Eric Dier

[Joshua shepherd]

I don't know what you mean by this - Dier has already had a career that exceeds 99% of footballers. He has been a key player on a top team in the PL. He has played a key role for England.

His career is winding down - there is no need for a new place, particularly if he is comfortable here personally and there is no team that will enhance his career at this stage. He might play more games at a lower level, but that is not really good for one's career.

Winding down? He’s 29, he should be coming into his prime.

 

[isaac94]

……..it’s going to be a long few years

and to think his going to become even more immobile and slower

 

[isaac94]

I don't know what you mean by this - Dier has already had a career that exceeds 99% of footballers. He has been a key player on a top team in the PL. He has played a key role for England.

His career is winding down - there is no need for a new place, particularly if he is comfortable here personally and there is no team that will enhance his career at this stage. He might play more games at a lower level, but that is not really good for one's career.

saying his career is winding down, no club would enhance his career at this stage (despite being 29!) and he will only get more games at a lower level, are the exact reasons he shouldn't be getting a new contract, the fact he is made comfortable in such a state shows you all the shortcomings of the club

 

[Bluto Blutarsky]

Winding down? He’s 29, he should be coming into his prime.

That's actually not how it works. Studies show that the peak age for CBs is 26-28. Dier is past his prime - but that does not make him a bad player.

 

[Bluto Blutarsky]

saying his career is winding down, no club would enhance his career at this stage (despite being 29!) and he will only get more games at a lower level, are the exact reasons he shouldn't be getting a new contract, the fact he is made comfortable in such a state shows you all the shortcomings of the club

I think you have to look at the big picture.

First, we need back-up CBs.

Second, we can't afford to simply replace Sanchez, Tanganga, Dier, Davies/Lenglet all at once. Its one thing to move them all out, which won't happen, but its another altogether to waste precious transfer budget on back-up CBs to replace them.

Third, Dier is not nearly as bad as people claim. Yes, we need to replace him in the starting line-up. But, he can competently back-up any of the CB positions (as opposed to Sanchez, who we know can't play LCB at all). That versatility has value.


So we have a position we need to fill - back up CB. We have a player in the squad who can do that - Dier. We have many other holes to fill with a limited transfer budget. Signing Dier to a 3-year extension on reasonable wages allows us to focus on more pressing needs in the club - like a starting CB, starting GK, AM, wingers, etc.


I have been upfront that Dier needs to be replaced in the starting line-up, and I am right there with you if we don't sign a starting CB this summer - that is a failure of the club. If we had a bottomless pit of money and could spend frivolously, I would be all for bringing in new back-up CBs - but we don't, and have to spend responsibly.

 

[isaac94]

That's actually not how it works. Studies show that the peak age for CBs is 26-28. Dier is past his prime - but that does not make him a bad player.

might be the case, but intelligent defenders usually don't drop off so dramatically,

I think you have to look at the big picture.

First, we need back-up CBs.

Second, we can't afford to simply replace Sanchez, Tanganga, Dier, Davies/Lenglet all at once. Its one thing to move them all out, which won't happen, but its another altogether to waste precious transfer budget on back-up CBs to replace them.

Third, Dier is not nearly as bad as people claim. Yes, we need to replace him in the starting line-up. But, he can competently back-up any of the CB positions (as opposed to Sanchez, who we know can't play LCB at all). That versatility has value.


So we have a position we need to fill - back up CB. We have a player in the squad who can do that - Dier. We have many other holes to fill with a limited transfer budget. Signing Dier to a 3-year extension on reasonable wages allows us to focus on more pressing needs in the club - like a starting CB, starting GK, AM, wingers, etc.


I have been upfront that Dier needs to be replaced in the starting line-up, and I am right there with you if we don't sign a starting CB this summer - that is a failure of the club. If we had a bottomless pit of money and could spend frivolously, I would be all for bringing in new back-up CBs - but we don't, and have to spend responsibly.

with diers mobility would hate him to play lcb, would get skinned alive, like the rashford one few weeks ago, I think people are so annoyed because he has stayed for so many years as a versatile option, and to continue that when he has continued to be a starter is ludicrous

 

[Joshua shepherd]

That's actually not how it works. Studies show that the peak age for CBs is 26-28. Dier is past his prime - but that does not make him a bad player.

