Sir Alex Ferguson might not be the most popular person with supporters of Liverpool and Manchester City, but they will certainly see something in one of his famous soundbites.
"Attack wins you games, defence wins you titles,” he once said, and even though his claim hasn’t been proven correct as often as you might assume, Kopites and City fans have seen the benefits of a strong backline in recent years.
For Pep Guardiola’s side, summer signing Ruben Dias has been a revelation this season, and has helped City to tighten up their defence and win the 2020/21 title.
But has he actually made that much difference? The Citizens conceded 35 goals last season and have let in 32 with one match to play in this campaign. They have the joint-most clean sheets in the top flight this season, but their total of 18 is only an improvement of one upon their efforts from 2019/20.
Seven of this season’s tally of goals against have come in the last three matches though, with City cruising towards the end of their domestic campaign while waiting for the Champions League final.
And Dias has certainly done enough to impress the media, as he was announced as the Football Writers’ Association’s Footballer Of The Year for 2020/21 on Thursday.
He became the first defender to win the award since Liverpool’s Steve Nicol was the recipient of the prize way back in 1989 and he finished comfortably ahead of Harry Kane and Kevin De Bruyne in the voting.
“Pep Guardiola improves players, shapes them but at no point, has a new signing arrived into one of Pep’s already trophy-laden teams and exerted such influence,” wrote FWA chair Carrie Brown in the statement proclaiming Dias’ coronation.
“Dias has demanded the highest standards which have resulted in the swiftest of upturns in fortune not solely for Dias himself, but team-mates to his left, right, front and centre,” she added.
It reads familiarly, doesn’t it? Switch the manager for Jurgen Klopp and the player for Virgil van Dijk, and you could be reading a comment on the immediate improvement which the Dutchman made to the Reds’ defence when he joined in 2018.
And while it’s a cliché to deem a player recovering from a long-term injury to be the equivalent of a new signing, after what Liverpool have had to deal with in the centre of their defence in 2020/21 it will ring a little truer when van Dijk, Joe Gomez and Joel Matip return to duty next season.
City will finish the season with the best defensive record in the Premier League, unless Everton shock the world and run riot at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday.
That will mean the meanest defence has won the league in three of the last four seasons, with the exception – unfortunately for Liverpool – being 2018/19 when Manchester City missed the fewest goals conceded accolade by one.
With no managerial upheaval expected at the top clubs this summer, there is no reason to think things will be any different in 2021/22.
Guardiola and Klopp aren’t going to completely tear up their teams’ tactical plans, while Chelsea have conceded by far the fewest goals in the Premier League since Thomas Tuchel was appointed in the winter.
The battle to be the best team in the land may be driven by which team has the best defence yet again, and that may indirectly come down to a scrap between the newly crowned FWA player of the year and his PFA counterpart from 2019/20.
Whomever out of Dias and van Dijk has the better season next term has a good chance of claiming the individual trophies when they’re handed out in 12 months’ time, and by extension their teams will be more likely to become champions. It certainly seems unlikely we’ll have to wait another 32 years before a defender wins the FWA award again.
Prizes for individual players in a team sport might seem a little odd at times, but don’t dismiss them too readily. We could be about to witness a titanic tussle between the best two centre-backs in the country for the 2021/22 prizes, and in turn the league title.
