العربيةSeason2025/262026 · this seasonAll seasons
Building the full report
Combining every season — this one is larger, give it a moment.
Vision AI ← BACK TO SEARCH
Player reportPremier League 2025/26

Kristoffer Ajer

Brentford
Stopper centre-back CB
17.0 defensive actions/90 · 2.6 progressive/90 — defends first
Capability Analysis
Aerial & Box Defending34%vs 50 centre-backs
"Can he win the individual defensive battle in his own box?"
Aerial duels won /900.00%
Aerial win rate: 0.0%
Clearances /905.8268%
Ball-Winning52%vs 50 centre-backs
"How actively does he win the ball back?"
Interceptions /901.048%
Ball recoveries /902.7926%
Tackles /901.5670%
Duels won /902.8366%
Breaking Pressure49%vs 45 centre-backs
"Can he retain and progress the ball while his own team is being pressed?"
Retention under pressure85.0%73%
Progressive passes while pressed933%
Line-breaking passes while pressed00%
Progressive carries while pressed1351%
Threat added while pressed (xT)2.9xT89%
Progression19%vs 50 centre-backs
"Can he move the team forward with a pass, not just recycle it sideways?"
Progressive passes /902.3320%
Line-breaking passes /900.5324%
Threat added by passing /900.62xT10%
Pass accuracy80.87%22%
Ball-Carrying34%vs 50 centre-backs
"Does he advance the ball himself when the pass isn't on?"
Progressive carries /903.9332%
Carry distance /90102.14m36%
centre-backstopper centre-backbuild-upline-breaking
2705
minutes
35 apps
1061
passes
81% completed
81%
pass completion
1061 passes
79
progressive passes
2.6/90
116
line-breaking passes
3.9/90
511
defensive actions
17.0/90
77
tackles + interceptions
60% tackle win
175
clearances
5.8/90
Overview

The player

Who he is and how he compares with his peers.

01

What Patterns Define Him?

His repeatable signature. A step only appears if its reliability score (sample size × match coverage) reaches at least Medium confidence — pattern mining, not anecdotes.

RECEIVE
in the first line of build-up — mostly in the middle third (48% of his 1061 passes)
81% completion · 1061× in 35/35 matches
↓
CARRY OUT
step into midfield to commit a presser
16 carries · 32× in 10/35 matches
↓
BREAK A LINE
vertical pass past the opponent midfield
2.6 prog/90 · 116× in 32/35 matches
↓
SWITCH PLAY
diagonal to the far side
cross-field balls · 20× in 13/35 matches
↓
PROGRESS
entries into the final third
1.8/90 · 55× in 25/35 matches
Signature: receive in the first line → break the midfield line vertically → switch or progress. Press him early and shut the vertical lane to force the safe sideways ball.
18

Where is he influential — vs where is he merely present?

Red fill = raw touch territory. Gold rings = zones where his influence (xT added, progression, line-breaks, key passes) outweighs how often he's actually there — one combined map instead of two separate maps to compare by eye. Red with no ring: present but not dangerous. A ring on faint red: rare touches, outsized impact.

own goal left, attacking →
30
passes / match
17.0
def actions / 90
2–65
pass range (matches)
175
clearances
Pass range = his fewest and most passes in any single match this season (2 at the low end, 65 at the high) — a measure of match-to-match involvement, not pass distance.
In possession

In possession

What he does with the ball: build-up, progression, creation, carrying and finishing.

10

How dangerous are his carries?

Real ball-carries

273 tracked carries (9.1/90, 78 progressive, 2930m total) — the ball moving with his touches, a different signal from dribbles below (beating an opponent 1v1). even a player who rarely dribbles past a man can still carry the ball forward constantly in build-up; this is that.

