Liam Doyle, 25, was born on the Isle of Man. If you aren’t familiar with the Isle of Man, I’d like to start by pointing out the women live there, too. With that out of the way, the Isle of Man is a British Crown dependency (essentially a British version of Guam) that lies in the Irish Sea between Northwest England and Northern Ireland. The Isle of Man is famous amongst motor-sport enthusiasts for the Isle of Man TT, which is an annual motorcycle time trial race held on public roads on the Isle. Doyle began his soccer career in the youth system of St Marys AFC, which plays in the Isle of Man Football League. But, presumably to get away from the noise of those pesky motorcycles (chill out, motorcyclists; it’s a joke, and I am a motorcyclist myself), Doyle decided to come to the States to play college soccer.

In 2012, Doyle began attending Cincinnati State Technical and Community College. He would stay at Cincy State for two seasons before transferring to Ohio State University for his junior and senior seasons. At Cincinnati State, Doyle scored 21 goals and contributed to 23 others in 39 apps. At OSU, Doyle started in every game during both seasons at center back, scoring seven times for the Buckeyes. In January of 2016, Doyle was selected by DC United in the MLS SuperDraft, but ended up not being signed, and so went to play for the Harrisburg City Islanders in the USL. With Harrisburg City, Doyle appeared in 29 matches and recorded one assist. At the end of the 2016 season, Doyle moved to the Swope Park Rangers, making 18 apps as a center back, scoring twice. On 14 December 2017, Doyle signed with Nashville SC, as part of a group of signings including fellow defender Bradley Bourgeios, midfielder Ryan James, and forward Tucker Hume.

Liam’s size gives you an idea of his qualities. At 6’4″, 200 lbs, he is aggressive and dominant in the air. He offers a calmness on the ball with good distribution out of the backline. With his trademark left foot, he can be an unlikely source for starting attacks. -Coach Gary Smith

One would expect someone who is 6’4″ to win plenty of headers while in his own box, and perhaps contribute to some goals off corner kicks. But that’s not everything a center back is required to do, and that is where I expect Doyle to line up when the season arrives. Center backs need to: get the ball away from danger, keep the ball from being passed into danger, dispossess attackers, be able to hold their own in instances where they’re all alone against an attack, prevent shots from going in the net, keep possession, and be able to contribute to an attack. How does Doyle stack up? I’ll be getting all this from Doyle’s 2017 stats, as they are the most reliable in terms of accuracy. What we want to see from these stats are: high number of clearances per 90 minutes, high number of successful tackles, high percentages of duels and aerial duels won, high pass success percentage, and huge pass success percentage in his own half.

Let’s start with clearances: in 2017, Doyle made 55 of them. In 1598 minutes played in 2017, Doyle made 55 clearances, which works out to about 3.1 clearances per 90 minutes played. Wow, that is impressive, but what about when balls are passed into danger? Well, Doyle intercepted 13 passes in 18 games last season. Of 11 tackles attempted, Doyle succeeded on 8. When left alone with an attacker, Doyle won 58.4% of ground duels, and 61.3% of aerial duels. After winning the ball, Doyle completed 1045 passes out of 1208 total attempted, for a rate of about 58.85 successful passes per 90 minutes played. And when passing in his own half, Doyle’s passing accuracy was 96.2%. Doyle’s clearances and successful passes per 90 minutes are great statistics to point out as to why Smith and the FO brought Doyle to Music City. One would expect, that as he is 6’4″ tall, he would win a significant amount of aerial duels, and he wins over 60% of them. In his 18 apps, he helped keep 7 clean sheets, and he (and the rest of the defense) only allowed 17 goals. In the 14 matches he did not make an appearance, the defense allowed 19 goals. I think if I had to only point to one stat about Liam Doyle that would convince someone of his potential, it would be that one. In 4 more matches, Swope Park allowed less goals with Doyle than without. Let that sink in. In addition to his defensive skills, Doyle is also a set piece or corner threat. He scored two goals in 2017.

While that’s sinking in, let’s see one of his goals (fast forward to the 2:40 minute mark to see Doyle’s goal):

It’s a good header off a corner. One should expect to see that this year for Nashville. At 6’4″, he could easily get over the top of his marker and nod one in. He is also a good penalty taker, as you can see in this video (you can also see that trademark left foot Coach Smith was talking about):