Individual defensive stats, for the most part, are irrelevant

Recently when I was researching centre back prospects, I started to notice a trend.  It appeared that individualized defensive stats such as tackles, interceptions, clearances, and blocked shots had little relevance in regards to team defensive performance.  Though not completely irrelevant and in the very least a sign of hard work and involvement in a match, it just does not reflect on the scoresheet.

Ranking team defense ultimately comes down to goals allowed, four of the Prem clubs that finished the season in the top five last year, also finished in the top four in goals allowed.  Liverpool was the only top five club not to, they were 8th.  So the key is to figure out what stats are most important in goal prevention, but it's not that easy.  There should be a stats called 'turnover produced' and/or 'chance prevented', but what exactly would that entail and how would it be measured?

There are team stats that already exist that should carry more weight: shots conceded, possession, and passing are the most important in preventing chances for the opposition. These are better described as 'anti-attack' stats instead of defensive ones, but they still strive to accomplish the same objective. There are two interesting samples to discuss from last season's Prem, Man City, who won the league and was 2nd in least goals allowed, and Crystal Palace, who were far and away the best defensive-minded individuals thrown on the pitch falsely called 'a team'.

First, I set up a table taking the rank of each Prem club in each respective stat.  Those stats are goals allowed, non-error goals allowed, shots conceded, tackles, tackle %, clearances, interceptions, blocked shots, defensive errors, critical defensive errors, possession, and passing %.  I then broke that table down into two, one with only non-individual team stats and the other with just individual team stats.

Overall Table

Non-Individual Team Table

Individual Combined Table

Man City finished 7th on the overall table, 1st on non-individual team stats, and dead last (20th) on the individual combined table.  If that's not convincing enough for you, Crystal Palace tied with Chelsea for 1st on the overall table, was 16th on the non-individual table, and finished 1st by a mile on the individual combined table.  In fact, Palace had an avg rank of 2.86 on the ict, a full four points ahead of second place Hull and 11.71 average places higher than Man City.

Crystal Palace finished 11th in the table, scoring only 33 goals (2nd worst overall) and ranked dead last in both passing and possession.  Being that Tony Pulis is still their manager and they haven't brought in any significant attacking transfers, I don't see that changing much next season.  Meanwhile Man City lead the league in goals scored and was 2nd in both passing and possession.  Maybe the old adage 'the best defense is a good offense' rings true.