Analytics & Stats
The Right Back Reimagined: 25 Profiles of Form, Role and Reliability
Twenty-five profiles that reassess the modern right back: roles, form, injuries and impact. Insights
The right back has been recast in recent seasons, becoming one of football’s most adaptable and influential positions. This piece profiles 25 players who illustrate how the role now blends defensive responsibility, attacking invention and positional versatility.
Noussair Mazraoui provided defensive dependability and useful versatility for Manchester United during difficult spells under Ruben Amorim. João Cancelo combined extraordinary ball skills and unpredictability in possession with clear defensive limitations; his career has included spells at Manchester City, Bayern Munich and Barcelona, a move to Al Hilal in Saudi Arabia and an unexpected return to Barcelona in January.
Nahuel Molina offers steady attacking output for Argentina and Atlético Madrid, bringing World Cup and Copa América experience to his club role. Diogo Dalot is defined by effort and tireless running for Manchester United since 2018, capable of being a disruptive presence when at his best.
Ben White has repaid Arsenal’s investment by offering flexibility at right back and centre back and improving those around him. Nordi Mukiele has quickly adapted at Sunderland after joining from Bayer Leverkusen, combining defensive solidity, adventurous possession play and long throws.
Ola Aina rebuilt his career in Italy before returning to England with Nottingham Forest, where he balances attack and defence for the Tricky Trees. At Borussia Dortmund, the Norway international on set pieces said, “It’s not all that difficult,” reflecting a simple but effective approach to chance creation; across the first 20 games of the 2025–26 Bundesliga campaign he produced 11 assists.
Conor Bradley rose through a loan at Bolton to Liverpool, now replacing Trent Alexander-Arnold but needing to manage injuries. Pedro Porro offers exceptional distribution for Tottenham Hotspur while remaining inconsistent defensively; Thomas Frank rated him above every other Spurs player he worked with according to The Times.
Tino Livramento returned from a career-threatening knee injury to justify Newcastle’s £32 million signing with pace and adaptability. Zeki Çelik has shifted between centre back and wingback at Roma under different managers, while Konrad Laimer transitioned from midfield to right back at Bayern Munich and helped the club win the Bundesliga in 2024–25.
Daniel Muñoz has become a key wingback for Crystal Palace and helped them win the FA Cup in 2024–25. Dani Carvajal remains one of the most decorated defenders, though his 2024–25 season was curtailed by an ACL tear. Marcos Llorente and Matheus Nunes show how midfield traits can flourish at right back; Guardiola said in November 2025 that “he can become one of the best [right backs],” when discussing Nunes.
Jeremie Frimpong, Giovanni Di Lorenzo, Denzel Dumfries, Jules Kounde, Jurriën Timber and Trent Alexander-Arnold each demonstrate different blends of attacking threat, adaptability and defensive trade-offs. After a strong debut season in Spain, one Spanish daily declared: “David Beckham Returned to the Bernabéu.” These profiles underline how the modern right back now shapes games as much with passing and movement as with tackles and marking.
Analytics & Stats
Opta Supercomputer: Tight Premier League Relegation Picture After Tottenham Defeat
Opta’s model predicts a close relegation battle: Leeds, Tottenham, Forest and West Ham all involved
The relegation battle in the 2025/26 Premier League tightened significantly after Tottenham Hotspur’s 3-1 defeat to Crystal Palace. Positive results for West Ham United (a 1-0 win over Fulham) and Nottingham Forest (a 2-2 draw at Manchester City) left both clubs level on 28 points and intensified the fight at the bottom.
Leeds United remain precarious. Daniel Farke’s side sit 15th, just three points clear of the current relegation group, making this a contest that could shift quickly.
Opta’s supercomputer produces the following projection for the bottom six:
– Leeds: current 31 points, expected 42.09, relegation chance 8.09%
– Tottenham: current 29 points, expected 40.04, relegation chance 16.10%
– Nottingham Forest: current 28 points, expected 39.08, relegation chance 26.88%
– West Ham: current 28 points, expected 37.49, relegation chance 49.53%
– Burnley: current 19 points, expected 27.07, relegation chance 99.36%
– Wolves: current 16 points, expected 24.62, relegation chance 99.92%
Wolverhampton Wanderers have improved form after a draw with Arsenal and successive wins over Aston Villa and Liverpool, but the supercomputer underlines that their season was effectively over months ago, with the club not recording a victory until the 20th game. Burnley sit 10 points adrift; Opta’s model projects only eight more points for the Clarets and expects their return to the Championship to be confirmed well before the final day.
