Lincoln City Midfield Question: Which Partnership Is Best?

Central midfield has become one of the more awkward parts of Lincoln City’s team to pick in recent weeks, and three very different results have done little to settle the argument.

We’ve had the Burnley high, the Birmingham disappointment and the frustration at Watford, with a different partner alongside Yunus Konak in each game. Conor McGrandles was alongside him against Burnley, Ivan Varfolomeev against Birmingham and Tom Bayliss at Watford. McGrandles’ dismissal against West Ham had already interrupted his season, and our last two matches have been played without him through injury.

Some of the changes have been forced, but even with everyone available, there is a proper discussion to be had about who gives us the best balance.

A settled pair would certainly remove something from the weekly list of things to worry about. Unfortunately, the numbers haven’t obligingly put two names at the top of every column. What they show is four players with different strengths, and weaknesses that become particularly relevant when we’re asking two of them to work together.

McGrandles has had considerably more football than the others, so comparing raw totals would give him a fairly generous head start. The tables below use per-90 figures, except where marked as totals, with percentages showing success rates. That gives us a useful comparison, although it cannot make different opponents, formations and match situations identical.

For me, the starting point is whether the midfield gives us a platform to compete. We need to win enough of the contests, collect enough of the loose balls and stop the opposition coming straight back at us. Konak makes a particularly strong case on that side of the job.

He gets involved in more duels than the other three and wins a greater proportion of them, which is a useful combination. We’re getting around ten won duels per 90 from him, approximately twice Bayliss’ return. These are all duels, rather than a separate count of defensive tackles, but the difference is still substantial.

The aerial figures strengthen that impression. Konak has won 20 of 26 contests, and against Burnley he added nine interceptions while winning 11 of his 14 duels overall. That’s the sort of contribution that can help us establish a foothold in midfield.

However, McGrandles is virtually level with him for recoveries. The difference between 11.72 and 11.69 per 90 is certainly too small to get worked up about, and McGrandles also collects slightly more in the opposition half. There is plenty of work going on there, even if Konak is winning more of the direct contests.

McGrandles’ value includes being in a position to gather possession again, and the numbers give him a strong argument on that front. Varfolomeev also wins more duels per 90 than McGrandles, so Konak isn’t the only player offering a substantial contribution in those contests.

Bayliss’ defensive volume is lower across the main measures. That has to be part of the selection debate, alongside the positioning and tracking that a table like this doesn’t capture. The strongest argument for Tom Bayliss to play starts to emerge when we look at what happens after we’ve won the ball.

Getting possession back is only part of the job if the next pass gives it away again. Bayliss has the best overall completion rate, although the gap between his 81.3% and McGrandles’ 80.8% is hardly enormous. The more interesting difference is in the forward passes, where Bayliss completes 70.2% and also produces the highest number of successful ones per 90.

His recorded losses in our own half are also roughly half the rate of the other three. That isn’t a guarantee that he’ll always look after the ball, and it doesn’t account for every touch or the pressure a player is under. It does suggest he can bring some security to a midfield that still needs to get us up the pitch.

Preston is a good example of what that can look like. In his 58 minutes, Bayliss completed 29 of 33 passes, including ten of 11 forward passes and all five into the final third. He also won four of five duels, so there was a useful defensive contribution to go with the passing.

We haven’t had that balance from him every time. At Sheffield United he won only four of 12 duels and recorded no shots or expected assists. McGrandles, meanwhile, completed 36 of 39 passes in his 63 minutes there, including 12 of 14 forward passes. A 3-0 defeat contained some very different individual returns, which is worth remembering when the final score threatens to become the verdict on everyone.

McGrandles also has a clear advantage when we need an accurate longer pass. He has completed 22 of 32, compared with Konak’s six from 22, and leads both the success rate and completed volume. When we want to move the ball over a greater distance, that is a useful quality to have in the middle.

He receives more passes than the others too, suggesting greater involvement as an option for teammates. It doesn’t tell us how often he was available without being found, but it adds another part to his contribution. There is a case for McGrandles that goes beyond simply being the player who has played the most.

Konak’s passing is more complicated than his poor long-ball percentage might suggest. He completes the most passes into the final third and finds a teammate with 75% of those attempts. He can help us advance the ball, even if those passes have rarely become the final delivery before a shot.

Watford showed the other side of it. He completed only 20 of 30 passes, with five of 12 forward passes and one of six long passes finding their target. He still made 13 recoveries and won all five aerial duels, but the gap between winning possession and using it effectively was much clearer than it had been against Burnley.

Varfolomeev has the most obvious work to do on this part of his game. His forward-pass accuracy is below 50%, his overall completion rate is the lowest and his recorded losses are the highest. Those feel like weaknesses the eye test doesn’t pick out, especially when we’re trying to relieve pressure and sustain an attack, but they sit alongside something that makes his case rather more interesting.

Varfolomeev has produced the highest expected-assist value of the four, despite those struggles with his passing generally. His total of 1.71 xA is comfortably ahead of Bayliss’ 0.79. There have been valuable creative moments within performances that haven’t always been tidy, which is why I wouldn’t dismiss what he offers.

We do need to keep the scale of it sensible. Some 0.70 of that total came against Southampton, so one match accounts for a sizeable chunk, and his encouraging dribbling return amounts to six successes from seven attempts. A few moments can make a substantial difference at this stage, but those moments still count.

Birmingham gives us a good example of the upside and the frustration together. Varfolomeev completed 23 of 28 passes, won eight of ten duels and produced 0.35 xA, while also recording seven losses in his own half. Against Portsmouth, his return was much weaker: three wins from nine duels and 11 recorded losses in 69 minutes. Getting more of the Birmingham strengths, while cutting down those own-half losses, would strengthen his argument for a place.

Bayliss is the one who has offered the most shooting threat, as well as scoring the only goal among the four. Even then, his total is only 0.44 xG. Across the group we’re looking at one goal from 18 shots and 1.14 xG, so there isn’t evidence here of a midfield repeatedly getting into great scoring positions and wasting the chances.

How much licence the chosen pair have to get forward is part of that discussion. Their responsibilities behind the ball affect what they can offer around the opposition box, and zero assists across the group doesn’t describe all of their contributions. McGrandles can help through his distribution and recovery work without delivering the final pass, just as Konak can move us into the final third without creating the shot himself.

On these individual figures, I can see the appeal of Konak and Bayliss together, even if last night doesn’t underline the argument. Konak gives us the strongest return in the contests, while Bayliss has the best combination of forward passing and ball security. That looks a plausible balance, particularly when we’re trying to turn hard-earned possession into something useful.

McGrandles’ recovery work and longer passing make him a strong alternative, while Varfolomeev brings creativity that would be easy to overlook if we stopped at his completion percentage. The figures tell us what each has produced in his particular minutes; they don’t establish which partnership works best. We’ve seen enough changes recently to make that distinction worth holding on to.

The decision comes back to what we need from the pair in a particular game. We need to think about how their qualities fit together, what the opposition will ask of them and which weaknesses the rest of the side can cover. A midfield that looks balanced on a spreadsheet still has to make sense on the pitch.