Fans Comment
Mark Langley

What is Everton’s best centre-back partnership?
22 March 2006

David Weir: Defensive king-pin?

Talk in the ToffeeWeb Mailbag has seemed to switch slightly, in recent days, from David Moyes to which centre-back partnership should we employ.  As always, being ToffeeWeb’s resident statto, I’ll provide you with some stats – but will these add more fuel to this fire?

The following list provides our centre-back partnerships between the three being talked about at the moment – Weir, Stubbs and Yobo.  I haven’t included Ferrari simply because he hasn’t played that many games as well as looking as though he won’t be here next season either.  Just a quick word before we get into the stats.  I have not included games where the partnerships were part of a 3-5-2 formation, just plain 4-4-2 or 4-5-1, and this includes all competitions.  Also, before anyone says anything, I am not saying that these stats provide a definitive answer, of course they don’t — I’m just trying to add another view to this debate!

Win% (determined by the number of wins as a percentage of matches played)

• Weir and Stubbs = 43.02% (37 wins in 86 matches)
• Weir and Yobo = 31.82% (14 in 44)
• Stubbs and Yobo = 47.06% (16 in 34)

Unbeaten% (determined by the number of wins and draws as a percentage of matches played)

• Weir and Stubbs = 69.77% (37 wins and 23 draws in 86 matches)
• Weir and Yobo = 45.45% (14 wins and 6 draws in 44 matches)
• Stubbs and Yobo = 61.76% (16 wins and 5 draws in 34 matches)

Goals Conceded per Game

• Weir and Stubbs = 1.19 (102 in 86 matches)
• Weir and Yobo = 1.50 (66 in 44 matches)
• Stubbs and Yobo = 1.38 (47 in 34 matches)

From a purely statistical point of view, it would appear that Stubbs and Weir together just shades Stubbs and Yobo together, with Yobo and Weir coming in a distant third.

Personally, I would prefer Stubbs and Yobo over Stubbs and Weir, simply due to the fact that Yobo’s pace could help make up Stubbs’ lack of it. And to think that I was one of the many who shook their head when I heard that we had re-signed Stubbs.  Maybe Davey knows what he is doing after all!

Steve Flanagan

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