Using soccer data to find England's best starting XI

Using my specifically made visualisations - such as scatter plots, radar diagrams and beeswarm plots, I aim to find England's best starting XI for the upcoming Euros (article correct as of late 2020)

Goalkeeper:

Whilst not an entirely straightforward decision due to Pickford's generally sound performances for England and Dean Henderson's stellar 19/20, Nick Pope is surely the obvious pick due to his regular game time - unlike Henderson - and his consistent club form - unlike the often erratic Pickford.

Fullbacks:

Considering Chillwell's poor form and the general lack of high quality England left backs in recent years. The inclusion of Luke Shaw, who is having an excellent 20/21 season, should not come as a surprise.

However, Selecting England's right back proved to be a rather tricky affair, hence we have decided to compare our top 4 picks - Reece James, Kyle Walker, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Aaron Wan-Bissaka using a radar diagram.

As shown by the graphic above, whilst Kyle Walker brings unparalleled experience and Aaron Wan-Bissaka is unmatched in terms of defensive actions, neither of them are quite as good overall as Trent Alexander Arnold or Reece James. In terms of these two fullbacks, Trent Alexander-Arnold's 0.22 xA per 90 is still extremely impressive considering it is a down year for him, and his 59.1% tackle success rate is surprisingly the highest of the four aforementioned right backs. Yet, whilst Trent leads all 4 right backs in terms of creation and defensive duel success, you cannot help but be drawn to Reece James' complete nature. In fact, he does not drop below the 60th percentile (for all defenders to have played 1000 Premier League minutes) for any of the above statistics. Moreover, considering that the centre backs we chose weren't the most athletic, the pace of Reece James is also a bonus, and for all of Trent's positives, his 18.2% aerial duel win rate and below average dribble numbers are worrying. Thus, Reece James gets the nod.

Centre back:

Again, this is a position where England have a few options, hence we have again decided to utilise a visualisation. This time we have created an radar diagram with details on the current top 4 likely centre backs - Harry Maguire, John Stones, Tyrone Mings and Michael Keane.

As per this visualisation, we can clearly see that Maguire is the most dominant duel wise, coming in the top 99th percentile of all players in the premier league with 1000+ minutes for Interceptions with 1.8 per90 minutes and a very strong aerial duel success rate of 76.4%. However, off past experience we know that his partner must be a more athletic centre back. Hence one of Mings or Stones would be required to cover the Man Utd captain's deficiencies. And with Stones not only do we have an athletic centre back, but we have an outstanding passer, unlike the relatively poor Mings. Stones is also in the top 99th percentile of all players in the premier league with 1000+ minutes for long ball completion % with 86.5% and matches Maguires decent 50% tackle success rate vs dribblers.

Midfield:

Whilst not one of England's more problematic areas, picking the midfield three does pose the seemingly ever-present issue of finding the perfect balance between defence and attack.

Utilising a beeswarm plot of all players in the premier league with 1000+ minutes, we have compared England's top 8 most likely midfield options - Jordan Henderson, Mason Mount, Kalvin Phillips, Declan Rice, Jack Grealish, Bukayo Saka, James Ward-Prowse and James Maddison.

In the above visualisation, the players are shown by their club kit colours and the size of their respective dot represents their number of England caps.

The first position to compare is the holding midfielder, where the 2 frontrunners are Declan Rice (claret dot with light blue edge) and Kalvin Phillips (white dot with blue edge). As shown by the beeswarm they both excel defensively, with comparatively high tackle + interception values. However, Kalvin Phillips does show a much higher ability to create chances, with a higher xA and more key passes per 90. In opposition to this statement however, Kalvin Phillips does predominantly create from set pieces and in fact, adjusted for open play only, Declan Rice actually boasts a higher key pass per 90 count (0.52 vs 0.44) and their xA from open play is identical at 0.04. Moreover, Rice is a much more able carrier of the ball as shown by having a superior successful dribbles per 90 value. Hence Rice gets the nod.

In the box-to-box midfield role, the competition is mainly between Jordan Henderson (red dot with gold edge), Mason Mount (blue dot with white edge), Bukayo Saka (red dot) and James Ward-Prowse (red dot with white edge). The favourite here must be Jordan Henderson. Not only is Henderson an excellent technician, bus as Declan Rice is less of a progressive passer than Kalvin Phillips, Henderson's excellent progressive passing figures are even more important. However, a player like Mason Mount provides excellent creative output - high key pass and xA numbers - whilst also being tireless defensively, surprisingly outperforming Henderson for tackles + interceptions per 90. And Hence, whilst Henderson gets the starting spot, Mount should be under serious consideration versus more weak opposition.

In the attacking midfield position Jack Grealish (claret dot) is the standout option, he is in the 99th percentile for key passes with 3.49 per 90 and boasts a phenomenal 0.37xA per 90. However, James Maddison's (blue dot and gold edge) 0.44 goals per 90 is miles ahead of any other midfield option. Even so, on top of his creativity and decent goalscoring, the sheer quality of Grealish on the ball, with almost 3 dribbles per 90, make him first choice.

Forwards:

Due to Grealish's inclusion in the midfield, the forward line picks itself. With Sancho being relatively unimpressive for England and players like Barnes, Calvert Lewin and Saka not yet completely established, the front 3 of Harry Kane, Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford should already be set in stone.

Final Team: Nick Pope, Reece James, John Stones, Harry Maguire, Luke Shaw, Declan Rice, Jordan Henderson, Jack Grealish, Raheem Sterling, Marcus Rashford, Harry Kane.