What the stats show about Miguel Freckleton at Swindon Town

Following high-profile errors that led to goals against both Port Vale and Doncaster Rovers, Mark Kennedy has cited that Miguel Freckleton, who has often been maligned by fans, has, in fact, been one of League Two’s best.

The former Lincoln City boss has frequently mentioned stats in his press conferences to justify his belief in performances from the team which have not yielded results with the gusto fans are clamouring for. The stats are useful for seeing general trends in more depth than just anecdotal moments, although require greater context to be much use.

So, leaving aside his boyfriend capabilities as I do not believe there is a metric for that, what do the stats say about his performances since joining on loan from Sheffield United?

A centre-back’s role is increasingly varied, especially on the outside of a back three, but Freckleton is expected to do a lot of everything: progressing the ball with his passing and dribbling, providing an option on the overlap, and naturally being solid defensively.

Freckleton ranks highly across the board (Image: Newsquest)

Looking at where Freckleton ranks compared to other defenders in the division, he is very solid across the board with his play. As this graph shows, plotting his performance in most key categories by his percentile, he has no blatant weakness in his game. His defensive numbers are marginally lower than on the ball but he is still in the 84th percentile or above for tackles, duels won, aerial duels won, interceptions, and recoveries – therefore still very strong for a player in his position.

On the ball, he has been especially strong for a defensive player, ranking above the 90th percentile for expected assists, successful passes, accurate long balls, chances created, touches, and successful dribbles. His experience playing as a left-back last season has made him a useful weapon when Town attack as he can comfortably get down the left and link up with George Cox and Danny Butterworth.

The caveat does need to be made that it appears many of these ranks are based more on volume than efficiency. For example, despite his 64 accurate long balls being the most of any League Two centre-back, that is only with an accuracy of 41.8 per cent, which puts him in the 74th percentile. This continues when you look at pass accuracy (54th percentile), dribble success rate (52nd percentile), percentage of tackles won (56th percentile), percentage of duels won (17th percentile), and percentage of aerial duels won (21st percentile).

Taking both of these two parts into consideration, whilst calling him among the best defenders in the league might be something of a stretch, his general play has been very solid across the board as he does rank highly in every relevant area, even if he seems to lack consistency in those actions.

And it is that dependability, which for a 22-year-old playing in the EFL for the first time is expected, which creates largely conflicting views on the defender's displays.

Looking at stats can show you the general trends of his performance, however, the number of times a defender does something is less instructive than say a striker taking lots of shots or a winger completing lots of dribbles. Moments like against Port Vale and Doncaster, when the criticism was intense, are what define defenders because of the importance of composure in that position.

You can win as many tackles as you like but if once every game you allow somebody to go clean through on goal by ducking out then the moments when that didn’t happen pale into insignificance.