The position that could be a key Hearts transfer priority

No one has been able to nail down the spot in the team since. Odel Offiah was unconvincing in the few occasions he was deployed there before he returned to his parent club Brighton, Toby Sibbick never looked especially comfortable out wide, and when the team’s shape was changed to include a back three with wing-backs, the likes of Alan Forrest and Yutaro Oda were even played there on occasion. Adam Forrester, from the B team, was named on the bench for the League Cup semi-final against Rangers.

Dexter Lembikisa was brought in on loan from Wolves early on in the January window and he showed plenty of initial promise. He caught the eye in his debut off the bench away to Spartans in the Scottish Cup, and followed that up with an even more impressive showing against Dundee just as Atkinson returned to full fitness. All of a sudden, it seemed as though Steven Naismith had two great options to choose from.

Neither, however, has staked their claim as the go-to right-back in the intervening months. Not because both are excelling and worthy of game time, but because both have been inconsistent. Sometimes they have played well and been crucial in a Hearts win; sometimes they have looked off the pace and errors have proven costly. Just look at Atkinson’s performance in the 5-0 drubbing at Ibrox, for instance, or Lembikisa’s display in the 1-1 draw with Kilmarnock at the weekend.

The question of who plays on the right has become a tricky decision for Naismith and a topic of discussion for fans. Both have their distinct strengths and weaknesses, but who should be first choice? Let’s see what the data says.

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Nathaniel Atkinson

Atkinson’s form has been up-and-down in his two-and-a-bit years in Gorgie and with the 24-year-old entering the final 12 months of his contract this summer, it’s fair to conclude that the Aussie is approaching a crucial juncture in his Hearts career. The radar below shows Atkinson’s statistical output (red) across key metrics for wide defenders, and compares it to the league average (blue) for right-backs and right wing-backs plying their trade in the Scottish Premiership.

From a defensive standpoint, Atkinson’s numbers are pretty good. He is well above the league average for tackles, interceptions and pressures (all adjusted for possession), and is excellent in defensive 1v1 situations. He does give away more fouls than the league average, however, and struggles in the air.

It’s a different story on the ball. Atkinson is a decent dribbler and a relatively safe pair of hands when passing it, and he scores highly for deep progressions (dribbles and passes into the final third). However, all too often, the final ball is lacking. His crossing (both in quantity and accuracy) is below average, and Atkinson struggles to create meaningful opportunities with any sort of regularity as a result. His open play xG Assisted sits at just 0.06, meaning he will register one assist every 18 or 19 games according to the laws of probability.

Atkinson also commits more turnovers than the average Premiership right-back, but this is perhaps more down to the team’s style and tactical approach than anything else. Few full-backs or wing-backs in the top flight, after all, see as much of the ball in promising positions as Hearts’. But that depends on how Atkinson is losing the ball.

The graphic above shows the areas of the pitch where Atkinson has lost the ball this season. The ‘X’ denotes when the ball has been lost through an error, a miscontrol, or a dispossession, while the ‘D’ symbol shows unsuccessful dribbles from Atkinson. What this graphic tells us is that Atkinson is more guilty of the former, and that he is susceptible to getting caught in possession: something that is far from ideal for a player so heavily involved in Hearts’ build-up.

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Dexter Lembikisa

Atkinson has strengths as well as some drawbacks, but what about his competition? Lembikisa hit the ground running at Hearts and it didn’t take long for supporters to recognise that the Jamaica internationalist offered more going forward than Atkinson. The big question marks, though, have been over Lembikisa’s ability at the back, and whether or not he is a natural fit in a back four where he has more defensive responsibilities.

The first thing to note is that Lembikisa doesn’t offer all that much off the ball. He ranks highly for pressing, but the number of successful tackles and interceptions he completes each game is well below the league average. Most concerningly, he has a poor record in defending 1v1 situations, winning the ball back just 14 per cent of the time: the lowest rate of any right-back or right wing-back in the Premiership. Lembikisa is in the very bottom percentile in this regard.

Like Atkinson, Lembikisa is poor in the air but one plus point is that he rarely gives away fouls. The 20-year-old ranks fairly well for his overall passing accuracy and open play xG assisted, and excels when it comes to deep progressions and crossing. Lembikisa’s crossing is an important weapon in his arsenal, and he is capable of causing all sorts of problems when he advances into the final third and has targets to aim for in the box.

Lembikisa does, however, commit a relatively large number of turnovers. Again, this is in part due to his tactical instructions, but it is hard to escape the conclusion that he is simply careless in possession at times. Some of his passing has been highly questionable but even when he has the ball at his feet, he can be guilty of taking the wrong option.