7%10%14%5%0%0%6%15%13%3%0%4%11%7%4%1%1%
progressivelateral/short% of his 273 carries originating in each zone · own goal left, attacking →
Every carry, exact path — median 7m, longest 50m
By zone — where the carry started → where it ended
27Outside → Inside
166Inside → Inside
55Outside → Outside
25Inside → Outside
First (99)Second (72)Third (63)Fourth (39)grouped by carry pattern (start + end position), largest group first
startendown goal left, attacking →

Beaten in the tackle

How often an attacker gets past him in a 1v1 defensive duel — the closest signal the data has to "dribbled past" (no attacker-beat-defender field exists directly, so this counts tackles he attempted and lost).

47
tackle duels
28
won
19
beaten · 40%
brighter band = more tackle duels · own goal left, attacking →
INSIDE 49%
OUTSIDE 51%
Tackle-duel location — 23 inside · 24 outside
Right Wing
6 · 13%
Right Half-Space
10 · 21%
Central
7 · 15%
Left Half-Space
6 · 13%
Left Wing
18 · 38%
Vision AI beaten in 19 of 47 tackle duels (40% loss rate) — a real defensive leak worth flagging.
Every tackle duel, exact location
wonlost — dribbled pastown goal left, attacking →

Dribbles (1v1s)

For a centre-back the carry is a build-up weapon — does he step out through the middle, or keep it simple? Every carry classified by channel. Season rate: 0.53 dribbles attempted /90.

brighter band = more dribbles · own goal left, attacking →
INSIDE 62%
OUTSIDE 38%
Dribble location — 10 inside · 6 outside
Right Wing
1 · 6%
Right Half-Space
0 · 0%
Central
3 · 19%
Left Half-Space
7 · 44%
Left Wing
5 · 31%
Vision AI 62% of his carries are central — he steps out through the middle to draw a presser before releasing.
02

How does he build & move the ball?

How does he escape the first line?

10%
vertical passes
66×
2%
switches
15×
35%
carries
234×
53%
short circulation
356×
Answer: he escapes the press primarily through carrying — stepping out with the ball.

How he moves the ball — his 4 busiest progression routes, not where every pass starts and ends separately. Arrow width = how often, colour = xT gained, dashed = switch of play. The full breakdown is in the lane matrix below.

own goal left, attacking →
Lane transition matrix — when he receives in a lane, where does it go?
TO →RWRHSCLHSLWRW12349%6033%4118%22RHS25632%8218%4740%1029%240%1C2289%2016%3641%9428%637%15LHS1321%15%730%4028%3736%47LW1191%14%538%4557%68FROM
Rows normalised: each row sums to 100% of that lane's completed passes. Grey number = passes from that lane.

Primary route: the left wing in the middle third → the left wing in the middle third — 6 progressive passes (9% of his progression) at 0.030 xT each. He keeps it in the same lane.

His progression is inward: 49% of progressive passes move the ball toward the middle versus 7% going wider — he cuts in rather than holding width.

Only 6% of his passes switch play, so his threat is same-side — contain the flank he occupies and the route closes.

Quality behind the volume: 16 line-breaking passes and 55 final-third entries, 12.5 total xT added.

Origin and destination are measured on the same event row — no receiver inference. Receiver identity is not recoverable from this data source.
All passes — origin zone share
Filter: from to
5%11%11%7%2%1%4%13%11%3%1%1%3%9%9%6%1%2%
completedincomplete1061 passes · any zone → any zone · own goal left, attacking →
1061
passes
81%
completed
203
lost
Vision AIIn line with his 81% season completion rate.
03

How does he progress play?

How much he drives the ball forward. Progressive = completed pass advancing ≥15 toward goal.

79
progressive · 2.6/90
55
final-third entries · 1.8/90
7
box entries · 0.23/90
12
progression index /90
Progression index: one composite number — progressive passes + progressive carries + 2% of total distance progressed + 8× positive xT added, all per 90. Weights VOLUME and THREAT together rather than counting progressive actions alone.
13

How does he create chances?

