Southampton: Is Jannik Vestergaard Saints’ big missing piece?

The Danish international is reported to return to training this week following injury that sidelined the centre-half for over a month; Southampton’s Premier League form dropping since.

You would have to go as far back as the 19th December since Jannik Vestergaard wore the red and white shirt; a 1-0 defeat to the hands of Manchester City who at the time of writing sit second in the league for goals scored could give you a rough idea of how well the former Monchengladbach player has performed in the 2020/21 campaign.

Since his introduction into the first team, the south-coast club have recorded five clean sheets in his 12 league appearances whilst only shipping 13 in the same breath; an average of 1.1 goals per game when rounded up, makes impressive reading given the defensive woes of previous seasons. This compared to when the 6ft6 defender has not featured, 12 goals conceded in eight Premier League games is underwhelming for the standards we have come to endure under Ralph Hasenhuttl’s tenure as Southampton manager; an average of 1.5 goals conceded per game since the end of December.

His replacement during his recovery time has received some harsh criticism for recent performances in Jack Stephens, an academy graduate that originally was on the books of Plymouth Argyle, lacks that physical size of his Danish counterpart. One extremely telling stat of this is aerial battles won this season, the former sitting at 1.4 per game whilst Vestergaard sits on the hefty number of 4.2 per game.

Even more surprising is that team-mates James Ward-Prowse and Ryan Bertrand sit on level or higher aerials won per game at 1.4 and 1.5 respectively, this despite both being smaller in size than Jack Stephens. Conceding from Jack Grealish’s cross on Saturday night will have only highlighted this issue.

Is Vestergaard better suited to the Southampton system?

It’s not to say that Jack Stephens has been ineffective for Southampton however, when comparing other defensive stats the 27-year-old has the best interception per game rate for Saints at 2 and also averages more tackles per game than Vestergaard at 1.9 to 1.3, whilst the Dane comes out on top of clearances as the figures stack up as 4.4 to 3.3.

With all of this into account, it would suggest that the Danish-international is more effective being the last line of defence whilst academy-graduate Stephens looks more effective being a screen player.

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One similarity that is noticeable between the two though is the ability to play long-balls over the top, with Vestergaard sitting on 4.2 per game compared to Stephens’ 3.7, it’s not a noticeable difference until you take pass success rate into account; that being 84.3% to the latter’s 79%. Meaning that when Vestergaard features, Saints possess more of a threat from the long-ball, a feature of play that right-back Kyle Walker-Peters has abused by playing further up the pitch.

Stated before as well, the 6ft 6in defender possesses great aerial ability, therefore making him quite the handful on set-pieces. Having scored three goals in the 12 games he has played is a great return showing how vital he is on both sides of the pitch. Two of James Ward-Prowse’s five assists  have come from floating the ball into Vestergaard this season, meaning that in his absence, Saints have lacked that dynamic in their attacking handbook.

Overview

Manager Ralph Hasenhuttl will be extremely keen to get Jannik back into training when it’s best for him to do so. The central-defender has notably been Southampton’s stand out player this season with his impact on both sides of the pitch; as well as being able to play the ball long effectively in good quantity.

His return will help give Southampton another dynamic to their game, a correlation of their creativity going south with the Danish-international’s injury could be considered a coincidence but the evidence would suggest not. Keeping Vestergaard healthy for the rest of the season will be vital in the Saints getting back onto a good run of form, especially given how the injury crisis at the club has crippled Hasenhuttl’s ability to field a full strength team.