Can Saliba and Tomi provide cover at LCB?
As you can probably surmise, writing these things requires a lot of concurrent browser tabs. When the tabs are particularly resource-intensive, the cooling fans on my 2.0 GhZ Intel Core i5 MacBook Pro (not bragging) will scream like fighter jets, begging for mercy. “Noooo morrrre taaaabs,” they cry. But I never listen.
When putting together the piece you're reading, it was a particularly nice moment to pop open a new tab, refresh a news site, hear those fans go brrrr, and read the following quote from Arteta:
“Tomi has been playing left centre back for his national team Japan. When you look at the games, he can play as a left back too, because you cannot tell me if he’s a left or right-footed player."
Praise be! What I was already writing about is semi-newsworthy! Oh, the pageviews I shall receive!
Arteta knows what Arteta wants
When the skipper was hired, one of his first orders of business was to find a left-footed center-back. Pablo Mari featured in his very first crack at the transfer window. As reported by the Telegraph:
“It is Mari’s left foot that represents the most intriguing aspect of the deal. All of Arsenal’s current centre-backs — David Luiz, Sokratis, Rob Holding, Calum Chambers, Shkodran Mustafi — are right-footed. Arteta is a coach who focuses on the finer details of their build-up play and the option of a left-sided defender will provide more balance in possession.”
Overall performance not withstanding, here's a simple example as to why this was a priority.
West Ham is playing a high press on a goal kick, and Leno delivers it to a wide Mari...
...the defender (Bowen) does his job and closes down, but Mari can use the angle afforded by his left-footedness to shield Bowen and play a long ball over the top.
The next window saw the addition of another left-footed CB to the squad, this time with more star potential and staying power: Big Gabriel. And although Arteta had found his locked-in starter, the obsession didn’t stop there.
James McNicholas reported that in January, Arteta wanted to add left-sided Germany international Nico Schlotterbeck to replace Pablo Mari, with Schlotterbeck (who is fucking awesome btw) ultimately deciding to stay in Germany. Arteta then repeated his request for another left-sided CB again this summer.
To libelously paraphrase Arteta on the prospect of adding another lefty LCB: “I love it, and I think I deserve it.”
To what do we attribute this fixation?
Why lefty CB’s are prized
For all his efforts, Arteta is not the foremost lefty-LCB zealot in the world. That honor goes to his mentor Pep Guardiola, who has made his preferences clear over the years.
When Aymeric Laporte returned from a five-month injury, Pep had this to say:
“There are many actions to build up — to make our play quicker, better — but we can’t do them. Not because the other players are not good but because Laporte is the only left-footed central defender.”
Not wanting to be caught out again, City has since brought on lefty-LCB cover in the form of Nathan Aké, who has been starting of late. (And fun fact, Mari was on City’s books for three years, and says he never once met Pep).
A wonderful deep-dive into this topic was written by Tom Worville, and the insufficient TLDR is this: because of trajectories and ball angles, lefty LCB’s can be more press-resistant and have more options moving forward in attack. They naturally get more space to ping a fuller complement of balls from that side of the pitch.
Here’s another simple example of that in action from the incumbent, Gabriel.
In the United clash, Saliba turns and plays against a high-press. The ball is a little exposed with his right foot...
...Gabriel accepts out wide as a sprinting Rashford closes down, and Gabriel dings one over the top.
Unlike the Mariball, this one did hit. (Admittedly, part of my motive here is to restore our sense of gratitude for our current backline.)
This is a lot of words and images to say: it's a little easier to pass in this position with a left foot.
Is it a requirement for a modern LCB to be lefty?
Absolutely not. Because most humans are right-footed, most good CB's are too, so there are endless successful counterexamples of righty LCB's, including de Ligt, Tomori, Rudiger, Topsoba, Koulibaly, to name a few.
And finally, a big one: one of the best CB’s of all time, some guy named Virgil Van Dijk.
Here’s his heat-map, moving right:
And over the last 365 days, he is 94th percentile in passes and 78th percentile in progressive passes, all while kicking it with the wrong foot 86% of the time. The horror!
A dearth of options
All this points to the problem with lefty-as-requirement: increased demand, limited supply. There are simply not that many world-class CB’s with a good left foot.
