The Data Dive - Dean Huijsen
The Race Is On: Can Liverpool land one of the hottest prospects in world football? A high-level look at the data behind Bournemouth’s Dean Huijsen.
Bournemouth star Dean Huijsen is one of the world’s brightest young talents. Having only turned 20 years old in April, Huijsen’s adaptation to the Premier League could not have gone any better this season. Huijsen only became a permanent fixture on the Bournemouth team sheet due to an injury suffered by Marcos Senesi in November - and Huijsen never looked back.
It’s easy to see why some of Europe’s top clubs have been confirmed to hold an interest in the youngster, whose meteoric rise has seen him earn his first caps for the Spanish national team at such a young age.
In February, Talksport’s chief football correspondent Alex Crook reported that Liverpool retained an interest in Huijsen and over the next few months other respected journalists such as David Ornstein and Fabrizio Romano followed suit by confirming that Huijsen is high on Liverpool’s transfer wishlist this summer, with the latter exclusively revealing that Huijsen has a £50 million release clause in his contract that can be activated this summer.
It’s worth noting however that this is by no means a one-horse race. Liverpool are joined by Real Madrid, Arsenal, Chelsea, Newcastle and most likely a host of other clubs vying for the Spanish international’s signature.
Spanish journalist Mario Cortegana reported in April that the interest from Spanish giants Real Madrid is not expected to materialize and that at this stage it’s more likely that Huijsen will remain in the Premier League. Then came conflicting reports indicating Huijsen’s preference to join either Chelsea or Liverpool depending on who you believe.
It seems likely at this point that Liverpool’s main competition is Chelsea. Chelsea co-owner Behdad Eghbali is thought to have a strong relationship with Huijsen’s agent Ali Barat. Barat helped Chelsea secure the signatures of Moisés Caicedo, Nicolas Jackson, and Cesare Casadei in recent seasons and also brokered the deals which saw Ian Maatsen and Conor Gallagher leave Chelsea for sizeable transfer fees last summer. Barat is also the man who helped bring Huijsen to Bournemouth alongside the player’s father, Donny Huijsen.
While Chelsea’s ties to Huijsen’s agent may tilt the scales, Liverpool’s resurgence under Arne Slot—and the guarantee of Champions League football—could prove decisive. Chelsea are currently fighting an uphill battle themselves in the race for the top five alongside Newcastle, Nottingham Forest, and Aston Villa with some challenging fixtures ahead for the Blues.
Meanwhile Liverpool have just been crowned Premier League champions having strolled through their league campaign in Arne Slot’s first season. If it’s just a matter of joining the best team available to him this summer, it would be a surprise to see Huijsen choose Chelsea over Liverpool.
There is a question as to whether Huijsen may value guaranteed minutes over trophies at this stage in his career, but with Liverpool hoping to challenge on all fronts next season it’s likely Huijsen would still see more than enough game time at the club.
So what does the data suggest Huijsen would bring to whichever club secures his hotly contested signature this summer? How does he compare to the man he would be destined to replace should he find himself on Merseyside? And what areas of his game should Huijsen aim to develop over the next few years of his young career? Let’s take a dive into his data gathered so far this season.
Conclusions From Huijsen’s Pizza Chart:
It doesn’t take a professional data analyst to see why Huijsen is being chased by top clubs all around Europe. Statistically, he’s had a very impressive season. Let’s address what pops off the page; Dean Huijsen is elite in multiple areas of his defensive game. He’s one of the best defenders in Europe for Interceptions, Blocks, and Clearances when adjusted for possession. To contextualize exactly how good Huijsen is, he’s currently 7th best in the entire league for interceptions, and he’s also 11th best in the league for both shots blocked and for clearances.
The natural conclusion is that Huijsen is both front-footed enough to read the play and step out of the defensive line to intercept possession as well as being a good box defender, blocking opponents shots to prevent goals and clearing the ball when in danger.
Ordinarily you would expect a defender who ranks so highly in these metrics to be deficient when in possession, however in Huijsen’s case he’s just as good on the ball. Yes, his pass completion percentage is quite low for a center back but this is because Huijsen is tasked with using his long passing range quite often rather than recycling possession between Bournemouth’s defenders.