You can’t just say ‘studies’ and expect us to take it as fact what studies?

 

[Bluto Blutarsky]

You can’t just say ‘studies’ and expect us to take it as fact what studies?

 

[Bluto Blutarsky]

Another article

What age do players in different positions peak?

By studying minutes played data from the past 10 Premier League seasons, we can look at what age players in different positions 'peak'

theathletic.com

Spoiler

What age do players in different positions peak?​

Tom Worville

They say that age is just a number, but in football, that number is extremely important.

The notion of a “peak” player age — the time at which they are at the very best of their abilities — isn’t an overly new concept. Most fans recognise when players are raw, great or past it. Putting a number against that, however, isn’t overly straightforward.

For example, how do you find out when the peak happens? And don’t players develop at different rates, with some being early starters and others being late bloomers? Do players in different positions peak at different points?

It’s all a bit of a headache, but here The Athletic dives into the science of player ages, considering how to measure them and what they are.

---

To get an understanding of how player age impacts performances, it’s important to first decide on a good metric to incapsulate performance in the first place.

This is a far easier task in other sports — particularly baseball and basketball — that have better, publicly available top-down metrics that can give an overarching notion of a player’s impact on his team’s ability to win. Metrics such as Wins Above Replacement in baseball or Value Over Replacement Player in basketball have their flaws, but mapping player ability by these metrics across the years can show the impact of age on performance.

In football, it’s not as straightforward. For a start, the games are more fluid and the roles on the pitch are highly specific, even getting to the point when players that are playing in a given position do not play like someone who would traditionally play in that position at all (yes, I’m looking at you, Joao Cancelo).

Due to that positional variability, there’s not a single figure to explain performance for every role and position on the pitch in the same currency. Goals or expected goals per 90 are perhaps ideal stats to use to measure strikers, but that’s a poor stat to use for, say, centre-backs.

Different metrics could be considered per position to get an overall understanding of how things change from a stylistic point of view, however. For example, here’s how many take-ons per 90 wingers average at different ages in the Premier League, inspired by previous work done by Colin Trainor.

Notably, as wingers age and lose their explosiveness, their tendency to take on defenders plummets. The young, high-energy players in their teens and early 20s are keen to dribble past as many players as possible, but their roles have to change a lot in their early 30s as they offer less of a direct one-on-one threat.

But metrics such as those don’t give a good indication of a player’s general effectiveness. They only offer an insight into how much (or little) of a given action they did on the field at a given age.

Expected threat — and similar models that indicate how a player’s actions increase their team’s chances of scoring — might be a good alternative to use as it offers a common measure of value added across positions. Sadly, though, these possession value-type models only cater to the on-ball abilities of players, completely ignoring the defensive aspects of their performances.

The solution, then, isn’t some fancy all-encompassing metric that tries to look at a player’s true value on the pitch. Such a model doesn’t exist, at least in the public sphere, and likely won’t for many years. No, the best stat to use here is just plain, basic minutes played.

There are several reasons for that. For a start, part of the impact of ageing on players isn’t just that their abilities drop off, but also that their bodies become less and less durable. It is a cliche, but the best ability is availability, and that’s a big factor when it comes to rating a player’s ability at any age.

Second, there is some implicit notion of a player’s quality captured in their minutes played. Managers pick their teams for many different reasons — form, injuries, suspension, player preference, tactics — but more often than not, they’ll want to play their best players to win a game. The mere presence of a player on the pitch, therefore, says something about how good they are.

Finally, it’s also something that is fairly accessible for the past few seasons in the Premier League, and to calculate anything to do with peak ages and age curves, plenty of data is required.

