My Premier League team of the season

Let's assess the options.

Ok, another Premier League season down. Congratulations to Manchester City, commiserations to Burnley, Watford and Norwich. Before we move on to look forward, let’s review what I feel is the team of the season.

Goalkeeper: José Sá (Wolves)

The advanced stats models do not like Wolves this season. At all. Their expected goals conceded puts them in the bottom five of the league, while their attack hasn’t impressed either in expected or actual goals. And yet there they are in eighth, thanks to a monster season from José Sá.

Sá has conceded 39 times from a (post-shot) expected total of 47.8.¹ That’s on the back of replacing Rui Patrício, who did pretty much the exact opposite last season. Say what you will about Wolves’ Jorge Mendes-based recruitment model, but when it works, it works. They bought Sá for about £7m while offloading Patrício to Roma for more. I’m very intrigued to see if he can maintain this form for another year, as we’ve seen plenty of goalkeepers get hot for a season and then come back down to Earth. So far, though, so good.

Right back: Trent Alexander-Arnold

Sorry to get very postmodern here for a second, but: what is “right back”? How do you define “right back”?

If you want to argue a prescriptive notion of what a “defender” is supposed to do, then you could certainly list many who do it better than Trent Alexander-Arnold. But if you’re simply looking for the most effective player who starts from this part of the pitch, he’s clearly the best in the world at it and I don’t think it’s close.

No one in the Premier League has made more progressive passes, only one has managed more shot-creating actions (and those shots are probably quite a bit worse in quality), with another dozen assists that now feel routine. Liverpool are one of the two best teams in the world and their main playmaker is at right back. It’s inside-out.

Yes, he has flaws and, in this team, we’ll need to tactically accommodate for them. But come on. He’s so good.

Right centre back: Marc Guéhi

Palace were the team I got completely wrong this season. My assumptions were thus:

1. Roy Hodgson is good at coaching organised but boring football

2. An ageing squad (they had the highest average age weighted by minutes last season) would continue to get worse

3. All of this would be exacerbated by transitioning to a different playing style less suited to creaky defenders

The exact opposite happened. Palace got their average age down by over a year with a fresh and exciting group led by Patrick Vieira. They became much more aggressive without the ball, allowing the opposition about four fewer passes before trying to win it back. This approach was a huge success. Palace conceded the least xG of any team outside the top six, which contributed to the side achieving a positive goal difference in a top-flight campaign for the first time since the Premier League began.

To do it, they needed centre backs comfortable playing in a much higher line than previously, so Marc Guéhi and Joachim Andersen were recruited. Of the two, Guéhi is a little more front-foot, the “dog” to Andersen’s “cat”. He makes 34% more pressures than his centre back partner. He’s the aggressor of the two on the ground, while Andersen is more dominant in the air. Guéhi is the one who I think has been most important in moving to the new defensive style. Palace needed a front-foot centre back who could keep the distances between defence and midfield tight while being comfortable in a high line. They got exactly that. He fully deserved his England call-up in March and I expect it will be the first of many.

Left centre-back: Virgil van Dijk

Virgil van Dijk didn’t play in Liverpool’s last game of the season against Wolves. Bruno Lage noticed. Wolves started by immediately targeting the space behind the left-centre back zone and scored straight away. It was a problem throughout the game as all could see the Reds were just vulnerable in a way they never normally are.

Every time Van Dijk gets even mildly exposed and memed, it’s for the same reason: seeming too casual. He has such a unique defending style built around waiting until the last possible moment to get involved. I think this is part of why some scouts weren’t convinced earlier in his career. He often makes decisions that are wrong according to the rules of conventional defending but, for him and his unique control of his body muscles, he’s actually making the right call.

Van Dijk has barely looked fazed since returning from injury. Opponents seem to go out of their way to avoid dealing with him at this point. He’s everything you could ask for in a centre back suited to the modern game.

Left back: João Cancelo

First of all, a big thank you to Pep Guardiola for playing him at left back for most of the season and making this team selection so much easier. Second of all, damn, he really can just move over to left back and play every bit as well as he does on his “natural” side, huh?

Cancelo completes more progressive passes than anyone else for Man City, the best passing team in the world. He’s not getting the assist numbers like Alexander-Arnold because he’s further down the chain, but he’s an absolutely vital cog for City. If Alexander-Arnold is David Beckham at right back, then I think Cancelo is more like Luka Modrić, someone who can have an impact dictating tempo from deeper areas. Whatever he is, he’s good.

