Player Focus: Is There Anyone Out There Quite Like Leighton Baines?

The role of the modern day full back has become increasingly important, with the ball often recycled out to the right and left sided defenders more often than any other position. Nowadays their capabilities in attack are often as important as their solidity at the back, and there are few that have such an integral role for their side than Leighton Baines.

Departed manager David Moyes has looked to tempt the Everton man to join him at Old Trafford in what is surely the least surprising transfer move of the summer. The left back was Moyes' star man at Goodison, and with Patrice Evra ageing (now 32), Baines was earmarked as a replacement even prior to the Scot's appointment.

Despite playing in the backline the 28-year old is one of the Toffees' key men in the final third, building an excellent understanding down Everton's left with Steven Pienaar.

The often-unkept England international isn't like your everyday footballer. He cares little for image, preferring to follow the indie/mod look to the squeaky-clean waxwork types that dominate the game today, and he has a mature head on his shoulders. In turn eye-catching links to some top clubs in the past few years, of which there have been plenty, have rarely distracted the former Wigan man, who instead has kept his head down and consequently improved year on year.

He finished the season with a league high of 116 key passes and 106 accurate crosses - up from respective tallies of 67 apiece in the previous campaign - and it came as no surprise that Everton had a higher proportion of their attacking touches down his left side (42%) than any other team in the division.

It comes as no surprise, then, that a team of United’s quality has come calling. There are very few players around at the moment quite like Baines, but if Everton were to lose him, or indeed United fail to sign him, who could step in at either club?

Here we look at the full backs that are statistically most similar to the United target, looking specifically at Baines' creativity and key passes, as well as his defensive figures from the 2012/13 campaign.

We're excluding Baines' specialist set piece delivery in the creative side of his game here, as with those figures included nobody really comes close to his exceptional averages. The 29-year old was still able to make 1.63 key passes from open play and complete 1.53 accurate crosses when excluding corners per game. His accuracy from said crosses was 24.1%, picking up 5 assists in turn, while in a defensive sense he averaged 2.42 tackles and 1.5 interceptions per game.

There are a couple of right-backs in Europe's top 5 leagues with some similar statistics and traits, with Real Sociedad's Carlos Martínez sharing all but identical crossing figures when excluding corners. The Spaniard delivered 1.48 balls into the box with a 25.3% accuracy in comparison. His defensive stats exceeded those of Baines, however, with 2.93 tackles and 3.14 interceptions per game. The 27-year old clearly has some impressive qualities but playing as he does on the opposite flank, he isn't a viable option.

Similarly, Hamburg's Dennis Diekmeier is an excellent crosser of the ball from the right, with his averages for crosses excluding corners (1.63) and accuracy from those attempts (39.7%) actually an advance on Baines'. His defensive figures are more similar though, with 2 tackles and 1.84 interceptions per game, but the 23-year old, again, is a right back by trade.

In terms of those that play on Baines' left side, Inter's Álvaro Pereira could be an interesting option for Everton in particular. The Uruguayan was linked with Merseyside rivals Liverpool prior to a move to San Siro, though the former Porto man hasn't set the world alight in Milan.

At 27 he is a year younger than Baines, and his stats are still respectable. Solid defensively, Pereira averaged 2.21 tackles and 2.54 interceptions per game in Serie A, with the latter a considerable increase on Baines' figure, but he doesn't offer the same attacking threat. His averages of 1 key pass from open play and 1.04 accurate crosses excluding corners fall short of the Everton man, but he's adept in a wingback role and Martinez has somewhat of a penchant for South Americans.

The most successful match that our research has provided, however, comes in the form of 24-year old Frankfurt left-back Bastian Oczipka. With age on his side, the German put the disappointment of failing to make the grade at Leverkusen behind him with a fantastic debut season for his new club, helping the newly promoted Bundesliga outfit to an exceptional Europa League (6th placed) finish.

The defender racked up a team high of 8 assists, which is a mark up on Baines' 5, with his willingness to bomb forward and get balls into the box a key factor. Indeed, a look at Oczipka's average touches heat map in comparison to that of Baines (above) shows just how similar the two look to play the game.

The German delivered 1.64 accurate crosses from open play per game with a 24.9% accuracy, with both of these figures marginally in excess, but again extremely similar to Baines' return. The pair's defensive stats are also very closely aligned, with Oczipka (1.55 to 1.5) just coming out on top for interceptions and Baines just having the edge (2.42 to 2.39) in terms of tackles. The Frankfurt man will need to improve on a modest pass accuracy of 76.4% to match the level of the Englishman (82.3%) but he too is clearly a key player in the attacking third for his side.

If Everton, or indeed United, want a like-for-like replacement for Leighton Baines it's clear they'll struggle to find a player quite as similar in Europe as promising 24-year old Bastian Oczipka.