I used data to find Liverpool a replacement for Van Dijk. A thread

Firstly, in order to find a replacement for Van Dijk, we need to find a player whose played in a similar system. To do this, I used a team similarity tool, using PCA to judge how similar teams were to each other based on a few measures.

The tool basically took into account:

- How often each team pressed
- Where each team liked to press
- How short/long each team liked to pass
- How often each teams' players tried to dribble
- How often each team passed
- Possession
- Tackles/Interceptions

+ Other stuff

This is the graph that came out, with the distance between each team showing the similarity in play style between them

Based on that criteria, these are the 20 most similar teams to Liverpool compared to the rest of Europe

Now that we've limited the search for our Van Dijk replacement to players who are in similar teams, we'll search these teams for player who scores similarly to Van Dijk based on his play style.

A similar player to Van Dijk was looked for on the teams above based on these categories:

- How short/long his passes were
- Where he touched the ball
- How often he carried or passed the ball
- How often and where he tackled the ball
- How often he intercepted the ball

etc

These 20 players (U29) came out on top out of the 20 teams searched:

Now lets remove all the over 27's

We'll add a score called "SR" or season rating.

This is just score which takes into account how often a player plays and the goal difference of the team he plays for to give an estimate of roughly the level the player is playing at.

An issue with using this SR rating with a single season sample is that it gives role players at great teams really high ratings.

So next to the SR of each player I put the SR of the players' teams highest performer. To expose the players that might be getting "carried"

After we cut out the players who performed badly in SR and the ones that didn't make sense (Gomez/Gabriel). we get this.

Based on viability, financial and ability related factors I've ranked the 5 on who I think would be the best transfer.

5th: Matthijs de Ligt

Yeah this won't happen...

4th: Guillermo Maripán

He got here mostly for being average in at all the areas I looked at. Just for that, he could be a decent backup option to take the strain off Liverpool's defence

3th: Robin Le Normand

Young and neat on the ball, Robin Le Normand looks like he could be a bargain buy for Liverpool, or any club really. And he's steadily improving.

2nd: Alessio Romagnoli

A transfer that was apparently considered last summer. Romagnoli could have the experience and ability required to make a career at Liverpool, if he were to leave Milan.

1st: Dayot Upamecano

Yes he has the odd mistake in him, but if Liverpool are willing to take the plunge on Upamecano, I believe he has what it takes to make the step to the next level and lead them from the back for years to come

Conclution:

For this, it would be naïve to rush into a decision, if Liverpool see Van Dijk's long term future as guaranteed, then a January move for one of the smaller names here would make sense.

If not, then a big name could and should be considered.

Thanks for reading