Harry Souttar is a 21-year old Scottish-born Australian international centre-back who is currently taking his first steps in Championship football at Stoke City.
Signed from Dundee United back in 2016, Souttar has taken the long route to the Stoke first team, making just two appearances for the club in the EFL Cup before the start of this season. Loan spells at Ross County and Fleetwood Town have helped to ensure the highly-rated defender’s progress hasn’t stalled.
Souttar was brilliant on loan at Fleetwood in League One last season, helping Joey Barton’s side to reach the play-offs. He was third for most clearances per 90 of anyone in League One, averaged an impressive 1.1 average interceptions per 90 and no one in the third tier averaged more than his 0.9 blocks per 90.
Standing at 6 foot 6, it is no surprise that Souttar is very good in the air – he has won an impressive 83% of his aerial duels so far this season – but that should not overshadow other aspects of his defending.
On his Championship debut against Preston, Souttar made one tackle, one interception and an impressive 11 clearances as Stoke made the most of an early Tom Barkhuizen red card to win 1-0.
In all three games that Souttar has played this season in the Championship – against Preston, Birmingham and Luton – Stoke have limited their opponents to an expected Goals of less than one, in the game before he came into the team, a defeat to Bristol City, Stoke’s expected Goals against was almost two.
Whilst this is not only down to Souttar, he has clearly played a key role in helping the Potters tighten up their defence as a part of the back three introduced by Michael O’Neill.
Of course a ‘modern’ centre-back has to be more than just a defender, they have to be comfortable in possession as well. So far this season Stoke have averaged 54.5% of possession across their five games (the second highest average in the Championship), whilst it is still too early to suggest that they are a possession heavy side, Souttar will need to be good with the ball at his feet if the trend continues.
In League One last season, Rob Dickie of Oxford was probably the standout ball-playing defender – helping him to make a £2.7 million move to QPR in the recent transfer window. The graph below shows how Souttar matches up in key areas compared to Dickie.
As you can see, Dickie outperformed Souttar in terms of interceptions and key passes but Souttar held his own in terms of tackles, and even made more blocks and clearances than the former Oxford man on average. However a key statistic that was heavily in Dickie’s favour was pass completion percentage. Across the season, Dickie averaged 80.4% whilst Souttar averaged only 68%.
Souttar has a pass completion percentage of 74.1% so far this season, which is obvioulsy an improvement, but this is still significantly lower than the numbers being put up by the Championship’s best ball-playing centre-backs.
Whilst there are areas where Souttar can improve his game, it is clear that he has made a very impressive start to life at the heart of the Stoke defence and if he can continue to keep playing as he is, Stoke’s defensive record should be much better than it’s been over the previous two campaigns.
Michael O’Neill has often preferred to work with more senior professionals during his time with both Northern Ireland and in his time at Stoke so far, but with Souttar and fellow centre-back Nathan Collins (19) playing so well against Luton on Saturday, it suggests that trusting in youth could be the key to the Potters returning to the Premier League.
Dan Evans 