The model largely maintains the current ordering and gives West Ham the highest chance of relegation among the quartet fighting to avoid the drop into the second tier. Forest are forecast to finish two points clear of the relegation places, with Tottenham projected to reach 40.04 points and stand as the final side to reach the 40-point threshold. Opta assigns a 16.10% chance of relegation to Igor Tudor’s side, a near doubling of their previous prediction before Thursday’s defeat. The fixture between Tottenham and Forest on March 22 now carries clear significance for both clubs.
Analytics & Stats
Opta Rankings: Which Premier League Sides Have the Hardest Remaining Fixtures
Opta rankings expose which Premier League sides face the toughest remaining fixtures this season…
We are deep into the final quarter of the Premier League season and Opta’s Power Rankings make clear which clubs face the steepest tests. The dataset lists mean difficulty scores for each side’s remaining fixtures, with Wolves (88.83) and Leeds (89.38) among the friendlier schedules and Everton (92.57) and Crystal Palace (92.30) toward the more difficult end.
The full set of mean difficulty figures runs from Wolves at 88.83 up to Everton at 92.57, with notable entries including Brighton (90.13), Aston Villa (90.28), Arsenal (90.30), Tottenham (90.49), Brentford (90.64), Nottingham Forest (90.72), Sunderland (91.06), Newcastle (91.21), Manchester United (91.33), Bournemouth (91.40), Fulham (91.40), Manchester City (91.44), Liverpool (91.52), Burnley (91.66), Chelsea (91.70), West Ham (92.01), Crystal Palace (92.30) and Everton (92.57).
Chelsea supporters will be concerned: Opta shows the Blues have the highest mean difficulty among the top-seven sides. The report notes Chelsea have taken points from Liverpool, Manchester City and Aston Villa, and still have to face Liverpool and Manchester City again.
In the title race, the rankings suggest Arsenal hold a scheduling edge over Manchester City. Arsenal’s only remaining match against a current top-seven side is the trip to City in April. City, by contrast, still face Chelsea, Aston Villa and Arsenal, plus potentially testing away fixtures at Everton and Bournemouth.
Aston Villa, meanwhile, register one of the clearest runs among the teams competing for Champions League qualification, with a relatively straightforward closing schedule according to the numbers.
Manchester United and Liverpool both confront tricky finishes as they chase a top-five place; United’s path includes games against Villa, Chelsea and Liverpool, while Liverpool must play Chelsea, Villa and travel to Old Trafford in the closing weeks.
At the other end, Tottenham, Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth occupy varied positions on the difficulty scale, with Leeds and Wolves among the clubs with the kinder runs remaining.
Analytics & Stats
What Manchester United Must Learn After Carrick’s First Loss
Carrick’s first defeat shows missed big chances, midfield imbalance and the thin margins in results.
Michael Carrick’s first defeat since becoming interim manager in January exposed several clear lessons for Manchester United. The run that followed his appointment — six wins from his first seven games, a draw with West Ham United and an unbeaten stretch that, when combined with his 2021 caretaker spell, extended to nine league matches — had masked deeper issues. Only Herbert Bamlett (1927) and Ole Gunnar Solskjær (2018–19) had matched similar starts in the club’s history.
Senne Lammens called the performance at St James’s Park a “a collective off-day” that the players now “have to learn from.” Since beating Arsenal on Jan. 25, Manchester United haven’t been brilliant. Results continued largely because of resilience rather than dominance: the Fulham victory required a 94th-minute winner from Benjamin Šeško; Spurs spent more than half the game with 10 men after Cristian Romero’s red card; Everton was another narrow win courtesy of Šeško; and United were trailing against Crystal Palace until the Eagles were reduced to 10 early in the second half.
Newcastle followed a similar pattern. Even after the Magpies had a player sent off in the first half, a Newcastle penalty and an individual strike from William Osula turned a potential narrow victory into a narrow defeat. FotMob’s numbers underline the difference: United led overall attempts (14–12), shots on target excluding penalties (5–4) and ‘big chances’ (4–3), but missed three ‘big chances’ to Newcastle’s two. That matched the total of big chances missed across the three previous matches combined.
Casemiro scored United’s equaliser deep into first-half stoppage time, his 36th goal involvement since joining the club, but he is a traditional No. 6 and is leaving in a matter of months. Kobbie Mainoo offers quality as a deep-lying playmaker, yet United lack an all-round box-to-box engine on the scale of Sandro Tonali, Declan Rice, Moisés Caicedo or Tijjani Reijnders. Under Sir Alex Ferguson, United often recruited opponents’ best performers — Wayne Rooney, Roy Keane, Andy Cole, Dwight Yorke, Teddy Sheringham, Robin van Persie and even Carrick himself — which makes Tonali a summer target to consider.
Time in-season is precious; fixture congestion after Christmas leaves little room to regroup. That scarcity of recovery and reflection only increases the cost of missed chances and midfield imbalance.
