Relegated Birmingham City are set to lose another of their key first-team players with yesterday’s announcement that the club have agreed a £7m fee with Wolves for centre-half Roger Johnson.
Along with Ben Foster and Stephen Carr, Johnson was one of only three ever-presents last term, playing all 38 games in the club’s 2010/11 Premier League campaign, and his presence will be sorely missed by Chris Hughton’s side as they look to bounce back from last season’s final day drop to the Championship.
Johnson’s partnership with Scott Dann was crucial to Birmingham last season and their understanding at the heart of defence was dealt a cruel blow back in January, when hamstring surgery ruled Dann out for the rest of the campaign. A look at the team’s stats show just how crucial their partnership was:
Johnson and Dann
The first half of last season saw Birmingham play 20 games with the Johnson/Dann pairing at the back. They won 4, drew 10 and loss just 6 times, or 30% of their matches. They also picked up 6 clean sheets during this period, conceding 25 goals, a ratio of 1.25 goals per game.
Johnson without Dann
In Dann’s absence, Alex McLeish played three different centre-halves over the 18 games; Martin Jiranek (10), Liam Ridgewell (6) and Curtis Davies (2) but in spite of Johnson’s valiant performances, their results suffered. They won 4, drew 5 and lost 9 times, or 50% of their games. Birmingham picked up just 3 clean sheets and conceded 33 goals, or 1.83 goals per game.
At first glance this would suggest that Dann was the more important but a more thorough look at their individual stats show Johnson was superior to Dann in all but one key category.
Dann made almost twice the number of Tackles per game than Johnson, with 2.7 to 1.4. Given the other merits of Johnson’s game, it’s clear he needs a tough tackler alongside him, but Jiranek’s 1.7 Tackles, although greater than Johnson, were not at the level of Dann, and his game complemented Johnson’s with lesser effect.
Johnson’s 1.9 Interceptions was more than double Dann’s 0.9 and he also made less Fouls per game, 0.7 to 0.9. His Clearances (11) and Blocked Shots are outstanding and bear well in comparison to WhoScored.com’s centre-halves of the 2010/11 season, Nemanja Vidic and Vincent Kompany. The Man United man made 9.5 Clearances and 0.9 Blocked Shots per game, while Kompany averaged 9.1 Clearances and 0.9 Blocked Shots- in both categories, Johnson exceeded the pair.
Johnson also fared better than Dann and Jiranek for Aerial Success, with 60% compared to the duo’s 54% and 31% respectively. Jiranek’s figures here highlight just how poorly some aspects of his game were and hint towards Birmingham’s poor defensive displays in the latter part of the season.
When it came to goal attempts, Johnson’s threat from set-pieces played a part in his impressive 0.9 shots per game, more than Dann (0.5) and Jiranek (0.2) combined. Given that Birmingham managed only 8 shots per game -the lowest of any Premier League side last term- it’s obvious how much he brought to the Blues’ attack. In comparison with Vidic (0.5) and Kompany (0.1) he once again does well. Johnson’s consistency saw him pick up 3 Man of the Match awards from WhoScored.com, the only Birmingham defender to pick up any.
Wolves
Looking at WhoScored.com's character analysis for Roger Johnson, his main weaknesses are in tackling and passing and, with this in mind, we cast any eye over Wolves’ centre-halves stats from last season in order to ascertain which of them would, like Dann, prove to be the perfect foil.
Christophe Berra (31 apps) was the most-used centre-half last season, with Richard Stearman (24 apps) and Joey Craddock (14) battling for a place alongside the Scot. Mick McCarthy’s side conceded 66 goals last season, the fourth-worst defensive record in the Premier League, and the acquisition of Johnson will go a long way towards addressing this problem.
Stearman makes a case for the “tough tackler” to play alongside Johnson, with his 2 Tackles per game the best of the trio. His Interceptions are also greater than Dann (1.2 to 0.9), though Berra’s 1.8 is the best of the three and more in line with Johnson’s 1.9. Despite making the most tackles per match, Stearman makes the least fouls of the Wolves three, with 0.9 to the other two’s 1.4, though he picked up 7 yellow cards, with Berra and Craddock both on 5.
Although Berra (8.7) and Craddock (8.3) better Stearman’s 6.4 clearances, it also indicates the difference in their games. With Johnson's 11 per game highlighting his dominance, this is less important an area for McCarthy when considering who to pair him with. Stearman also excelled in Blocked Shots, with 1.2 the equal of Roger Johnson, with Berra and Craddock matching Dann’s 0.8.
In terms of aerial success, Johnson is of a similar standard to the present Wolves centre-halves, with all four around the 60% mark. Berra offered the greatest goal threat, with 0.5 shots per game. Stearman is particularly weak here, with an average of only 0.1 shots, though his distribution (74%) is superior to all our featured players bar Jiranek.
Nevertheless, of all Wolves centre-halves, Stearman’s game seems the best to dovetail with Johnson as Big Mick looks to avoid a repeat of last season’s final day battle to beat the drop and establish the club in the higher echelons of the Premier League next time round.
