In-depth Analysis of the Premier League's Top Tackling Midfielders

As the end of the season draws ever closer, debates begin as to who the best players have been over its course. As far as the Premier League is concerned, there are three stand out candidates from just one club.

Shock table toppers Leicester have relied on the dazzling duo of Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy for goals throughout the campaign, though many believe that summer signing N’Golo Kante has been just as pivotal to their unexpected success. The midfielder is tipped to be in the running for the PFA Player of the Year award along with his aforementioned teammates as a result, and has been rewarded with a first call-up to the France national squad.

The 24-year old was a complete unknown to most English fans prior to his move from Caen, despite securing a strong WhoScored.com rating of 7.36 in his debut Ligue 1 campaign, and has improved further this season. Renowned for his relentless playing style and ability to win possession for his side, Kante has won more tackles than any other Premier League player (131) having managed the same feat in France’s top-flight last season (176).

While the 24-year old has rightly drawn the plaudits, we wanted to analyse just how impressive his tackling has been, doing so with in-depth comparison of a number of key statistics from the other top tackling midfielders in the Premier League this season.

Here we look into just how effective the top 10 tacklers from central midfield* have been, doing so by analysing four variables of dispossessing an opponent.

*The 10 central midfielders with more than 20 starts to make a tackle most often per 90 minutes

The four categories we’ve identified are; 1) frequency - the number of tackles made per 90 minutes of action, 2) success - the number of tackles made for every time a player is dribbled past (attempt a challenge), 3) discipline - the number of tackles made per foul committed and 4) dispossession - the proportion of times a player wins possession of the ball for his side with a tackle. If option four seems puzzling to those thinking every tackle surely wins possession of the ball, a tackle, for example that sees the ball go out of play for a throw would not actually win possession but is still considered a positive action.

The results displayed below not only show that Kante tackles the most often in the Premier League, but also performs well across the board as far as the aforementioned categories are concerned. The larger shaded area the better, essentially.

The Frenchman’s weakest statistic here comparative to some others is the amount of times he is dribbled past. Kante makes 3 tackles for every time he is dribbled past, which is still a very respectable figure, but marginally behind Morgan Schneiderlin (3.4) in this sample and considerably lower than Idrissa Gana (5.1).

The Villa midfielder was also a summer recruit from Ligue 1 but the Midlands outfit’s dismal season has understandably seen Gana’s performances draw far fewer plaudits than the likes of Kante. Nevertheless, the Senegalese international does deserve some credit for at least showing fight within a side that has showed so little for much of the campaign.

The 26-year old will hope that he has done enough to attract interest from a top-flight club if Villa are relegated, and his tackling figures certainly suggest he is capable of doing a job at that level. Gana is third, behind Kante, in terms of frequency - proving that those plying their trade nearer the foot of the table aren’t necessarily likely to make more tackles - and second in terms of both the amount of tackles he makes for every time he is dribbled past as well as the percentage that his tackles win possession for his side.

In both instances the Villa man is the runner up to Mousa Dembele, who like Kante has been crucial to his side’s title bid this season. The Belgian had been on the fringes at times in Mauricio Pochettino’s first season at White Hart Lane but is very much in the Argentine’s plans now, and deservedly so.

In fact, Dembele is so good in one particular category analysed here that he would just skew the rest of the players’ charts completely. Indeed, the 28-year old is so physically imposing both in and out of possession that despite having produced a superb 4.6 tackles per 90 minutes of action he has been dribbled past just 7 times all season. That equates to an average of 13.3 tackles for every time an opponent has been able to round the Spurs midfielder, with his chart display individually above.

To put Dembele’s feat into perspective, the player with the worst rate from the ten midfielders analysed here, Cesc Fabregas, makes just 1.4 tackles for every time he is beaten. Indeed, it’s Kante, Dembele and Gana that stand out by a distance in terms to the Premier League’s most efficient tacklers, as shown by the graphics above.

Elsewhere it’s interesting to see that Fabregas, Fernandinho and Yohan Cabaye all have a very similar shaped area here; all beaten too often but relatively solid in terms of discipline (fouls committed) and winning possession for their teams. Comparisons can also be drawn between the tackling efficiency of Nemanja Matic, Victor Wanyama and, to a lesser extent, Morgan Schneiderlin, while though Claudio Yacob deserves credit for the amount of tackles he produces in order to feature here, he is some way back in terms of the Premier League’s finest ball winners.

Which players do you think have been the best tacklers in the Premier League this season? Let us know in the comments below