De Guzman vs Ki - a statistical comparison

With the Swans rumoured to have agreed a deal for Real Betis midfielder Jose Canas, it appears there will be increased competition in the Swansea midfield next year, and with De Guzman yet to sign permanently, I thought it would be interesting to have a look at some statistics to see what kind of effect Ki & JDG have had on the team.

Ki Sung-Yueng

It would be easy to just go with the obvious and leave it there. Ki still tops the Premier League charts in terms of passing accuracy, while JDG is the Swans' second top scorer, so you'd be forgiven for thinking that Ki is obviously a more defensive player while JDG has excelled in attack, and while both are partially true I feel there's more going on than meets the eye.

Of late, I've felt De Guzman's performances haven't been up to the standard he set earlier in the season, and some fans are questioning his work-rate - saying that he doesn't seem to harry the opposition as much as he should. While I can't say I feel that's true, I do think that De Guzman drifts around the field too much when playing alongside Leon (or whoever else) in a deeper midfield role, and that in turn creates problems in terms of defensive organisation.

When you play football like the Swans do, being heavily reliant on team shape to maintain a solid defensive footing, it's imperative that the defensive midfielders hold their position; Leon seemed to be dragged around the field an awful lot against Southampton and given how out of character it appeared it must have been to do with those around him distorting the team shape. When Michu plays attacking midfield as opposed to centre-forward I feel this exacerbates the problem, but I do feel that when Ki plays alongside Leon it gives the Swans a lot more balance.

At present, I still prefer a midfield trio of Leon, Ki, and JDG in front of them, but if there was only one "defensive" midfield berth to play for, should it go to Ki or De Guzman? With all stats only relating to PL games, first up let's look at ball retention. Ki  has completed 92.5% of his passes (1438/1554 - 6th in Europe in terms of passing accuracy) against De Guzman's 88.4% (1527/1727) and while JDG has played more passes in total he's also started nine more games than his Korean counterpart. Ki averages 55.5 passes completed a game to De Guzman's 54.4, so not much to choose from there, but it would seem that, given the smaller amount of starts enjoyed by the Korean, he's a little busier in terms of moving the ball around the field.

Jonathan De Guzman

De Guzman has clearly created more in attack, with six assists to Ki's two, and they average 1.6 and 1 "key pass(es)" [excuse the pun] respectively - in fairness to Ki though he's consistently been employed in a more defensive role than he'd previously been used to and I feel his natural game would see him play further forward which would in turn see him create more opportunities (as well as finally getting his first goal). A demonstration of this was when well placed (again) against Southampton, Ki opted to pass instead of shoot - as anyone who's watched Youtube videos of him can testify, the guy likes to shoot and has scored lots of goals, and I think his reluctance to shoot is due to the distinct awareness that to comply with his role in the team, he's to retain possession in situations whereby otherwise he would have had a pop.

Ki averages 5.9 successful long balls per game against JDG's 3.8, further drilling home the accuracy with which the Korean dispatches the ball. I love watching Ki play as everything seems to be done with an exaggerated movement in an effort to connect perfectly, and I think sometimes it's easy to mistake it for the Korean being ponderous - the stats show this isn't the case as he's only dispossessed 0.9 times per game (against De Guzman's 1.2) and attempts the same amount of dribbles as the man on loan from Villareal (0.4). Interestingly, the Dutchman wins the ball back twice as often, with 0.9 "turnovers" per game (as opposed to Ki's 0.4), but they attempt an almost identical amount of shots (Ki with 1.4, JDG with 1.5).

Ki manages over twice as many clearances per game (1.3 to 0.6), while they both complete the same amount of interceptions (1.2) and almost the same amount of tackles (Ki with 1.2 & JDG with 1.3). I think this is starting to show that some fans view that JDG is (marginally) more combative is possibly far from the mark, as it seems in terms of defensive contribution Ki  is just as effective. It obviously can't be ignored that with 5 goals and 6 assists, De Guzman has been massively more potent in attack when compared with Ki's 0 goals and 2 assists, but I do feel that if Ki had enjoyed a more attacking role throughout the season the figures would be a lot more even. As mentioned above, I get the distinct impression that Ki's natural game is more attacking than we're currently seeing, and I'm hoping the arrival of Canas remedies this, as I'd love to see him start banging them in from 30 yards.

Should we sign De Guzman permanently? Reports had previously put the price at £8million, but recently it seems that's been revised and £5million would be nearer the mark. Originally I thought that still sounded a lot, given that we're likely to have paid his wages all year and, possibly, a fee to take him on loan in the first place, but after speaking with a friend I came to the conclusion that if there was a midfielder of JDG's quality at a Premier League club who were getting relegated, and he'd scored 5 goals and got 6 assists that season, I'd be saying we should sign him up, especially if the asking price is only £5million. For a central midfielder who can clearly cut it in the Premier League, and is likely to kick on again next season, that seems a bit of a bargain, and with plenty of games to go round next year both Ki and JDG could enjoy lots of playing time in the CAM role - whether that happens though is another thing.

For now, I'd like to see Leon and Ki deep, with JDG ahead of them, but if we sign Canas (and he's as good as we hope) then at present I'd still like to see Ki given a run in the team in a creative attacking role. Sure, it'll take a while for him to get out of the "pass, pass, pass" train of thought but I think ultimately it'll be worth it. Check out the video above for a demonstration of what I mean. In a cop out similar to the one at the end of the Neil Taylor v Ben Davies comparison, I'm going to say that realistically they are both important members of the Swansea squad who we can expect to improve next year, and I'd love to see De Guzman sign permanently. For £5million, anyway...