So in terms of minutes played, when do players look to peak? The chart below — inspired by the original work of Michael Caley — looks to answer that.

Both starts and substitute minutes are taken into account here from Premier League matches over the past decade, with the player ages on August 1 of every season taken into account. Players are split into one of seven different positional groups depending on where they featured in games.

The graphic below maps all ages between 18 and 38 years old, broken down by position. The colours on each scale denote the share of the total minutes played for each age, over the past 10 Premier League seasons.

The redder that the age is shaded, the higher the share of total minutes played for that age within their position.

Goalkeepers are the oldest positional group, with the latest peak age and plenty of players playing well into their early 30s too, as denoted by the lighter shading. It’s a position in which fewer opportunities are given to younger players, and experience seems to be prioritised over younger, fitter goalkeepers.

Centre-backs also peak relatively late, at around 27, with plenty of players featuring heavily in their late 20s and early 30s. As with goalkeepers, the nature of the role isn’t as comparatively physically demanding in terms of needing to hit top speeds or cover great distances. However, a player’s ability to read the game will improve with time, sometimes making up for the speed lost in a player’s later years.

On the other hand, full-backs peak far younger, with the majority of their minutes coming at 25. What’s interesting with full-backs — and deserving of an article in itself — is how the increasingly demanding nature of the role has impacted the age curve at the position. Full-backs are now asked to get up and down the pitch far more. They also need to be technically gifted and have a high level of tactical understanding. For that reason, they are likely to be one of the most athletic players on the pitch, which explains why fewer minutes are going to players in their late-20s.

It’s a similar story in central midfield, another position that requires plenty of ground to be covered at different speeds. The most common age for a player in this position is around 25, with a fairly large spread of players playing consistently between the ages of 24 and 30.

As shown in the take-ons example previously, wingers and wide attackers hit their peak earlier, reaching the height of their powers around 26. It makes sense, then, that they see plenty of minutes in their early 20s and fall out of the game or are required to change position to stay in it by the time they hit their 30s.

Central attacking midfielders — or No 10s in non-data-speak — are the least common playing position on the pitch, as fewer teams are playing with a single playmaker these days. There’s a peak for them at age 26, but theirs is a position to take with a pinch of salt.

Due to their relative scarcity in the modern game, there’s something of a sample bias here, with just 1,098 players in the last decade playing in that position in a single season and there only being 55 player records with 1,000 minutes or more. There’s an early spike around 22 years old in the data thanks to this, with Ross Barkley, Christian Eriksen, Oscar and Dele Alli to name just a few all featuring heavily in the Premier League at that age.

Finally, strikers seem to have the most well-defined ageing pattern of all the positions. They rise to prominence in their early 20s and peak around 27, with only the proper outliers able to sustain themselves in the game past their early 30s. Similarly to centre-backs, their feeling of the game increases over time, but they are limited more by the physical drop-off in their late 20s and early 30s.

Taking all of this into account means that a rough band of “peak ages” can be formed for each positional group. This is calculated by taking the peak year and adding and subtracting a year from either side. For goalkeepers, any player aged between 27 and 29 will be considered in their peak. For full-backs and central midfielders, that’s any player aged 24 to 26.

With this data, a more custom squad profile can be built, showing a more appropriate peak age banding. Here’s what that looks like for Arsenal, with them having plenty of pre-peak players across the pitch.

Arsenal are a particularly pertinent team to consider because considering all players who’ve played 400 minutes or more in the league this season, Arsenal’s are on average 1.6 years away from reaching their peak, the lowest of any side in the league and almost double that of Aston Villa’s 0.9 years away from their hypothetical peak. At the other end of the scale are Watford, whose most common starters are 3.0 years beyond their peak on average, most likely dragged up by their veteran 38-year-old goalkeeper Ben Foster.

Over the next 10 days, we will be running individual pieces using the peak age of positions to look at the squad profiles of each Premier League club, and those we cover closely in the English Football League and Scottish Premiership.