His progressive passes percentage of 7.5% outlines that Huijsen does not shy away from attempting to break the opponents’ press by utilizing his medium to long range passing. The 4.1 progressive passes he completes is also quite a bit above average in comparison to other center backs in Europe’s top 5 leagues. Below we will discuss more on Huijsen’s passing ability and how it might be utilized in Arne Slot’s system.
Being that Huijsen has just turned 20 years old it shouldn’t be a huge surprise to see that there is some room to improve. He is also almost exactly average in terms of the amount of tackles he completes when adjusted for possession as well as the percentage of successful dribblers tackled.
While Huijsen’s ground duel data isn’t too concerning, his aerial prowess is a different story. Reports on his exact height differ but the general consensus is that he is between 6'5 and 6’6. Suffice to say you would expect a player with his height to be winning more than 58% of his aerial duels. In fairness to Huijsen, it’s important to remember that he’s just turned 20 years old. There is more than enough time for him to fill out and learn to use his physicality.
On the subject of physicality, there perhaps isn’t a more physical league than the Premier League, and Huijsen has had to battle with the likes of Haaland, Isak, Mateta, Wood, Beto, and Delap just to name a few in his debut Premier League season. With this context in mind his current ability in the air should not be too much cause for concern.
It’s also worth noting that Huijsen gives away 1.2 fouls per 90 which is pretty high. This is likely a reflection on just how front-footed Huijsen likes to be and that the risk of making fouls comes with the territory. As Huijsen is so aggressive in winning the ball back, there can be some times when he gets too tight to his opponent and gets spun or bypassed. This was seen in his debut for the Spanish national team against the Netherlands, although he was otherwise excellent.
Pass Map:
A close look at Dean Huijsen’s pass map is very promising. In his own third Huijsen utilizes mostly short passes, helping Bournemouth to create space and waiting to find attackers making a forward run. As he steps into the middle third Huijsen begins to attempt more progressive long-range passing.
This is a reflection of Bournemouth’s system which is based around getting the ball into high impact areas as quickly as possible. It’s also clear that Huijsen is just as capable of switching play as he is at playing the ball down his side of the pitch. This is a reflection of Huijsen’s two-footedness. The Spanish international is just as proficient at passing with both feet, in fact if you search for what Huijsen’s strong foot is, most sources simply state both.
Of course Huijsen does not complete a fair share of the progressive passes he attempts, but a progressive pass completion rate of 58% is very reasonable. When you measure what percentage of passes Huijsen would be expected to complete, he actually overperforms this metric.
Huijsen’s ability on the ball is what sets him apart from the other young defenders that would be available this summer. Liverpool also utilize long balls and progressive passing from defense in order to find attackers making dangerous runs or to bypass the opposition press.
Virgil Van Dijk is the league leader for the distance that completed passes have travelled in the Premier League. Van Dijk provides laser accurate long passes to Mohamed Salah multiple times in almost every match, and Liverpool’s attack has benefited by having the ability to forego the middle third altogether.
It would seem likely that should Liverpool land Dean Huijsen’s signature this summer, they would now have two defenders capable of starting the attacks by playing long balls into the wingers forward runs. Huijsen also has one more goal contribution than Van Dijk in the Premier League this season. This makes Huijsen a valuable asset to a team’s attacking output as well as being a quality defender.
Scatter Plot Analysis:
Once again it’s easy to see why Huijsen is such a coveted talent when looking at the data on this scatter plot. It measures how often a centre-back recovers possession and how progressive they are in possession. Huijsen is in good company towards the middle of the pack.
Huijsen is performing these actions on a similar level to the likes of both Konate and Van Dijk at Liverpool, as well as some of the other best ball-playing center backs in the league such as William Saliba, Marc Guehi, Levi Colwill, Pau Torres, and Joachim Andersen. It’s important to remember that Huijsen is at least four years younger than the other players he’s plotted with. This outlines the incredible value in Huijsen’s release clause.
