Defence Stats

Defenders – the permanently underappreciated ilk of footballers. Forget Ballon d’Or trophies, they rarely get player of the month awards. Their performance gets scrutinised a lot when their opponents run riot but if the game finished as a low scoring game, their performance needs to be nothing short of heroic to be even considered worthy of limelight. But at the same time they are awfully important for their teams. Despite being on top of the league and despite hammering Watford …

"A fullback is either a failed centre-back or a failed winger", said Jamie Carragher on a strange Monday Night Football episode in a bid to get one over his arch nemesis and fellow pundit Gary Neville. Though Gary Neville laughed it off in a very dismissive way only he can do, what Carragher said that day could actually be true in the sense that very few players actually want to grow into a full-back and nail down a regular place …