6 key passes (0.20/90), 0 of them assists — where his chance creation specifically comes from, 18 zones (6×3), showing his share of key passes originating there.

Chance creation — key pass origin zone share
Filter:
17%50%33%
chance creation (6)assist (0)% of the selected group's key passes originating in each zone
06

Where does he become vulnerable?

215 times he gave the ball away. For a defender the danger is where — a loss in his own third can turn into a chance against; higher up it costs little.

50
attacking third (cheap)
93
middle third
72
own third (dangerous)
Vision AI 23% of losses are in the attacking third — a notable share happen deeper, which invites transitions.
Mistake danger (proxy): 2.98 danger-index/90 · 0.417 avg/turnover. Weights each loss by threat conceded at that location. True xT-conceded needs the opponent possession model; positional proxy.
05

What is his passing profile?

1061
passes attempted
51%
mostly forward
48%
mostly short
Direction
Forward
536 · 51%
Sideways
335 · 32%
Backward
190 · 18%
Length (completed)
Short (<15m)
412 · 48%
Medium
407 · 47%
Long (>30m)
39 · 5%
07

Preferred Progression Routes — xT-weighted

His progressive passes as zone→zone routes, weighted by expected threat (xT) added — arrow width and the number are the total xT generated on each route, not just how often he plays it. This is where he actually moves the needle.

0.630.570.450.390.390.37
own goal left, attacking →
Highest-value routes (xT)
0.63
Right Half-Space Mid third → Right Half-Space Att third
2 passes
0.57
Right Wing Mid third → Right Wing Att third
4 passes
0.45
Right Wing Def third → Right Half-Space Att third
1 passes
0.39
Right Wing Mid third → Right Half-Space Att third
2 passes
0.39
Left Half-Space Mid third → Left Half-Space Att third
2 passes
0.37
Left Wing Mid third → Left Half-Space Att third
2 passes
08

Where Does He Receive?

The zones where Kristoffer Ajer gets on the ball — his top three ball-collection areas highlighted (gold = primary). Reception is proxied by where his on-ball actions begin (no explicit receiver is recorded).

123
1 = primary, 2 = secondary, 3 = third · own goal left, attacking →
His collection zones
14%
Primary
Right Half-Space, Defensive third
12%
Secondary
Central, Defensive third
12%
Third
Right Half-Space, Middle third
These are the zones where he collected the ball most.
09

Where Does He Operate? — Every Zone

Every on-ball touch (pass, dribble, shot) binned into a 6×3 grid — raw counts of where Kristoffer Ajer actually gets on the ball. Hover any zone for its breakdown by action type, its share of all touches, and the exact coordinate range it covers.

Filter:
3595926418213913811935142348119117772413
own goal left, attacking → · brighter + higher number = more touches

Passes only — completed vs incomplete, by zone

Same zone grid, restricted to passes so completed/incomplete and match filters actually mean something — a shot or a dribble has no "completed" in the pass sense.

5%11%11%7%2%1%4%13%11%3%1%1%3%9%9%6%1%2%
own goal left, attacking →
11

Every Pass This Season — completed vs incomplete

Every pass this season, plotted individually — green = completed, grey (dashed) = incomplete, gold = key pass. Filter by outcome or isolate one match below.

6Key pass
5Cross
12Cutback
79Progressive
116Long ball
20Switch
By zone — where the pass started → where it landed
114Outside → Inside
450Inside → Inside
128Outside → Outside
166Inside → Outside
By direction
536Forward
190Backward
335Sideways
own goal left, attacking →
04

Tactical patterns — how his football actually looks

Three clustered sequence diagrams from his own event data — his three busiest routes: the way he progresses, the pattern behind his chances, and where a turnover turns dangerous.