(Photos: Getty Images; Design: Tom Slator)

 

[Joshua shepherd]

Another article

What age do players in different positions peak?

By studying minutes played data from the past 10 Premier League seasons, we can look at what age players in different positions 'peak'

theathletic.com

Spoiler

What age do players in different positions peak?​

Tom Worville

They say that age is just a number, but in football, that number is extremely important.

The notion of a “peak” player age — the time at which they are at the very best of their abilities — isn’t an overly new concept. Most fans recognise when players are raw, great or past it. Putting a number against that, however, isn’t overly straightforward.

For example, how do you find out when the peak happens? And don’t players develop at different rates, with some being early starters and others being late bloomers? Do players in different positions peak at different points?

It’s all a bit of a headache, but here The Athletic dives into the science of player ages, considering how to measure them and what they are.

---

To get an understanding of how player age impacts performances, it’s important to first decide on a good metric to incapsulate performance in the first place.

This is a far easier task in other sports — particularly baseball and basketball — that have better, publicly available top-down metrics that can give an overarching notion of a player’s impact on his team’s ability to win. Metrics such as Wins Above Replacement in baseball or Value Over Replacement Player in basketball have their flaws, but mapping player ability by these metrics across the years can show the impact of age on performance.

In football, it’s not as straightforward. For a start, the games are more fluid and the roles on the pitch are highly specific, even getting to the point when players that are playing in a given position do not play like someone who would traditionally play in that position at all (yes, I’m looking at you, Joao Cancelo).

Due to that positional variability, there’s not a single figure to explain performance for every role and position on the pitch in the same currency. Goals or expected goals per 90 are perhaps ideal stats to use to measure strikers, but that’s a poor stat to use for, say, centre-backs.

Different metrics could be considered per position to get an overall understanding of how things change from a stylistic point of view, however. For example, here’s how many take-ons per 90 wingers average at different ages in the Premier League, inspired by previous work done by Colin Trainor.

Notably, as wingers age and lose their explosiveness, their tendency to take on defenders plummets. The young, high-energy players in their teens and early 20s are keen to dribble past as many players as possible, but their roles have to change a lot in their early 30s as they offer less of a direct one-on-one threat.

But metrics such as those don’t give a good indication of a player’s general effectiveness. They only offer an insight into how much (or little) of a given action they did on the field at a given age.

Expected threat — and similar models that indicate how a player’s actions increase their team’s chances of scoring — might be a good alternative to use as it offers a common measure of value added across positions. Sadly, though, these possession value-type models only cater to the on-ball abilities of players, completely ignoring the defensive aspects of their performances.

The solution, then, isn’t some fancy all-encompassing metric that tries to look at a player’s true value on the pitch. Such a model doesn’t exist, at least in the public sphere, and likely won’t for many years. No, the best stat to use here is just plain, basic minutes played.

There are several reasons for that. For a start, part of the impact of ageing on players isn’t just that their abilities drop off, but also that their bodies become less and less durable. It is a cliche, but the best ability is availability, and that’s a big factor when it comes to rating a player’s ability at any age.

Second, there is some implicit notion of a player’s quality captured in their minutes played. Managers pick their teams for many different reasons — form, injuries, suspension, player preference, tactics — but more often than not, they’ll want to play their best players to win a game. The mere presence of a player on the pitch, therefore, says something about how good they are.

Finally, it’s also something that is fairly accessible for the past few seasons in the Premier League, and to calculate anything to do with peak ages and age curves, plenty of data is required.

So in terms of minutes played, when do players look to peak? The chart below — inspired by the original work of Michael Caley — looks to answer that.

Both starts and substitute minutes are taken into account here from Premier League matches over the past decade, with the player ages on August 1 of every season taken into account. Players are split into one of seven different positional groups depending on where they featured in games.

The graphic below maps all ages between 18 and 38 years old, broken down by position. The colours on each scale denote the share of the total minutes played for each age, over the past 10 Premier League seasons.

The redder that the age is shaded, the higher the share of total minutes played for that age within their position.