Take a look at the graphic above. When he’s near the hallway line, Lembikisa mainly loses the ball through errors, miscontrols, or dispossessions. But when he gets further forward, they tend to be the result of failed dribbles instead. The implication is that Lembikisa is pretty safe in possession with the ball at his feet, but can quickly run into trouble when he decides to take on his man or is rushed into a first-time pass.

The data seems to suggest what many supporters already suspect: Lembikisa is fine getting forward, and could even thrive at wing-back with the security of a back three behind him. But in a back four, where more is asked of him defensively? From what we’ve seen so far, he doesn’t appear to be a natural fit.

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Another option?

Atkinson and Lembikisa both have their pros and cons. The pair have their respective areas where they are up there with the best players in the league in terms of their output, and they also have areas where they perform well below the average.

Atkinson is by far the more defensively solid player of the two but has a poor final product. Lembikisa, meanwhile, is shaky at the back but is a good crosser of the ball. Neither defender is especially good in the air, and both could use being a little more careful on the ball.

But what if I told you, reader, that there is already someone on the books at Tynecastle who ticks all these boxes? What if there is another option, someone who combines Atkinson’s defensive instincts with Lembikisa’s creative qualities, with the added bonus of being strong in the air and a good passer of the ball?

Step forward Stephen Kingsley. The versatile defender has only featured very sparingly at right-back this season (more on that shortly), but he did play at left-back in a back four during the first two months or so of the season. As a result, we have an imperfect but decent sample size to give an indication of how Kingsley performs at full-back when compared to his Premiership peers.

The above radar shows how Kingsley (red) compares to the league average (blue) for left-backs and left wing-backs this season. We can see that the twice-capped Scotland internationalist performs above average in tackles, interceptions and pressures, although his 44 per cent success rate in defensive 1v1 situations is a slight cause for concern.

The upside, though, is that Kingsley commits few fouls and is brilliant in the air. He doesn’t complete many dribbles but is a good passer of the ball, ranks highly for open play xG assisted and deep progressions, and is an outstanding crosser of the ball.

This leads us on to the one huge caveat, though: Kingsley is a natural left-back, and has racked up hundreds of thousands of minutes in the position throughout his career. He knows it inside-out. And even more significantly, as a left-footed player, the 29-year-old has plenty of opportunities to make the most of his excellent crossing out on the left flank. But over on the right, where he would have to take a touch inside onto his favoured foot before picking out a team-mate in the box? Such a maneuver can take a second to complete. That might not sound like much but it’s so often the difference between exploiting a gap in the opposition defence and providing them with enough time to rectify any positional errors.

Deploying Kingsley at right-back would surely affect his crossing ability, and the truth is that we can’t say to what degree. Maybe he struggles to hit crosses altogether, maybe he carries on regardless. We can’t know until it’s tried. It feels as though we are on safer ground asserting that his left-footedness doesn’t make much of a difference when defending, though. He has, after all, spent much of the season at right centre-back and has never looked out of place.

Kingsley has played at right-back twice this season – in the final 30 minutes of the 3-1 defeat to Rangers in the League Cup semi-final, and for the second half of the 1-0 home loss to the same opposition back in December – but it is difficult to gauge much from either performance. For one thing, Rangers are not representative of your average Premiership side and on both occasions, Hearts were behind and chasing the game. Seventy-odd minutes is far too small a sample size to even consider looking at the data, so instead we will rely on the good old-fashioned eye test.

They are difficult games to judge because they are defeats to Rangers, but it was notable that Kingsley didn’t hit any crosses from open play in either fixture. This was mainly down to his positioning as he was understandably reluctant to get forward in either game, tending to hang back so he could keep a keen eye on Abdallah Sima. Kingsley did look comfortable defensively and safe in possession when Hearts were building up but hit no deliveries into the box and so the crossing question remains an unknown.

Kingsley could well be the solution to Hearts’ problem position – but we won’t know for sure until we see him in action.

READ MORE: Assessing the Hearts squad: Depth, development and transfer potential

Priority position

With Lembikisa returning to Molineux at the end of the season and Atkinson and Sibbick entering the final 12 months of their deals, right-back position will be a focus of Naismith’s attention heading into the summer transfer window. Atkinson and Lembikisa both have drawbacks that has meant they've not held down the position and although Kingsley could offer an alternative, a long-term solution is required.

Hearts have already poached Ross County midfielder Yan Dhanda, Livingston left-back James Penrice and Motherwell midfielder Blair Spittal on pre-contracts ahead of the new season, and the Gorgie club are developing a happy habit of pinching a league rivals’ best players for nothing. If they were to continue in a similar vein then St Mirren right-back Ryan Strain must surely be a target. Like the other three incoming players, the 27-year-old is an experienced Premiership operator who is ready for a step up. Hearts could certainly do a lot worse than providing the Aussie with that opportunity.

One thing is for certain: more reinforcements are required in this area of the park.