own goal left, attacking →
How does he progress the ball forward?
His most common route for progressing play: he plays straight through the right hs, advancing it forward in the middle third — 2 passes worth 0.63 xT.
Where do his chances come from?
Of 6 key passes, his busiest route is a delivery where he plays straight through the central in the final third — 3 times. The receiver isn't identifiable in this data, only where the pass started and ended.
Where does he lose the ball most?
This is a RATE, not a raw count — the share of his touches in each zone that end in a turnover, so a zone he simply plays in more often doesn't automatically look riskier. His weakest zone is the right half-space in the final third: 55% of his 20 touches there are lost (11 times).
32%14/44 lost11%16/150 lost7%9/132 lost15%12/79 lost32%19/59 lost11%10/93 lost15%20/133 lost16%19/116 lost19%13/67 lost30%29/98 lost47%9/19 lost55%11/20 lost53%9/17 lost50%11/22 lost17%2/12 lostRWRHSCLHSLWDEFMIDATT
12

Crosses & Cutbacks

5 crosses (0.17/90, 1 completed) and 12 cutbacks (0.40/90, 3 completed) — two separate wide-delivery patterns into the box, each its own map with a completed/failed filter. Neither is a tagged event, so both are inferred from pass geometry — the intended end point of a failed attempt is still real data (an interception doesn’t erase where the ball was aimed): a cross is a pass aimed into the box starting from a wide channel; a cutback starts almost on the byline but is squared back rather than driven forward, aimed centrally around the box. The completed-cross count was checked against this platform’s own real match-level cross totals and lands within about 1 cross of the true count.

Crosses — close-up on the final third
Cutbacks — close-up on the final third
completedfailed (dashed)close-up on the box — attacking ↑ toward goal
Out of possession

Out of possession

Where and how he defends and presses.

14

How & where does he defend?

511 defensive actions across the season (17.0/90). Where he wins the ball, and how — the core question for a defender. Aerial duels are not recorded for this competition, so aerial dominance is not measured here.

click a card to isolate that action type · own goal left, attacking →
47
tackles · 60% won
30
interceptions · 1.0/90
84
recoveries · 2.8/90
175
clearances · 5.8/90
10
blocks
32
avg action height
55
won high (att 3rd)
129
middle third
327
own third
Vision AI A deep-defending defender. He wins the ball mainly by clearing and blocking — a reactive, protect-the-box profile. 161 proactive ball-wins (5.4/90), tackle success 60%. He defends mostly around the middle third.
15

Can he play under pressure?

Split by how hard the opponent pressed (opponent PPDA — lower = more intense press). Can Kristoffer Ajer still play out when the opponent presses high? His build-up quality split by press intensity — the key question for a ball-playing defender. Tiers of ~11-13 matches — directional evidence, not proof.

press tier
completion
prog /90
line-breaks /90
xT /90
High press (PPDA 3.6, 11m)
81%
2.8
3.3
0.59
Mid press (PPDA 4.6, 11m)
82%
1.5
4.0
0.51
Low press (PPDA 6.8, 13m)
80%
3.5
4.2
0.76
Team

Team context

How much of the team runs through him, and what changes without him.

16

Impact on the Team

Insufficient sample: Kristoffer Ajer played nearly every Brentford match in the loaded data, so there is no meaningful "without him" comparison yet. This section fills in as more matches (and the rest of the season) are scraped.

17

His Share of the Team

Of everything Brentford produced this season, the categories where the biggest share ran through Kristoffer Ajer specifically — his share of the team total, not a per-90 rate.

category
share
him / team
clearances
11%
175 / 1621
interceptions
6%
30 / 523
tackles
5%
47 / 882
Recruitment

Style and verdict

Style profile, closest comparables, and the summary.

19

Playing-Style Profile

Not raw event counts — football style scores: weighted models scored 0–100 against the 517 centre-backs in the pool (min 450 min). This is what separates players who post similar numbers but play differently. Proxy dimensions are inferred from on-ball data; true off-ball running / under-pressure context is not measured.

