Albion Analytics: Lewis Dunk

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What do the numbers look like for the skipper, after he made his 400th appearance for Albion?

Liam Tharme

Albion Analytics

2023-03-02T09:00:00Z

Lewis Dunk made his 400th Albion appearance in the win over Stoke City on Tuesday night.

Lewis Dunk captained Albion to a 1-0 win away to Stoke on his 400th appearance for the club, becoming the tenth player in the club’s history to reach this landmark.

Since the start of the 2014-15 season, Dunk has hardly missed a kick. He missed just 19 of 138 games over three Championship campaigns, culminating in 43 of 46 appearances as Brighton earned promotion to the Premier League — he was part of the League One-winning squad in 2011 too.

The 31-year-old was an ever-present in Brighton’s debut Premier League season and has missed just 18 matches over six top-flight campaigns, starting every match this season. Brighton have a higher win percentage (28.4% v 16.7%) and clean sheet rate (26.8% v 16.6%) with Dunk in Premier League games compared to without him — 52 of Brighton’s 55 Premier League clean sheets have been with the one-cap England international on the pitch.

“I think he is one of the best centre-backs in the Premier League,” said Albion head coach Roberto De Zerbi in February. “I know well his potential, the standard of his performances.”

De Zerbi is the sixth different permanent head coach/manager that Dunk has played under, but it is the evolution in his game — adapting his style to that of the different head coaches — which deserves the most praise.

He has turned from box defender under Chris Hughton to ball-player under Graham Potter and now De Zerbi, but his ability to blend the two and adjust according to the game and opposition has always made him a valuable asset.

His clearances per game are now (2.59) less than half what Dunk averaged in his debut Premier League season (6.05 in 2017-18), where he ranked in the top ten defenders for total clearances (230) and had the most blocks (73) in the league. This season only Manchester City’s Rodri (2,159) has attempted more passes than Dunk (1,810).

Dunk’s pass accuracy has trended upwards from 77.8% in first Premier League season (2017-18) to 90% now (2022-23) under De Zerbi. That is also down to style and role, as Dunk is tasked with playing a higher volume of safer passes, with his per 90 total for passes attempted over double now (82) compared to 2017-18 (40).

But his long pass success is 12% higher than his debut Premier League season, and Dunk showed in the build-up at Stoke, splitting the defence for Kaoru Mitoma to create a tap-in for Evan Ferguson, that he has one of the best passing ranges of any centre-back. As a Premier League player, Dunk has passed the ball forward over the equivalent of 600 lengths of the Amex pitch.

This season, Dunk has completed and attempted (1,635/1,816) the most passes of any Brighton player in the Premier League, with only Joel Veltman (123) completing more passes into the final third than Dunk (106).

Ever the hybrid box defender-meets-ball-player, he sits second in the team charts for interceptions (23, behind Moises Caicedo’s 31) and has the most clearances (57) and aerial duels won (39). In each of his six Premier League seasons, Dunk has won the majority of his aerial duels, and in five of those campaigns (excluding this season, so far) the success rate has been over 60%.

95 of his 140 Premier League shots have been headed, with Dunk a consistent set-piece threat, scoring 12 times in the Premier League (8 headers). Only Virgil van Dijk (12) has more goals in the past five seasons than Dunk (11), by way of context.

Since September 2015, when such data was first available, SofaScore’s algorithm has given Dunk 25 different performances worth an 8 out of 10 or higher, testament to his repeated high-quality displays.

They rate Dunk’s best game as the 0-0 away draw to Norwich in October 2021, where he operated in the middle of a back three — he has played both sides of a two-man central defence, notably striking up a partnership with Shane Duffy, and has shown versatility in recent seasons to play across the line of a back three.

Dunk (93.8%) had the second-highest pass accuracy of any Brighton starter that day, completing all six of his long passes, while blocking three shots (most of any Brighton player), and recording four tackles plus interceptions and four clearances — a true all rounder.