

The Real Sociedad midfielder blend of vision, tenacity, and tactical nous has been a darling of many of the top teams, Arsenal chased him previously, Liverpool wanted to give him the keys, future Real Madrid coach Xabi Alonso wanted him to be his guy.

With reports growing louder about the progress of this transfer, and with the club operating under the assumption that this blockbuster move is all but a done deal, poised to give Mikel Arteta’s squad a new twist for next season. This makes it the perfect time to go deep on the player and learn what Arsenal might be getting with him.

All stats used here are valid and up to date through May 8th 2025.

With Zubimendi there is a slight disconnect between the rating of the player from the tape and the stats, where scouts have consistently rated him but the green bars on FBref have been just okay.

Here we place him on the Deep Playmaker template with the idea that he’d come in at the base of Arsenal’s team.

Here is what it looks like on the defensive midfielder radar and the more generic central midfielder radar as well.

Looking at the percentiles, it is a reminder that the green bars don’t pop but they also don’t have a lot of major areas that are not at least pretty good. I don’t worry too much about the upper right section of the chart for a defensive midfielder, focusing much more on the possession and defensive metrics.

Before we get too far into things, I would highly recommend looking at the clips that Adam put together. For a defensive midfield player this is a very important part of understanding the player and it really helped me get a feel for the player, even if this was from the last time Arsenal chased the player.

Team Differences

Style wise Sociedad are fairly unique. They have high possession but they play in much more direct way than you’d typically expect with much more risk taking.

This has been a good team but it seems that after five straight finishes in La Liga’s top 6 (6th, 5th, 6th, 4th, 6th) the drain of talent was a bit too much seeing them slip to 12th.

The big drop off has been in attack where they went from an okay, perfectly solid attack to a bottom tier side in La Liga (4th fewest goals scored, 8th fewest xG).

Arsenal wouldn’t be described by many as an attacking juggernaut, but they look that way in comparison to Sociedad this season.

For Sociedad, this seems much more of a final third problem (xG down 9%, goals scored down 32%) than a major issue I would lay at the feet of Zubimendi; the team has declined a bit (4%) on the entries into the final third and the total final third touches, but it is not nearly of the magnitude to at a high level suggest causality from things that you point to for a DM.

The defensive numbers have held up for Sociedad and that has been a bit of the saving grace from an implosion where things really fell out for them.

Overall while this isn’t a perfect 1 to 1 style fit, it’s not a radical change of phyolosophy, under manager Imanol Alguacil, employs a dynamic, possession-based tactical style that emphasizes high pressing, and fluid positional play. That’s not so different than what Arteta has instilled at Arsenal as well.

Passing