West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini is reportedly a big fan of Arthur Masuaku and was a key player in the Frenchman signing a new five-year contract.

The announcement was met with a mixed reaction from supporters with the vast majority saying that the 25-year-old simply cannot defend. Is this true or does Pellegrini see something that Hammers fans don’t? Let’s look at the numbers.

We all know that Masuaku’s strengths are going forward so this analysis will focus mostly on whether the left-back is a bad defender or not.

There are a few key metrics we can analyse, and I will be comparing them to two of the Premier League’s top performers at left-back last season: Liverpool’s Andy Robertson and Everton’s Lucas Digne.

First of all, let’s look at defensive duels. These are one-on-one battles with opponents. In a left back’s case, these are generally fought against the right-winger of the opponent.

In this area, Masuaku is pretty rock solid. He averaged 8.96 duels per 90 minutes last season for West Ham, according to Wyscout, winning 63%. That is only slightly lower than Robertson (66%) and Digne (66%).

Fullbacks can sometimes be let down by their lack of aerial prowess but the West Ham defender is pretty decent here too, winning 57% of his headers. Compared to Robertson (43%), he is comfortably superior in the air, although Digne is well in front, both in terms of winning aerial duels (63%) and the number he attempts per 90 minutes (4.27).

One area which is a serious issue for Masuaku, it seems, is tackling. According to the stats, the Frenchman did not win a single tackle last season, and the main reason for that is that he hardly tries to even make them.

He averaged just 0.12 tackles per 90 mins for West Ham last campaign, much lower than Robertson (0.28) and Digne (0.61). It’s a clear deficiency in his game.

In contrast, however, his average interceptions per 90 (6.23) is far higher than the Liverpool and Everton players so it’s clear he is very good at anticipating where a ball will be passed.

Of course, even with all these numbers, you can’t make a watertight case that Masuaku is a solid defender. You can’t measure his lack of positional awareness which could lead to goals being conceded, and it’s clear he has an aversion to tackling.

What, we can say, though, is that his underlying numbers are not necessarily bad. If he can cut out the mistakes and improve his concentration, there is a player in there who can do a job defensively.