Here’s a list of the top 20 I just pulled quickly, according to my own (lacking) judgment. I will not be accepting questions as to why so-and-so is not listed:
While the top is still pretty strong (ranging from Torres to Bastoni), the next tier drops off considerably. After these 20, the list quickly devolves into dudes I've never heard of.
This helps illustrates another point, and that is this: make no mistake, Gabriel is one of the 10 or so players of this profile in the entire world.
Behold...
A quick look at the benchmark: Gabriel
I probably won’t tell you anything you don't know about Gabriel this year, but why risk it:
He’s asked to carry the ball forward at a higher rate than anyone on the regular team: 178.5 yards per 90, twenty yards more than the next highest (Zinchenko).
He’s second to Saliba in passes completed (54.7/90) and touches (70.2 per 90)
He’s blasting long balls (with 74 attempts, highest of anyone bar Ramsdale), third in passes into the final third (with 21, only behind Odegaard and Ben White), and completing medium-length passes at a huge rate (174 out of 178, to be exact)
He's second in blocks (1.83/90) and tops in clearances (4 per 90).
He's got an important goal to his name.
His mistakes have been relatively few, but all of them memorable: Mitrovic picked his pocket for a goal; he left the flank exposed while trying to take the ball from Bruno, leading to a goal; and against Zurich, he put Turner in a rough spot that led to a near-goal.
He is incredibly skilled, talented, goal-hawking, and yes — left-footed. He and Saliba have formed a rock of a tandem that has been one of the primary reasons for the squad's lift in quality. But also: he can have heavy touches, and he's asked to make over 100 snap decisions per game, many of them high-pressure, and he gets a one or two wrong.
As the only member of the backline to play every match so far, a question lingers: were he to rest — for form or for fitness — who is his backup?
A thousand words later, we get to the point of the post. (It's a shame that the recent match postponements caused me to furlough my editor. My editor is also my dog.)
A look at the LCB careers of Saliba, Tomi, and Gabriel
Let's kickstart our understanding by compiling all of the three players' experience at LCB in their careers.
As always, there are massive caveats here:
The LCB sample size is much larger (and thus more statistically significant) for Gabriel.
This includes all career experience, and is not league adjusted. Put in the most extreme way, this includes Tomiyasu's 14-0 win against Mongolia, and Gabriel's matches against Manchester City. Gabriel's competition set is by far the hardest.
Still, the hope is that this gives us some relative understanding of the various styles they've played to date.
You'll see a lot of similarities and some slight contrast here: Saliba has been the most ball-dominant and secure, Gabriel has blasted the most long passes, and Tomi is the most active in the air.
You'll notice something else: Gabriel has a couple areas to clean up, but this is comparing him to great players at lower levels of competition, and he still matches up well. He is really good.
Saliba's experience at LCB
Let's get the first question out of the way: is Saliba comfortable with his left foot?
My answer is below:
Fuck yeah.
Overall, I counted 38 appearances at LCB for Saliba, mostly in Ligue 1, and primarily for Nice in 20/21.
The tape I watched on this was pretty unsurprising. Saliba was his usual, stoic, Fun Police self — playing flexibly, passing securely, and always in control.
He played pretty well in a 2-1 loss to a PSG side featuring Mbappe and Moise Kean in attack, leading the team in passes while notching 3 interceptions and 2 clearances. With OM, he had a ridiculously active game in Europa against Lokomotiv Moskva, with 120 passes, 13 duels, and 8 interceptions. Overall, he apprised himself well.
The rightiness did rear its head a bit, however. There were times where he'd get led into spots he couldn't pass or dribble out of. He usually wouldn't lose the ball directly, but he'd ping it indiscriminately to the midfield to avoid trouble.
This appears on the margins with his efficiency numbers: at LCB, he passes slightly less overall; he passes forward about 3% less; and is slightly less accurate to the final third.
Granted, this may just be statistical noise, or general advancements to his game, as most of his LCB was in 20/21. In general from the tape, his performance felt wholly similar if marginally less progressive.
Tomiyasu's experience at LCB
You're probably aware of Tomi's experience as the locked-in starter for Japan at LCB over the years. What was news to me was the amount of time spent there in Serie A with Bologna: I'm seeing 1813 minutes, or about ~20 matches worth of time — with many appearances against the game's top strikers.
Watching all these matches, you'd be hard-pressed to determine his primary foot. As we covered last time, Tomi is "more two-footed than 95% of full-backs in Europe’s top five leagues." Let's see some examples of his play.