Defensive midfield: Rodri

“I think players like me have become extinct because the game has become more tactical and physical”, Rodri’s manager said at the end of his playing days. “I am not quick, I never had the stamina to run and run for 90 minutes like central midfielders have to do today. I am not particularly good in the air, I am not physically strong, I don’t dribble past opponents and I am not a good tackler. But I can pass the ball fairly well.

“I became a regular at Barcelona aged 20, because I had a manager, Johan Cruyff, who played a certain way and who believed in me and because football was different back then”.

Rodri, too, has a manager who plays a certain way and believes in him. Guardiola inherited a more mobile defensive midfielder in Fernandinho who was too good to leave out. But when the time came to replace him, Man City turned to someone much closer to Guardiola himself. Someone who embodies his very idea of how to play football.

Rodri makes the most passes for Man City and wins the most tackles. He is exactly the pivote Guardiola’s system craves. If Guardiola’s first two title wins at City were more open, these last two have been about control, and no one gives that in spades like Rodri. He’s as close as the modern game gets to Pep reincarnated.

Central midfield: Declan Rice

Ok, we’ve got two attacking full backs, so we need to get defensive solidity from the midfield. With every passing year, Declan Rice does a little more on both sides of the ball. His shot-creating actions, progressive passes and progressive carries all tick up every year to the point where he’s a do-it-all midfielder. David Moyes has built his team around Rice being one of the key players in moving the ball forward, as the England international leads the team in progressive carries. What impresses me about this is how he’s able to scale it all back whenever he plays for Gareth Southgate’s team. He’s intelligent enough to switch between those different roles without issue, so I’m sure he’d be the perfect tactical cog in this team we’re building.

Central midfield: Kevin De Bruyne

Normally, I wouldn’t want to include anyone who played less than two-thirds of the available minutes in a season. Kevin De Bruyne is just a shade under that. But when you have the second half of the season he’s delivered, minutes played almost feel irrelevant.

We’ve seen great goalscoring midfielders in the Premier League. Think Frank Lampard or Steven Gerrard. We’ve seen players with great passing and delivery, such as David Beckham or Cesc Fàbregas. I don’t think we’ve seen someone combine those skills so brilliantly. The more recent vintage is someone who charges into the box frequently. He’s at nearly a goal or assist per 90. But he could be equally adept dropping deep and pulling the strings. He’s making two extra touches in the box per 90 compared to 2017/18, in exchange for three fewer progressive passes. But he could flick a switch in his head and go back to doing it the other way. He has the lot. I’ve always said the best player in the history of the Premier League is Thierry Henry, and that hasn’t changed. But De Bruyne is pushing ever closer into the Alan Shearer/Eric Cantona bracket just behind.

Right winger: Mohamed Salah

What’s left to say about him? As I argued recently, I think his drop off over the second half of the season has been overstated. Salah has the joint-most goals as well as most assists this season, and that pretty much speaks for itself. His effect on Liverpool is so huge because you see teams tilting their whole side to try and stop him down that right flank, increasing space elsewhere. The player of the season.

Striker: Son Heung-min

If Ethan Hunt is the living manifestation of destiny, then Son Heung-min is the living manifestation of kicking the ball really hard. Son breaks xG. He generally scores about 4-5 more than expected each season, which just isn’t supposed to be done. He strikes the ball so cleanly, and with such power, that the model doesn’t really know what to do about it. Yes, I’ve fudged it a little by putting him in as the striker, but it had to be done to get the three attackers I wanted. Most of the time, Son is afforded the chances to run in behind with Harry Kane as a focal point. But I think this team could make it work as-is. Regardless, I want him striking the ball the way he does.

Left winger: Jarrod Bowen

If Son always strikes the ball cleanly then the same can’t be said of Jarrod Bowen. It sometimes feels like he scuffs everything to great effect. Maybe I’m too British to appreciate the true artistry of the beautiful game, but I’ve always loved players who scuff it. He’s not always doing things that look great in the comps, but he’s always a problem. He reminds me a little of Craig Bellamy in that regard.

Of the various highly rated attackers outside the top six, Bowen is the one I’d most bet on scaling up to a bigger club. He’s not a ball hog, doesn’t need the side built around him, and thrives on receiving the ball in tight situations. I don’t think he’ll be going anywhere imminently, though. West Ham know what they’ve got there.

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So that’s a 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 that becomes a sort of 2-3-something at times. De Bruyne pushes up from midfield, while Cancelo moves inside to fill that left centre back spot. Alexander-Arnold and Salah recreate their usual right-sided combination. I think I’ve created a fair team of the season that would also work tactically. What do you think?

1. Stats are from FBRef using advanced data from StatsBomb, except for PPDA, which is from The Analyst using data from Opta.