“A different side with both”

Can two centre-backs make the difference between a team that wins one game in two and one that wins one in 13? Alavés’ season so far says they can.

With José Ramón and Facundo Ríos together, Alavés have played 20 games: 10 wins, four draws and six defeats. They have scored 1.2 goals a game and conceded 1.1. Without one of the pair, the return from 13 games is one win, three draws and nine defeats, with 0.9 scored and 2.5 conceded per match.

The contrast is not a rounding error. The centre-backs do not explain every result; the figures do, however, describe a team substantially more difficult to beat when they share the work at the back.

For a club whose previous defensive partnership was examined in April, the names have changed and the same useful question remains: what happens when one of the pair is absent? That earlier look concerned Facundo Ríos alongside Guillermo Alonso. This one puts José Ramón beside the Argentinian, who has been at Alavés since 2061, and finds a partnership with a clear advantage in the results.

José Ramón arrived from Middlesbrough on 30 June last year for £0.9m, after a career that had also taken him through Swansea City and A. Baleares. They are both 25, and the season’s comparison gives their partnership a firmer case than the usual talk of familiarity: half of their games together have ended in wins; without one of them, Alavés have won fewer than one in 12.

Neither player is entirely content at the club, but the numbers offer a professional sort of consolation.

The season is still being judged game by game. But, so far, the partnership has made the arithmetic unusually plain: Alavés are a strong side by comparison when these two centre-backs play together, and a struggling one when they do not. One win in 13 is a difficult argument to dress up. Half of 20 is rather easier.