Fazio will not be sold

Player Assessment: Federico Fazio



The next in the series assessing the players in Premier League games and looking forward to next season, continues with a look at our Argentinian signing.

Federico Fazio

a purchase from Europa League winners Sevilla, who have reached the final for a second year running, he was bought to replace club captain Michael Dawson who was sold to Hull City. He started off in the Europa League with average performances, generally good but with errors thrown in. When he got his chance in the Premier League he was sent off.

There followed a period where he settled down but still threw in the odd error, a partnership with Jan Vertonghen was forming though but after a spell out the league side he returned and looked shaky. Benteke bossed him in the air despite his height so his end of season hasn't been great either. There are question marks over him so let's have a look at his stats..

Premier League Games Only

Federico Fazio
Played: 20
Minutes: 1,776
Total Passes: 861
Pass Completion: 80.49%
Forward Passes: 82.93%
Key Passes: 3
Key Pass Time: 1 every 592.00 minutes
Chances Created: 3
Chance Creation Time: 1 every 592.00 minutes
Shots: 11
Shot Accuracy: 30%
Goals: 0
Assists: 0
Positive Attacking Action: 1 every 104.47 minutes
(Total Minutes divided by Shots, Goals, Assists, Key passes, Chances Created combined)
Tackles: 51
Tackles Won: 49.02%
Blocks: 27
Interceptions: 173
Clearances: 68
Take On Success: 63.64%
Header Success: 60.38%
Defensive Action: 1 every 6.63 minutes
(Total Minutes divided by Blocks, Clearances, Interceptions)

What can we read into these stats, well for a start his heading has to improve, Jan Vertonghen scores 66.67% and you wouldn't note him down as commanding in the air. With his size you'd expect Fazio to be ahead of the Belgian so awareness and positioning need to be evaluated. In the game against Aston Villa he was beaten in virtually every header by Benteke.

Up the other end he had several chances towards the end of the season with headers at goal and failed to find the target with any of them, even when having a free header. Again that has to improve, your centre-back has to be an aerial threat, especially one of his size, and should be chipping in with goals from corners and free-kicks.

The stats show, which is rather unseen, that Fazio blocks a lot of shots and makes a lot of clearances. In 1,035 minutes less than Jan Vertonghen he made just 2 less clearance and remarkably he made 6 more blocks.

It is fair to say he hasn't taken the Premier League by storm and of course the newspapers have decided he is up for sale, which is probably complete nonsense. This was his first season and he will have learnt from it, in addition to which Tottenham will be trying to offload Vlad Chiriches and Younes Kaboul. We will not want to change three centre-backs in one transfer window. Personally I don't think he is going anywhere.

He provides experience, which again we need to help the youngsters, he has experience of winning trophies, a rare commodity so again important. He isn't the quickest, but then nor is Jan Vertonghen and he doesn't do too bad. There are areas for him to work on in the summer, he needs to sharpen up his concentration at times and anticipate a bit more.

You would expect Vertonghen to be the Premier League first choice centre-back, he may even be captain, alongside probably Eric Dier. Kevin Wimmer is an unknown so Fazio will have a fight on his hands to establish himself and may have to once again start in the Europa League. It would make sense to rest Vertonghen for those games next season and make Fazio captain, we don't need to be playing Hugo Lloris in them all.

A reasonable beginning, better expected next season.