Is Eric Dier the Solution to Mourinho’s Midfield Conundrum?
As Jose Mourinho departed Stockholm seven weeks ago, Europa League trophy wedged safely under his arm, he was no doubt hoping for a well-earned break, punctuated only by periodic phone calls from Manchester United’s Executive Vice-Chairman, Ed Woodward, informing Mourinho that his latest transfer target had been secured. The United manager had handed Woodward a list of preferred names, from which he hoped to land at least four new players in preparation for a tilt at the Premier League title. An identical scenario had played out the previous summer, with Eric Bailly, Henrik Mkhitaryan, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and world-record signing Paul Pogba touching down at Manchester Airport as Mourinho shaped a new squad.
Despite rumblings that this summer’s transfer business has not proceeded as smoothly as Mourinho had hoped, Victor Lindelof and Romelu Lukaku have bolstered the United ranks, ensuring that 50% of Mourinho’s anticipated arrivals have signed in time for the club’s pre-season tour of the United States. Rumours suggest that, having addressed the deficiencies at centre-half and centre-forward, Mourinho has now turned his attention to an area of the pitch in which United have struggled since Michael Carrick’s legs began to succumb to the inevitable effects of age: defensive midfield.
Having reportedly irked Mourinho’s former employers at Chelsea by securing Lukaku’s signature ahead of their Premier League rivals, a deal for the United manager’s original target, the Blues’ Nemanja Matic, appears dead in the water. However, Jose Mourinho is a manager who understands the importance of moving decisively in a transfer market which has reached new heights of competitiveness this summer, and has turned his attention to Tottenham and England’s Eric Dier.
At first glance, Dier seems a natural choice, perhaps moreso even than Matic. Dier is a regular for the side which finished second in last season’s title race, as well as first-choice for the national side; he is equally comfortable at centre-half and defensive midfield, though would prefer to establish himself in the holding role; he is English, an attractive attribute when operating in a system which promotes the inclusion of home-grown talent; and, at 23 years of age, Dier theoretically has his best years ahead of him. United’s reported £50m bid, then, would appear to represent a sensible opening offer for a highly-coveted talent with exciting potential.
Yet, it is important to remember that Dier remains, in many senses, an unpolished diamond. Jose Mourinho, for all his protestations, is a manager wary of the inconsistencies of youth: Kevin de Bruyne and United new-boy Lukaku were just two of the players Mourinho deemed not of the requisite standard during his second spell at Chelsea. Of course, Dier has accrued a far greater number of Premier League games than either of those players could boast when Mourinho managed them, but the fact remains that Dier could not hold down his favoured defensive midfield slot at Spurs following the arrival of Vincent Wanyama last summer, and remained third-choice centre-half behind the admittedly imperious Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld. So the question must be asked: is Dier really the long-term answer to United’s midfield worries?
It appears obvious why Mourinho has prioritised a holding midfielder: a sturdy presence at the base of the midfield would bring better balance to the United XI, allowing Paul Pogba to operate consistently in more advanced positions, whilst relieving the world’s most expensive player of some of his defensive responsibility. Pogba, for all his many talents, appeared at times last season to lack the tactical understanding of the holding role. That he was forced into this unfamiliar position on several occasions was a fairly damning indictment of Mourinho’s alternatives. Marouane Fellaini enjoyed his most productive season at United thus far, yet his lack of mobility and rashness in the tackle ensured that he was never likely to convince Mourinho that he could be a long-term solution. Michael Carrick, despite being named this week as the new club captain, is no longer able to play week-in, week-out, and Ander Herrera’s qualities lie more in instigating play than dictating tempo or disrupting attacks.
There are many metrics by which a defensive midfielder’s effectiveness can be measured, depending on the type of player the manager prefers for the role. Since Claude Makelele revolutionised the holding role under Mourinho in his first spell at Chelsea, myriad approaches to what was traditionally a tough-tackling, destructive position have proliferated. Xabi Alonso and Michael Carrick dictated games with the assuredness of their passing, ensuring that the opposition threat was nullified through ball retention; Javier Mascherano provided a mobile screen, snapping across the pitch, harrying players yet ensuring that the tackle — of which he was a master — was reserved as a tactic of last-resort. So, in order to establish whether Dier is capable of prospering in the role for United, we must first establish what Mourinho expects of his defensive midfielder.
Though it would be perfectly reasonable to study Mourinho’s previous teams at Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan, and Real Madrid, I would suggest that, in order to best understand Mourinho’s current vision, we should instead study the manager’s current mooted targets. If we accept that Matic was Mourinho’s first-choice for the role, we can assume that Matic possesses the style of play that Mourinho desires from his holding midfielder. Of course, Mourinho is the arch-pragmatist, and having failed to secure Matic may well have tweaked his plans, but were that the case then studying Mourinho’s previous squads would also prove fruitless. So, I shall use Matic as the defensive midfield model against which Dier’s record is to be measured.
Despite winning his second Premier League title last season, Matic’s status as Chelsea’s primary defensive midfielder was usurped by Footballer of the Year, N’Golo Kante. Nevertheless, Matic totalled nearly 2,700 Premier League minutes, slightly short of Dier’s 3,045, but a respectable tally nonetheless. Both players were regulars for their teams — the best and second-best sides in the country — though only 12 of Dier’s starts were in the defensive midfield position.
No matter how an individual player interprets the role, a defensive midfielder’s job will naturally involve a fair share of the game’s dirty work: tackling. Matic attempted 1.5 tackles per game in 2016/17, slightly higher than Dier’s 1.3. Significantly, however, Dier committed just 0.3 fouls per game, compared to Matic’s 0.9 — the cleanliness of Dier’s game ensures that his side are better able to dictate the tempo of the game, whilst preventing opposition free-kicks in dangerous areas. Matic (1.4) and Dier (1.3) manage a similar number of interceptions per game.
In years gone by, passing would have been of secondary concern to the average defensive midfielder; in the modern game, it is an essential part of a holding midfielder’s armoury. Matic boasted a greater pass success than Dier (87.7% to Dier’s 86.7%), as well as fewer long balls per game (4 to Dier’s 5.2), though Dier completed a greater number of passes, on average (55 to Matic’s 53.3). To an extent, these discrepancies are mitigated by fact that Dier played a high percentage of games at centre-half, a position from which long balls are traditionally played more often. That Matic was able to complete a greater percentage of his passes from an area of the pitch where pressure is higher, however, could be seen as significant; ceding the ball to the opposition in the defensive third can often result in disaster.
Though, of course, a defensive midfielder’s primary concern is defending, many deep-lying players are also capable of creating. In this department, Matic emerges as the clearly superior player: the Chelsea man racked up a more-than-respectable seven assists in the Premier League last season; Dier, by comparison, did not even register one. Matic and Dier each registered a solitary goal in the league, with both players averaging 0.6 shots per game. It is safe to assume, then, that Mourinho will not be expecting much of a goal return from his first-choice defensive midfielder.
Ultimately, then, there is little to choose between the two men, statistically-speaking. Though Matic edged Dier in some important areas, by-and-large the differences were relatively minimal. Given that Matic is five years Dier’s senior, it is likely that Dier will develop into a defensive midfielder every bit as effective as his Serbian counterpart, and Jose Mourinho clearly has faith in the young Englishman’s ability to slot into United’s starting lineup with a minimum of fuss. Of course, before such a scenario can be realised, United face the small task of out-negotiating Daniel Levy. Over to you, Ed…
(Note: all stats used are from whoscored.com)
