An Analytical Piece On Phil Jones

One of the the English Premier league’s costliest youngest defenders Phil Jones has been none other than a revolution for the Red devils. Since arriving from Blackburn Rovers in 2011, he has played in a variety of positions for Manchester United and excelled in all those positions with his natural position being that of a Centre Back rather than Right back.
The 21 year old youngster no doubt has added the much needed strength in United’s defence and has shown his brilliance in matches against those like Arsenal, Chelsea, Southampton and Sunderland this year. He is a complete defender who has the ability to come out of defence with the ball with extreme power and fiery pace that startles the opponents quite easily. He possesses a great balance, is level headed, full of determination and desire and has an exceptional ability to read the game according to his positional sense. Despite being just 21, more susceptible to mistakes assumably, he has hardly made any and outperformed many of the senior players in the team.
Jones has won 89% of his tackles so far against the opponents thus displaying his uncompromising expertness when competing for the ball. He might have some fouls added to his tally but the no.of successful worthy tackles are much more than those yellow card fouls which will come down as he gains experience and composure as he plays more and more games. He is brilliant in the headed duels winning 10 of his 16 in the league so far which will increase as he gets to play more and more games at the Centre back position rather than the Right back. No matter he has shown his artistic quality of quietening the threats of those like Cristiano Ronaldo, Mesut Ozil, Santi Cazorla, Frank Lampard, Eden Hazard while playing at the position of Centre midfield, but his natural quality and play is that of a Centre Back where he is unarguably the best. In the latest match against Arsenal, he displayed the same quality when due to Nemanja Vidic’s injury in the first half, Jones was pushed back from Central Midfield to the Centre back position which opened huge spaces for the much blocked 1st half Arsenal midfield but still they could not penetrate the central defence due to the Britisher’s heroics.
Further adding, Jones meanwhile is winning a tackle every 50 minutes and at a still robust 89 percent rate which is much similar to the comparing ground duels as Ferdinand has an edge percentage wise – 62 to 56 percent – but Jones is again winning them at a much faster rate, every 26.5 minutes compared to Ferdinand’s 67.5.  It’s almost a dead tie when in possession: Ferdinand’s passing rate of 89 percent only has the slightest advantage over Jones’ 88 percent. In 2013/2014, Ferdinand is winning a challenge every 23.5 minutes while Jones is succeeding every 12 minutes. The idea here is not to bring out Ferdinand’s shortcomings but to show that it’s time for David Moyes to give much more time to the youngsters like Phil Jones, Jonny Evans and Chris Smalling to take this position if United have to strengthen their future defence ahead.
With the passing time, it is important to move from the likes of the much reliable but getting older Rio Ferdinand & Nemanja Vidic to the enthusiastic youngsters like Phil Jones, Chris Smalling, Jonny Evans and the future signings to come. Phil Jones is an exceptional talent and a rising star in the making, Manchester United should make sure that they hold on this young talent with minimal of injuries and groom him into the world’s best defender which he is very much capable of becoming.