Whoever secures his signature this summer will be getting a defender who is already playing to an extremely high standard but also likely has up to ten years to hit his peak, as seen with the man he’s touted to be the eventual replacement for.
Player Comparison - Dean Huijsen | Virgil Van Dijk
On the subject of Virgil Van Dijk, let’s compare a 20 year old defender to the best center half in Premier League history shall we? Obviously we need to qualify this section by stating the obvious; Dean Huijsen should not be expected to perform to the level of the world’s best center back at just 20 years old. Regardless, as we can see, Huijsen’s data is quite impressive even when pitted against Van Dijk.
Of course, by most metrics Van Dijk does outperform Huijsen. Virgil has a much better passing accuracy and ability in the air. This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, Liverpool like to recycle possession around the backline and the center halves are also expected to help central progression by releasing the double pivot on the half turn to break the opposition press.
Huijsen’s role at Bournemouth on the other hand is more focused on utilizing long passes and switches of play to bypass the midfield altogether and move the ball into dangerous areas as quickly as possible. Van Dijk is also much bigger physically than Huijsen despite being of similar height, therefore you would expect an experienced Van Dijk to be more dominant in the air.
Van Dijk also gives away far fewer fouls when compared to Huijsen; however, this is likely because Huijsen is the more aggressive of Bournemouth’s two center backs, while at Liverpool that duty falls to Konate.
Van Dijk also completes more progressive passes per 90 which you would expect of a team with more possession of the ball and regardless the statistical difference is negligible.
It’s equally worth noting however that Huijsen actually performs favorably compared to Van Dijk in quite a few metrics. Firstly as discussed earlier, 7.5% of Huijsen’s passes are progressive passes compared to Van Dijk’s 5.8%. This is a reflection of the teams’ tactical plan rather than a reflection of the difference in quality between the two players.
Huijsen also comes out favorably when comparing the metrics related to active defending. They make a similar number of interceptions when adjusted for possession however Huijsen makes far more blocks. Huijsen also makes more clearances when adjusted for possession as well as slightly more tackles per 90 minutes. Huijsen’s impressive 65% win rate when tackling opponents off the dribble also beats Van Dijk’s 53%.
Just as with other metrics, many of these differences can be explained by the difference between the two respective teams rather than the players themselves. Liverpool do not have to defend anywhere near as much as Bournemouth do and so it’s natural that Huijsen would perform more defensive actions.
Nonetheless it’s interesting that Huijsen’s data looks very respectable even when compared to the best player in the world in his position. This indicates that Huijsen has more than enough current ability as well as youth on his side to become one of the world’s best defenders himself, and possibly the ideal candidate to replace the irreplaceable.
The Eye Test
Finally, I would like to point out that pure data analysis alone is not enough to compare one player to the next. The eye test (or simply watching how a player plays the game) is probably just as important. The compilation here is also not meant to represent the reality of how Huijsen plays in every game, rather it is to illustrate the very best of what Huijsen would bring to whichever club manages to secure his signature.
Huijsen is a very capable defender both on and off the ball. He uses his two-footedness to progress the ball up the pitch quickly. Huijsen is aggressive and front-footed, often intercepting the ball to prevent dangerous counter attacks although sometimes he can be spun or dribbled past leaving the rest of the defense exposed.
Huijsen is very relaxed when in possession, often utilizing his dribbling ability to break through the opposition press. He’s also very tall and physical although he has room to improve in the air. He is not the quickest player but is athletic enough and reads the game well.
In conclusion, Huijsen has pretty much everything going for him and after the performances he has produced in his debut Premier League campaign it is no great surprise to see the top clubs in the league fighting for his signature. Unfortunately Liverpool will at some point say goodbye to their captain and standard setter Virgil Van Dijk, and f Liverpool want to future-proof their backline while still competing at the highest level, Huijsen represents both a smart investment and a potential cornerstone for the next era under Arne Slot.
Thanks to @Mclachbot and @ChicagoDmitry for the data visuals in this article. Data comes from www.Fbref.com. Thanks to @ScoutNationHD for the compilation used here.