The dutiful dog and cool cat: Why Soyuncu and Evans are a perfect partnership

Are you a dog person or a cat person?

And, on a related note, are you a Caglar Soyuncu fan or a Jonny Evans fan?

There are basically two types of centre-backs, and some countries’ footballing lexicon explains this better than others. In Italy, the home of world-class defending and wonderful football vocabulary, their historical focus upon catenaccio — using aggressive man-marking combined with an intelligent sweeper — means “stoppers” and “liberos” are considered two completely different types of player.

In Britain, we don’t have comparable terms. But the dog-cat analogy works nicely.

Dogs are impetuous, energetic and desperate for action. They want to get the ball immediately by chasing after it, jumping towards it, scruffily getting it however they possibly can. They’ll hand over the ball and be keen to go again.

Cats are sly, calculating and remain stationary before suddenly pouncing. They get the ball patiently by positioning themselves intelligently and then calmly throwing out a paw. They’ll keep the ball, so they don’t have to bother getting it for a second time.

Individuals should probably be placed somewhere on a sliding scale rather than in one of two distinct categories, but many of the best centre-back partnerships have an obvious dog and an obvious cat. The only centre-back partnership to be voted into the PFA Team of the Year three times together is Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand. Vidic was the dutiful dog; loyal and brave. Ferdinand was the cool cat; calm and collected.

In this season’s Premier League, the best case study is the Leicester duo of Soyuncu and Evans. The roles barely need explaining, but Soyuncu is all-action and combative, always straying from his position to get involved. Evans is reserved, methodical and neat, holding back and anticipating danger. Together, they make a fine partnership.

Leicester’s 3-0 victory over Crystal Palace on Saturday wasn’t an enthralling game. Leicester’s “3” felt unlikely at half-time, but Palace’s “0” was rarely in doubt, as they took until the 88th minute to create a decent chance. Leicester weren’t spectacular going forward, but they were extremely comfortable at the back.

This was a rare game where Brendan Rodgers opted to deploy a three-man defence. In the first half, Evans and Soyuncu were joined by James Justin, who later pushed forward to wing-back after Ben Chilwell departed through injury, with Ryan Bennett — on loan from Wolves — making his Leicester debut in the right central-defensive role. But while the positions of Evans and Soyuncu changed slightly, their places in the side aren’t in doubt. Evans has started all 33 games this season, Soyuncu has missed only one (away at West Ham midway through the busy Christmas schedule).

Soyuncu is unarguably the more eye-catching defender: he throws himself into dramatic tackles, he scrambles back to make last-ditch blocks and he’s keener to win the ball in the air. When upgraded from Harry Maguire’s back-up to Harry Maguire’s replacement, he excelled, and those who questioned why Leicester hadn’t signed another centre-back were made to look foolish — the best-run clubs replace their stars pre-emptively.

The more you watch Leicester, though, the more you realise Evans is the more impressive defender. Statistics from the campaign, shown below, demonstrate the difference in quality.

The top rows show why Soyuncu stands out more — he’s involved in more duels against opponents, he battles in the air more and he attempts more tackles. He is defending very actively and very visibly.

But the three rows below that are more telling. Evans holds back more and only commits when he needs to. Therefore, he wins more duels against opponents. There’s a minimal difference in aerial success rate, but on the ground, Evans is much more reliable.

Then there are the statistics towards the bottom. Whereas Soyuncu gets involved in more tackles, Evans intercepts the ball more frequently because he reads the game excellently. He makes more clearances because his positioning is superior. He’s been dribbled past less than half as frequently as Soyuncu, he concedes fewer fouls and he hasn’t conceded a penalty (Soyuncu has conceded two, in defeats to Manchester United and Liverpool).

British football traditionally prefers dogs to cats. We appreciate blood-and-thunder, heroic, brave leaders who put their body on the line. We like aerial dominance, last-ditch blocks and crunching tackles. But as football becomes increasingly technical, and No 9s are “false” as much as they are “old-fashioned”, the profile of top-level defenders has changed. Evans is the prime example of a centre-back whose quality went under the radar because he wasn’t enough of a dog. It was frankly ludicrous that, upon his departure from Manchester United, he ended up at West Bromwich Albion, and ended his spell at The Hawthorns with relegation.

But since his departure from United, Evans has added another element to his game. There are some dog-like qualities. Playing in a Tony Pulis side meant Evans became more belligerent in his defending. At Leicester, he’s undergone a complete overhaul of his physical conditioning — he’s added more muscle, so he’s more capable in physical battles.

It might sound a contradiction, having previously praised Evans for not conceding fouls, but in his final days at United, Evans was probably too polite in his defending. In his last campaign at Old Trafford, Evans conceded one foul in 1,378 minutes on the pitch, a remarkable record for a centre-back. In the subsequent five seasons, he’s been conceding fouls at a more normal rate: somewhere between once every 80 and 140 minutes. There’s a greater physical presence when required, which can destabilise opposition strikers.

The next step, one suspects, is for 24-year-old Soyuncu to add more of a catty side to his game. When emerging at Altinordu in the Turkish second tier, Soyuncu said his idols were Carles Puyol, whose battling style he admired, and Diego Lugano, for his solid physical approach. They were defenders who had reached the top with something similar to Soyuncu’s self-declared “ambitious, challenging style of play”.

But to become a truly top-class defender, Soyuncu must become more wily, more intelligent. As the famous Paolo Maldini quote goes, “If I have to make a tackle, I’ve already made a mistake.” Soyuncu will become a better player by being less noticeable.

The ideal centre-back would have the qualities of both a dog and a cat. Fabio Cannavaro springs to mind as someone who mastered the dark arts and astute positional play, but he is the most recent defender to win the Ballon d’Or. There aren’t many like him around. Instead, managers must create a centre-back partnership that mixes the characteristics of a dog with the characteristics of a cat.

You end up, perhaps, with something along the lines of the Foxes.

(Main image: Soyuncu, second from left, and Evans, right, snuff out a rare Palace attack in Leicester’s 3-0 win. Photo: Michael Regan/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)