Replacing Andy Robertson: Part 2

The second instalment of a series dedicated to finding a new left-back for Liverpool.

So last week, I launched a new series dedicating to finding a long-term replacement for Andy Robertson. Before you continue, I recommend reading that introductory piece here.

This week, we can start the filtering process. It’s time to trim the fat. We need to filter out the noise.

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So when I collected my sample for this series, a total of 2,590 players had featured in Europe’s top five leagues this season. Obviously loads of those players aren’t relevant here, so we need to get rid of them.

To narrow down the pool, I imposed a few really basic filters.

• If you’re older than 26, you’re out

• If you haven’t played at least 1,350 minutes this season, you’re out

• If the majority of your minutes haven’t been spent in defence, you’re out

That’s all it takes to go from 2,590 players to just 100. But 100 is still too many for a shortlist. So let’s remove a few more using another two super basic filters.

• If you don’t create a least one shot every 180 minutes, you’re out

• If you don’t find the penalty box with a least one pass every 180 minutes, you’re out

• If you don’t touch the ball in the penalty box at least once every 90 minutes, you’re out

We go from 100 players to 33. Remember, this is just an initial filtering process. And we’re doing this for fun. All I’m doing here is getting rid of the players who aren’t relevant. You really don’t need to do much to jump each of the hurdles that I’ve put in place so far. The bar is really low.

And last — but certainly not least — my favourite filter of them all. If you’re not left footed, you’re out. That’s pretty important considering we’re looking for a left-back. We go from 33 to just 15.

So every remaining player is a left-footed defender who is aged 26 or under, with a minimum of 1,350 minutes played in the Premier League, Bundesliga, Serie A, La Liga or Ligue 1 this season, averaging at least one touch in the box, 0.5 key passes and 0.5 passes into the box per 90.

Playground stuff, yet we’re left with just 15 options.

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A few important caveats to include at this point. First, obviously if you’ve been injured for most of the campaign, you’ll have been overlooked for not playing enough minutes in this exercise, even if you’re incredible. Nuno Mendes from Paris Saint-Germain, for example, just hasn’t played enough this term.

Liverpool wouldn’t make that same mistake. They assess players based on career minutes and large sample sizes, rather than analysing season-by-season data like us part timers.

Also, I chose key passes, touches in the box and passes into the box as my three metrics to filter out the beige defenders who never venture beyond their own defensive third, but there are plenty of others that I could’ve picked. Successful dribbles, touches in the opposition half, crosses, whatever.

I just decided to apply common sense in this case. Shoot me.

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Alright, on we go. So without further ado — and in no particular order — here are the 15 players who remain in the sample:

Joško Gvardiol, Alphonso Davies, Facundo Medina, Lewis Hall, Milos Kerkez, Andrea Cambiaso, Miguel Gutiérrez, Diogo Leite, Alejando Balde, Rayan Aït-Nouri, Diego Moreira, Patrick Dorgu, Sergi Cardona, Tyrick Mitchell, Leif Davis.

At this point, I’m going to remove three of those players, because common sense will always prevail on this Substack. Say goodbye to Gvardiol, Davies and Dorgu.

The former plays for Manchester City. The latter signed for Manchester United just last month. And the guy in the middle literally extended his contract with Bayern Munich about two weeks ago. Not happening.

So now, we’re left with:

Medina, Hall, Kerkez, Cambiaso, Gutiérrez, Leite, Balde, Aït-Nouri, Moreira, Cardona, Mitchell, and Davis.

If Liverpool sign a left-back this summer, it’s probably going to be one of those guys. That is unless Richard Hughes decides to shop in Portugal, the Netherlands or even further afield, which is entirely possible.

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Next week, we’ll delve deeper into the data to compare the final 12 across a select few valuable metrics, purely as a means of determining who does what, and whether we’ve got any outliers among us.

We know what we want from our left-back. And next week, we should start to recognise our favourites from within the pack.

Place your bets.