Goalkeepers are the oldest positional group, with the latest peak age and plenty of players playing well into their early 30s too, as denoted by the lighter shading. It’s a position in which fewer opportunities are given to younger players, and experience seems to be prioritised over younger, fitter goalkeepers.

Centre-backs also peak relatively late, at around 27, with plenty of players featuring heavily in their late 20s and early 30s. As with goalkeepers, the nature of the role isn’t as comparatively physically demanding in terms of needing to hit top speeds or cover great distances. However, a player’s ability to read the game will improve with time, sometimes making up for the speed lost in a player’s later years.

On the other hand, full-backs peak far younger, with the majority of their minutes coming at 25. What’s interesting with full-backs — and deserving of an article in itself — is how the increasingly demanding nature of the role has impacted the age curve at the position. Full-backs are now asked to get up and down the pitch far more. They also need to be technically gifted and have a high level of tactical understanding. For that reason, they are likely to be one of the most athletic players on the pitch, which explains why fewer minutes are going to players in their late-20s.

It’s a similar story in central midfield, another position that requires plenty of ground to be covered at different speeds. The most common age for a player in this position is around 25, with a fairly large spread of players playing consistently between the ages of 24 and 30.

As shown in the take-ons example previously, wingers and wide attackers hit their peak earlier, reaching the height of their powers around 26. It makes sense, then, that they see plenty of minutes in their early 20s and fall out of the game or are required to change position to stay in it by the time they hit their 30s.

Central attacking midfielders — or No 10s in non-data-speak — are the least common playing position on the pitch, as fewer teams are playing with a single playmaker these days. There’s a peak for them at age 26, but theirs is a position to take with a pinch of salt.

Due to their relative scarcity in the modern game, there’s something of a sample bias here, with just 1,098 players in the last decade playing in that position in a single season and there only being 55 player records with 1,000 minutes or more. There’s an early spike around 22 years old in the data thanks to this, with Ross Barkley, Christian Eriksen, Oscar and Dele Alli to name just a few all featuring heavily in the Premier League at that age.

Finally, strikers seem to have the most well-defined ageing pattern of all the positions. They rise to prominence in their early 20s and peak around 27, with only the proper outliers able to sustain themselves in the game past their early 30s. Similarly to centre-backs, their feeling of the game increases over time, but they are limited more by the physical drop-off in their late 20s and early 30s.

Taking all of this into account means that a rough band of “peak ages” can be formed for each positional group. This is calculated by taking the peak year and adding and subtracting a year from either side. For goalkeepers, any player aged between 27 and 29 will be considered in their peak. For full-backs and central midfielders, that’s any player aged 24 to 26.

With this data, a more custom squad profile can be built, showing a more appropriate peak age banding. Here’s what that looks like for Arsenal, with them having plenty of pre-peak players across the pitch.

Arsenal are a particularly pertinent team to consider because considering all players who’ve played 400 minutes or more in the league this season, Arsenal’s are on average 1.6 years away from reaching their peak, the lowest of any side in the league and almost double that of Aston Villa’s 0.9 years away from their hypothetical peak. At the other end of the scale are Watford, whose most common starters are 3.0 years beyond their peak on average, most likely dragged up by their veteran 38-year-old goalkeeper Ben Foster.

Over the next 10 days, we will be running individual pieces using the peak age of positions to look at the squad profiles of each Premier League club, and those we cover closely in the English Football League and Scottish Premiership.

(Photos: Getty Images; Design: Tom Slator)

That relates to peak age with regards to minutes on the pitch rather than peak age with regards to performance.

 

[14/04/91]

I think you have to look at the big picture.

First, we need back-up CBs.

Second, we can't afford to simply replace Sanchez, Tanganga, Dier, Davies/Lenglet all at once. Its one thing to move them all out, which won't happen, but its another altogether to waste precious transfer budget on back-up CBs to replace them.

