Takehiro Tomiyasu: Better Than Expectations

by Scott Willis

I was not blown away when the deadline day signing of Takehiro Tomiyasu was announced. He wasn't someone that was highly touted as an up-and-coming full-back talent and played more like a center-back (in fact he played a good amount of center-back in Italy and for Japan) than my preference for a marauding attacking full-back.

I will come out and say that my initial skepticism has been shown to have not been warranted.

He will never check the boxes as a winger who just starts a bit deeper type of full-back but in this current Mikel Arteta system (and to a certain extent in modern tactics) that is not something that teams will deploy on both sides of their formations. Instead what Arsenal have gotten is a very good defender, an excellent outlet in the buildup, a very good technical player who can help as an auxiliary midfielder, and a competent (maybe even slightly better) attacking third player.

He may not have the prettiest radar but I think as we dig into his stats we will come away with his importance to Arsenal this season.

A good place to start (but still hard to draw lots of conclusions from) is with looking at how Arsenal have done with and without him.

With Tomiyasu in the team, Arsenal has won 2.0 points per match, scoring 11 more goals than they have conceded (+0.7 per 90 which is a very good number) and have created 4.2 more expected goals than they have allowed (+0.3 per 90 which is solid and typical of a team in the top 6 range).

Looking at the stats from Macro-Football that are also derived from the on/off stats shows a player that has been above average.

via Macro-Football https://macro-football.com/player/page/takehiro.tomiyasu_7931/

Before digging into things at a more detailed level, here is what Tomiyasu looks like on my "Stats Dashboard" style visualization. This was originally conceived to look at attacking players but I think still shows a good reflection of his skills even if some of the metrics would be more geared towards players that play further up the pitch than Tomiyasu typically has.

Attacking

We will start with Tomiyasu's attacking contributions. First, he isn't one to shoot all that often but let's take a look at his shot chart anyway.

His two closest shots this season have been headers generated from corner kicks where he has helped Arsenal look threatening even if he hasn't been the main weapon for generating good looks. He has had a couple of other shots fall to him in the box after either other shots being blocked or passes that were not fully cleared, and has taken a few speculative shots from distance. Overall I think that this is a mostly fine shot chart given his role, but one of the interesting things that come from this is that he really shows his two footedness here, taking two shots with his left foot (both on ones from outside the box where he specifically cut in onto it), five with his right foot, and two with his head.

Looking next at his shot assists:

Tomiyasu's key pass map matches my expectations from watching him. He hasn't been overwhelming in his volume but he has produced a handful of decent chances for Arsenal. This season he has one assist, and that came from his only big chance created (Martinelli goal against Newcastle United). The majority of his key passes have been generated from crosses, with 6 of 11 coming from crosses. He has still managed a solid xG per shot assisted of 10% because these have generally ended up with players taking shots with their feet (7) rather than their heads (4) and an equal number of his crosses ending up at the feet of the attacker.

Overall this season he has been a very effective crosser of the ball.

He doesn't cross a ton, averaging just 1.9 cross attempts per 90 but when he does he has completed more than expected and generated lots of the threat from the ones that he has tried. Tomiyasu ranks 32nd among Premier League full-backs in crosses attempted per 90 but ranks 13th in goal probability added from those crosses.

Looking a little bigger picture at his deep completion attempts (passes that end within 15 yards of the center of the goal) and he looks decent but not quite as efficient.

Overall his 1.4 deep completions per 90 rank 35th among Premier League full-backs and his 0.6 deep completions excluding crosses per 90 rank 40th. So while he is a good crosser, he doesn't stand out among his peers for getting the ball close to goal with his passing.

This isn't a knock on him, but more a reflection of what he has been asked to do for Arsenal. Looking at where he has received passes in the attacking half, it is not in the areas that you would typically expect to be able to create lots of passes into the box.

Ball Progression

The next area we will look at will require taking a slight step backward on the pitch from his attacking numbers and looking at where he progresses the ball from.

His progressive passes seem to fall into two general categories, the first is moving the ball from midfield into the attacking third, and then from his favored crossing locations into the box. Overall he has averaged 2.9 progressive passes this season, ranking 33rd among Premier League full-backs.

His progressive carries don't have quite the same obvious pattern of two distinct groups, rather it seems to be more that he looks to drive the ball forward from midfield towards the attacking third when the opportunity is there. Tomiyasu has averaged 3.2 Progressive Carries per 90 this season, ranking 29th among Premier League full-backs.

Overall looking at where Tomiyasu ranks among Arsenal players in ball progression, I would think that it is safe to say that he is squarely secondary in this role.

Passing, Buildup and Outlet

While Tomiyasu's attacking and ball progression might not look spectacular I think that they do underrate his overall impact on Arsenal's attack. He is a key cog in how Arsenal moves the ball up the field, even if he isn't making the final or incisive pass.

His 0.39 xG Buildup per 90 ranks 10th among Premier League full-backs and in the 84th percentile among all full-backs in my database. I think that this is much more reflective of his importance for Arsenal.

Looking at where he is receiving the ball, he occupies the 5th lane in Arsenal's half while also playing in the 4th and 5th lane in the opponent's half of the field.

These positions make him a key part of Arsenal's ability to enter the final third.

He is a major contributor to getting the ball into the final third, ranking second at total final third entries (passes plus carries) with just over 7 per 90 (behind only Granit Xhaka) and fifth overall when passes received are accounted for with 9.1 per 90.

The other area that Tomiyasu excels at is acting as an outlet for long passes and switches of play.

His excellent aerial ability has made him a favorite target of Aaron Ramsdale and Gabriel to switch play to him in buildup where he often has great passing lane access to move the ball up the field.

This is probably the area of his game that I most underrated when he was signed, and this is something that perhaps doesn't show up quite as clearly in some of the other high-level stats.

I think some of the passing stats miss some of the subtle things that help Arsenal. Looking at my standard passing dashboard he comes across as an average passer but I think one of the things that are perhaps not captured is his willingness to use both feet, which is very rare for a fullback who are some of the most one-footed players on the pitch.

He is a fairly high-volume passer (you can certainly see Arsenal with a more left-sided bias when he is not on the field to balance things out) and one who does look to get the ball going forward when possible. His passes skew harder than I would have expected for someone with his volume of passing and his overall completion rate has been very acceptable given the value he has been able to produce.

His overall passing reflects his ability to use both feet, he is willing to pass the ball back inside and down the line.

Defending

Defending was the biggest draw for Tomiyasu and I think remains his brightest skill.

His ability to win the ball back is good, but it is especially impressive that he is not beaten very often by the Premier League wingers that he has come up against.

He is also good at cutting out passes that target the players that he is covering. This is extra impressive considering that Arsenal as a team are one of the lowest intercepting teams in Europe, ranking 81st out of 98 big five league teams.

His aerial ability is another area that really stands out. He wins a lot but is also a high-volume header of the ball. This has been helpful with Tomiyasu using this in both attack (as a target for long balls primarily) and defense (cover for Ben White).

Overall and Final Thoughts

I didn't write anything at the time but I was really nervous about this signing for Arsenal. I thought that he would be too much like a third center back and not enough like a true right back.

It is possible that this could still end up being the case but it is looking less likely with each passing week, with his subtle importance becoming more and more clear.

One of the easy ways of figuring out how you truly feel about a player is when they are not available and the team must rely on their backup. Anytime Cedric is playing for Arsenal now feels like a major downgrade and that is not something that I felt last season when he would play instead of Hector Bellerin.

So far Tomiyasu has been a real bargain for Arsenal, filling a very important role in how Arsenal and Arteta want this team to play. I really hope that this is just the start of things to come.