With Kyle Walker-Peters completing his move to Southampton and Serge Aurier continuing to be linked with an AC Milan switch, it hardly feels like a stretch to say Tottenham Hotspur will be in the market for a new right-back this summer.
One name linked with the club is Zeki Celik, a 23-year-old Turkish international who has spent the last two seasons at Lille.
We’ve taken a look at his stats to provide a better idea of the kind of player Spurs would be getting, and to get a feel for whether his numbers alone mark him out as the kind of footballer who would fit into a Jose Mourinho team.
In the 2019/20 season, Aurier’s 98 tackles (all stats via StatsBomb data at FBref.com ) left him in the top 10 in the Premier League, suggesting he was still required to do the hard work in his own half of the pitch even when contributing in the final third.
Celik is relatively high in the Ligue 1 rankings, with 65 tackles attempted in the curtailed 2019/20 campaign enough to place him just inside the league’s top 20, while the 92 attempted the previous year - his last full season - was good enough for a top 10 spot.
While he has had the extremely attack-minded Nicolas Pepe in front of him in 2018/19, with the Ivorian’s hunger for goals reflected in his own goal and assists numbers, that’s not been the case this time around.
A number of different players have slotted in on the right of Christophe Galtier’s midfield, including the forward-looking Jonathan Ikone but also Renato Sanches - a player whose instinct might be expected to guarantee the right-back a little more protection.
This variety arguably bodes well for Celik, with Mourinho prone to rotate between the likes of Lucas Moura and Erik Lamela, two players who offer something very different.
When it comes to players’ attacking contributions, Mourinho still likes his full-backs - or at least one of them - to do something productive.
Aurier averaged 1.60 shot-creating actions per 90 minutes last season, more than other nominally ‘attacking’ full-backs such as Max Aarons and Aaron Cresswell, and just below the 1.67 posted by Antonio Valencia during Mourinho’s last full season as Manchester United manager.
Celik’s return has been a bit lower this season, at 1.30 per 90, but he was up at 2.06 in 2018/19, putting him comfortably ahead of former Premier League men Fabio and Mathieu Debuchy. On average, during that season, he was even making more shot-creating actions than Radamel Falcao and Edinson Cavani, though naturally, the pair were often the ones on the end of such chances where their teams were concerned.
Still, the numbers point to a defender who isn’t just adept at getting forward in support of the attacking players in his team, but also using the ball sensibly when he is there.
Celik is still young, of course, and his ability to produce this kind of football in his first spell outside Turkey looks promising.
One of the main question marks might concern Mourinho’s preference for Premier League experience in some of his signings, though this is not a hard and fast rule for the manager.
Additionally, a new right-back is unlikely to represent the only piece of business conducted by Spurs, who have already added Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg to their squad this summer, and much will depend on the other ways (if any) in which Mourinho aims to bolster his squad.
Nonetheless, the Turkey defender’s adaptability to a fluid Lille squad, and his ability to contribute at both ends of the pitch, marks him out as the kind of full-back who could well have a role to play in a Mourinho squad, especially given the identity of the other players at Tottenham’s disposal.