Third, Dier is not nearly as bad as people claim. Yes, we need to replace him in the starting line-up. But, he can competently back-up any of the CB positions (as opposed to Sanchez, who we know can't play LCB at all). That versatility has value.


So we have a position we need to fill - back up CB. We have a player in the squad who can do that - Dier. We have many other holes to fill with a limited transfer budget. Signing Dier to a 3-year extension on reasonable wages allows us to focus on more pressing needs in the club - like a starting CB, starting GK, AM, wingers, etc.


I have been upfront that Dier needs to be replaced in the starting line-up, and I am right there with you if we don't sign a starting CB this summer - that is a failure of the club. If we had a bottomless pit of money and could spend frivolously, I would be all for bringing in new back-up CBs - but we don't, and have to spend responsibly.

Well said.
I also think complacency is a problem with Dier; knowing he's going to get selected week-in week-out because he's the only CCB at the club hasn't kept him on his toes.
If he starts the season as a back-up, he may have a point to prove and up his game.

 

[YB123]

Giving any player a contract before a manager and DOF in place is seriously neglectful and amateur.

 

[Bluto Blutarsky]

That relates to peak age with regards to minutes on the pitch rather than peak age with regards to performance.

Well, you only have to consider how players earn more minutes - i.e. its their performance level that determines minutes.

Honestly, I did not think this was particularly controversial - these kind of studies have been done for years and across various sports.

 

[SandroClegane]

Three pages of arguing over fictional aggregator bollocks, and you wonder why A&C wants twitter banned.

Just a total lack of media literacy in society nowadays.

 

[mil1lion]

Age is irrelevant really, depends completely on each individual. I do feel Dier has never been the same player since his illness a few years ago. He got totally over run in midfield from that point. He then got dropped into centre back and had some good games. However I get the sense when I watch him that he still has the instincts of a central midfielder. Its like he has no urgency to make a last ditch challenge. That's not so bad in midfield because you're not the last line of defence. As the most central centre back and often the most crucial line of defence protecting the keeper he's a massive weakness. I'm happy for him to stay 1 more season but only because I don't see us replacing all centre backs in 1 window. He should not be here beyond next season though. I'm sure Levy wants him under contract so he can sell him. I just hope we can because honestly as a non homegrown player it's not going to be easy.

 

[Joshua shepherd]

Well, you only have to consider how players earn more minutes - i.e. its their performance level that determines minutes.

Honestly, I did not think this was particularly controversial - these kind of studies have been done for years and across various sports.

Well I disagree that a cb’s prime comes between 26 and 28 and I’m sure others do too. The article itself speaks to the difficult nature of defining prime and in reality it’s more down to the individual than the position.

All that being said, Dier should not find his career winding down at the age of 29.

 

[13VanDerBale13]

Whoever the new coach is, all they need to do is look at our goals against column this season, to know where we need upgrading / replacing.

 

[septicsac]

Doubt there is any substance to any players contracts, except Kanes, until a new DOF and manager are appointed. More than half the stuff these so called journalists write is guesswork or clickbait.

 

[Phil_2.0]

I'd rather have no one than Dier.

I have no idea how people cannot see he can't be a backup, every time hes in the team his anxiety on the ball and timidness radiates through the entire back line.

He can't be at the club anymore under any circumstances. He has too much control over a dressing room thats very mentally weak. He can't play under stress and doesn't have any physical or technical skills to compensate.

 

[DannyNZ]

There are always a lot of these types of posts from fans, and while the players you list would definitely not be of the required ability to push us on in the next few years, you can't just ditch a multitude of player in the same position in one go !

Also i do think that Dier, Davies and Sanchez would, individually, all be decent enough to be brought into a well functioning side from the bench and do a job. The reason these players are so disrespected is because we've been playing 2 or 3 of them together, and in a poorly functioning side.

I don’t disrespect any of them but I am a long-standing fan that has witnessed these players continually disappoint. The issue with your view is that we’re always just an injury away from these guys being our starters. Might be unrealistic but better to commit to moving these guys on than fanny about hoping they’ll come good.