For Japan, Tomi receives the ball in a typical LCB buildup spot...
...he touches it once forward with his left foot, before delivering a swooping pass over the defense to the winger...
...the winger receives it on a platter, and the play results in a dangerous shot on goal.
In Transition
Here's an example of him defending the counter against Conte and Kulusevski, which may come in handy.
Kulu receives the ball in transition, isolated on Tomi, with Ronaldo and other attackers spreading forward...
...Tomi, in the Tomi stance, gets position early and forces Kulu to invert towards traffic a little earlier than he may want, particularly with the overlapper behind him well-covered. Juve still has numbers...
It's still a 4 on 5, but now Tomi stays so close to Kulu that he can't get a good pass off.
Kulu pings a weak pass, and the opportunity dies in the box without a shot.
It wasn't perfect, and the overall opportunity was still dangerous (due in large part to the players involved and the numbers they had), but this showcases a particular strength of Tomi: calmly guiding players into position, and playing predictable, accountable team defense for his teammates.
I also watched his appearance at LCB against Fiorentina against an attacking duo of Dušan Vlahović and ... wait for it... Franck Ribéry. Tomi was pretty amazing? 8 clearances, long balls, and just calmly snuffing out countering opportunities, particularly in the air against Vlahović.
In all, this earned him Man of the Match. Here's a beautiful Fotmob match score, for posterity:
Remember, folks: player ratings are only right if they confirm your biases
In his matches for Japan, there was limited experience against top national teams, but I watched a lot of his performance against a pretty stacked U23 Spain side — and I saw him stepping up and disrupting play in the midfield, and doing a of the things that Gabriel does so well.
In terms of concerns, he could be more dynamic when asked to carry the ball like Gabriel, slightly more agile with fast changes of direction, and more bullying and tackling in certain defensive situations.
The footedness is simply not a thing.
Other options
We've got two more options, what a world:
Holding is Holding. Definitely more of a RCB, but fully capable of filling in when needed.
Tierney has a lot of experience as an LCB in a back-three for Scotland (where he shares a space with Robertson) and for us in the Before Times. In desperate come-from-behind lineups, when Arteta has been running a 3-5-2 at times, Tierney is an option at both LWB and depth at YOLO CB (if somebody like Saka is rotating at LWB like the old days). Shouldn't be a starting option, but Tierney has good judgment while running with people on the counter.
In conclusion
My final notes are thus:
The answer to the question posed by the headline? "Yes."
Gabriel is really good, and deserves every bit of his role as primary starter. Like anybody, he can have slight dips in form or fitness, and while keeping up his confidence, I think it makes sense to rotate him at a slightly higher rate than Saliba.
Tomi is tall, strong, aerially elite, light on mistakes, experienced at LCB, and his "off" foot is better than most people's primary foot. Not to mention, he tends to pick up small muscle injuries in his current role, which involves running too hard down the sideline. Why not give him some spot starts at LCB?
Saliba can do LCB almost as well as he can do RCB, but on the edges of his game, he's slightly less dynamic. I'd have him lower on the pure depth chart over there than Tomi.
The main concern, if there is one, is the meshing styles of Gabriel and Zinchenko. Gabriel is aggressive and lungy in the midfield, which often pays off, but can lead to him being out of position at times. Zinchenko is constantly "out of position" in a traditional fullbacking sense: part midfielder, part winger, part fullback. They'll learn to support each other over time, but against good countering teams, Gabriel may need to learn to play less aggressively in favor of "staying home." If the issue persists, a Gabriel/Tierney or Tomi/Zinny or Saliba/Zinny pairing may be worth more tries.
The interesting question is then: if White and Tomi both play, who plays RB? It's a close call, with no wrong answers. A lineup of Tomi (RB), White (RCB), Saliba (LCB), and Zinchenko (LB) is solid across the board: there are two proven top-tier prem CB's, and the predictability of Saliba's movements in LCB will help Zinchenko float everywhere with confidence. But Saliba may be slightly less dynamic in that situation.
My only real opinion on the matter is this: if Gabi is to ever sit against taller and more aerial strikers, I'd lean Tomi at LCB and White at RB. His performance against Vlahovic shows why.
Okay, that's all.
Whatever you're facing today, I wish you composure and press-resistance as the fuckers try to take the ball away.
And happy grilling everybody.
🔥