Firstly you talk about Lothar Mattheus, he was a CM, box to box, he was never a CB he was a sweeper, pure and simple. It meant less running for him. Sweeping is easy, all you literally do is drop back and "sweep" he is not chasing forwards and strikers all over the place. And lets not forget the role the offside trap played in killing the need for a sweeper.
Now lets get into your stats. Your first graphic shows distance covered, now I CLEARLY SAID "takes less energy" I never said ANYTHING AT ALL about running less. I even mentioned making "lung busting runs". It is far more difficult to do continued lung busting runs at pace than it is to jog around the pitch all day. Its one of the reasons doing "doggies" is one of the worst drills to do because by the end you cannot get enough air in to you lungs. So that in itself kills your argument because you misinterpreted what I wrote. But cool, lets go further into your stats.
That same first graphic lists Ndidi (Leicester) and Ngolo Kante (Chelsea) as DMs. They are no such thing - especially Kante at Chelsea !! Ndidi is a box to box midfielder, it explains why he brings the ball forward and is often seen spreading the ball to wide men close to opponent's boxes, to keep the attack going. When we talk about DMs we are talking the likes of - and I gave these names in my earlier post, David Batty and Claude Makelele. Those players never supported attacks, they sat and protected the defence. The distinction is CLEAR as to what a DM is, Neither Ndidi or Kante are those. Look at a typical Ndidi heat map:
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Look how much time Ndidi spends going forward !! That is NOT what a DM does, by definition, you can see he is no DM.
Here is another heat map, it clearly shows Ndidi spends a considerable amount of time in the opposing team's half, outside their box:
Now, lets look at a heat map that shows Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Gareth Barry during an England game, look at their heat maps and their distances covered:
The player spending most of their time in their own half (Gerrard) covered the least distance. The player performing the box to box role (Barry) covered the most ground. Interestingly, the player that literally covers play in both boxes (Lampard) covered 3000m in the 20 mins he played, had he played 90 mins like the other 2 would've easily covered the most ground of the 3. The point I am making is, when your heat map has you in advanced areas of the pitch consistently you cannot be classed as a DM.
Luka Milijojevic heat map - how can he be a DM when he goes up and down and wide ???:
Basically the players listed as DMs are no such thing, they are essentially box to box midfielders, ALL CMs have a starting point in and around the centre circle, True DMs don't tend to go too much further than that, they certainly do NOT support attacks. The rest of your stats all support the already confirmed point that - they argue a point that was not made.