Stopper centre-back58%Ball-playing centre-back20%
Why Stopper centre-back 58%: a weighted blend of defensive aggression 80 (weight 35%) + ball-winning 51 (weight 40%) + transition 35 (weight 10%) + retention 21 (weight 15%). The score reflects how distinctively his profile SHAPE matches this archetype vs his peers.
Elite
—
Strong
defensive aggression
Average
crossing, territory (wide vs central), ball-winning, passing directness, through-balls, box threat
Weak
carrying, transition, build-up, final-third threat, creativity, dribbling, press resistance, line-breaking, progression, retention, receiving zones
Unknown
aerial ability, marking, off-ball running — not in event data
Defensive aggression
80
Crossing
53
Territory (wide vs central)
51
Ball-winning
51
Passing directness
48
Through-balls ~proxy
48
Box threat
44
Carrying
36
Transition ~proxy
35
Build-up
33
Final-third threat
31
Creativity
31
Dribbling
29
Press resistance ~proxy
28
Line-breaking
25
Progression
23
Retention
21
Receiving zones
15
20

Similar Players — in style space

Closest comparables measured on the style scores above, within the same position family — so it separates how players are alike, not just how much they touch the ball. Each line explains the shared strength and the divergent mechanism. A light physical-profile term (height / weight; this player: 198 cm / 92 kg) is included at a quarter of one style axis's weight — enough to break ties between stylistic twins, not to override style. Scope: pooled across the Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1 and Serie A, percentiled within each player's own league before comparing — a match from another league is marked with its league name.

Style, not quality: a high match here means two players tend to produce the ball in similar ways — it is not a ranking, a scouting recommendation, or a claim that they are equally good.

Dan Burn Newcastle · 201 cm / 87 kg
89%
Driven by: defensive aggression (18%), retention (11%), press resistance (9%). Different mechanism — Ajer more via carrying; Burn more via territory (wide vs central), receiving zones.
Nikola Katic Schalke · Bundesliga · 194 cm / 90 kg
81%
Driven by: press resistance (14%), retention (12%), progression (11%). Different mechanism — Ajer more via territory (wide vs central), carrying; Katic more via passing directness, box threat.
Ethan Pinnock Coventry · 194 cm / 79 kg
79%
Driven by: progression (14%), receiving zones (10%), transition (10%). Different mechanism — Ajer more via carrying, defensive aggression; Pinnock more via territory (wide vs central).
Domingos Duarte Getafe · La Liga 25/26 · 192 cm / 80 kg
78%
Driven by: press resistance (16%), retention (12%), progression (12%). Different mechanism — Ajer more via territory (wide vs central), carrying; Duarte more via passing directness.
Tobias Slotsager Hellas Verona · Serie A 25/26 · 190 cm
77%
Driven by: press resistance (19%), retention (15%), creativity (11%). Different mechanism — Ajer more via through-balls, press resistance; Slotsager more via territory (wide vs central), passing directness.
Abdel Abqar Getafe · La Liga · 188 cm / 80 kg
76%
Driven by: retention (15%), receiving zones (14%), press resistance (13%). Different mechanism — Ajer more via defensive aggression, crossing.
21

Summary

Kristoffer Ajer is a stopper centre-back: 81% pass completion, 116 line-breaking passes and 2.6 progressive passes /90. A build-and-progress centre-back whose value is in beating the first line with the pass, not in raw defensive volume. [Aerial duels, marking, line-height and 1v1 recovery need aerial-event + tracking data, absent here.]

Based on 35 matches (2705 minutes) this season — a reliable read. He profiles as a stopper centre-back — best used in a system built around that identity. His biggest room for growth is retention — even a modest improvement there would meaningfully lift his overall stopper centre-back profile.
✨ This report is interactive

Click any stat card to filter its map, hover a dot for the exact match, and use the dropdowns to slice passes zone-to-zone. Nothing here is static.

Vision AI · building report