Central defenders - who was top for Spurs?

Player Assessment: Central Defenders

We'll start the assessments today with a key points comparison of the five central defenders at Tottenham and then more detailed assessments with individual articles where I'll look at their performance and what they future may have in store for them.

I have settled on like for like assessments so only look at Premier League games, although Chiriches and Dier will have their figures distorted by playing at right-back.

Premier League Statistics Only

Fazio vs Dier vs Vertonghen vs Chiriches vs Kaboul
Played:  20 - 28 - 32 - 10 - 11
Minutes: 1,766 - 2,298 - 2,811 - 707 - 990
Pass Completion: 80.49% - 78.57% - 85.17% - 81.52% - 79.96%
Forward Passes: 82.93% - 69.97% - 81.07% - 75.70% - 79.96%
Key Pass Time: 1 every 592 mins - 191.5 mins - 937 mins - 235.67 mins - 247.50 mins
Chance Creation Time: 1 every 592 mins - 164.14 mins - 937 mins - 235.67 mins - 247.50 mins
Positive Attacking Action: every 104.47 mins - 54.71 mins - 147.95 mins - 101 mins - 76.15 mins
(Total Minutes divided by Shots, Goals, Assists, Key passes, Chances Created combined)
Tackles Won: 49.02% - 54.17% - 55.84% - 45.45% - 48.28%
Blocks: 27 - 11 - 21 - 3 - 6
Interceptions: 173 - 139 - 239 - 26 -85 
Clearances: 78 - 48 - 70 - 27 - 34
Take On Success: 63.64% - 64.71% - 92.31% - 42.86% - 88.89%
Heading Success: 60.38% - 71.65% - 66.67% - 40.00% - 48.78%
Defensive Action: 1 every 6.63 mins - 11.61 mins - 8.52 mins - 12.63 mins - 7.92 mins
(Total Minutes divided by Blocks, Clearances, Interceptions)

Jan Vertonghen wins 5 sections, the Games Played, Minutes Played, Pass Completion, Tackles Won and Take-On Success.
Eric Dier wins 4 sections, the Key Pass Time, Chances Created Time, Positive Attacking Action and Heading Success.
Federico Fazio wins 4 sections, the Forward Passes, Blocks, Clearances and Defensive Action.
Vlad Chiriches wins 0 sections.
Younes Kaboul wins 0 sections.

Those stats alone pretty much sum up the central defenders, we have had to play most of the time using just the three because a centre-back who can only win 40% of headers isn't much use, especially when you throw in his other faults and Younes Kaboul has clearly has done something wrong, which I won't elaborate on here. He has only put in one decent performance and that was against Arsenal.

Kevim Wimmer has been signed from FC Koln and we assume two will leave, Kaboul and Chiriches. Will we be going into the season with four centre-backs or will we be buying another and have five? That we will have to wait and see.