Month: November 2018

Last week I spoke at the FC Barcelona Football Coach Analytics Summit, held at Cuitat Esportiva Joan Gamper, or what is effectively modern La Masia. It’s the complex that houses the training areas for Barcelona’s football teams plus basketball and handball. This is a bit of a report on what I did and learned on my trip.

On a personal level, it’s difficult to convey how special this felt. For a journey that started from absolutely nothing in 2013 to be invited to speak at this kind of event in Barcelona in 2018 is kind of staggering.

StatsBomb. Barcelona.

As if being invited to speak wasn’t enough, the people I spoke alongside are among the best of the best in their fields.

• Sarah Rudd of Arsenal, one of the pioneers in the field of football analytics.
• Dean Oliver, one of the fathers of NBA Analytics.
• Will Spearman, actual fucking particle physicist at CERN, who now solves tracking data problems for Liverpool.
• Ravi Ramineni, also an early pioneer in football analytics who works for Seattle and gets to tell stories about actually having an impact on the pitch.
• Javi Fernandes, who merely taught the world that Messi does amazing things just while standing still.
• And Evil Luke Bornn, whose resume of notable works in the field is taller than the NBA players he teaches now. The less said about this man, the better.

If you could quietly shadow any of these people in their jobs for a day, you’d learn a massive amount technically, statistically, and about the game itself.

Anyway, it was amazing just to be there amongst very humbling company. Below are my notes for the weekend.

For starters, it’s fairly clear at this point that the data revolution in football is ongoing. It’s not just rich teams like Barcelona, Liverpool, and Arsenal that are investing here. And it’s not even all the rich teams, to be honest - there are plenty of teams with money that haven't touched serious data analytics. It’s the SMART teams that are now involved. Early mover advantage is serious. What I know now after working in this field dwarfs what I knew at the start, and even though our early work was pretty good, we're far more capable of contributing useful insight across most of a football club than we were in 2013-14.

What the smart teams know now - with better data access and a lot of money to invest - may even dwarf what we know outside, or at least it probably will soon, largely because they get to incorporate our research alongside their own.

Luke’s Talk - Communicating Ideas Visually

Those of you who saw Luke speak at the OptaPro Forum in February saw a similar talk, which was really good. There were minor adjustments this time around, including a lovely Jose Mourinho quote about people who use stats in football.

The basics are that, despite doing a lot of modelling with a lot of math, Luke’s group at the Sacramento Kings constantly try to find ways to summarise their info visually. This includes plenty of TVs around the practice facility that subtly convey info that helps teach the players about their own games and that of the opponents.

Every shot at the training facility is tracked in their data, and they end up with something like 2.5 million shots a year plonked into their data set. What’s interesting though is that unopposed, the best shooters in their team can make around 90-95% of their shots from three-point range, while it’s closer to 40-45% in games, so basic practice data is not the same as game samples.

Ted(’s) Talk - Game Models and the Full Data Stack

The beauty of not working in a football club is that you have way more freedom in what you get to talk about and how you get to do it. The downside is you don’t get to show cool stuff that has practical, on-field impacts with stories to tell behind it. And you don’t really get to work with tracking data (yet). And you don’t get to have words like “Liverpool” or “Manchester United” next to your name. For like 99% of the audience, Liverpool is just going to be cooler than StatsBomb, and nothing I can do will change that.

One of the requests for my talk from Javi was to discuss how data can help coaches make in-game adjustments. This is complicated, because I don’t work for a club currently and we don’t collect our data live just yet, but as you can see from my talk, I made do.

Sarah Rudd

Sarah found the sweet spot for giving insight about work she does inside of Arsenal while also not giving away super sekrit info.

As teams do more with tracking data, the level of technical knowledge you need to be able to work on those parts of the team increases dramatically. StatDNA in particular has gone from being able to work in CSV files to needing an entire real-time SPARK infrastructure that scales as necessary.

We’ve seen recent discussions about teams being able to use data to communicate with the bench, but I’m not sure the meaningful tech problems, like parsing and digesting the vast amount of info in tracking data in real-time, have actually been solved.

As I noted on Twitter, I really loved Sarah’s slide on “surfaces”, or different analysis frameworks that get repackaged over the top of their tracking info. One of these is spatial control, but the other one is for mapping pressure. We obviously use some form of these ideas at StatsBomb, but I didn't know what to call them. Surfaces feels right.

I missed Dean’s talk because of a meeting, and only caught half of Ravi’s due to room change confusion.

Javi’s talk was a small spin on his Sloan work linked here, plus updated practical stuff for how they are starting to approach the use of complex tracking work at FCB. He also discussed the translation of some pretty massive model and data work regarding a question from Valverde on whether the team was transitioning too quickly and needing to pause to let the opposition retreat and create space.

All of this model work was distilled across multiple visualisations and was eventually communicated by back to the team by the coach, on a tactics board, with two horizontal lines.

Months worth of work, and the coach just drew two lines…

On the other hand, it’s a hell of a lesson in information compression and delivery.

The Spearman

Will’s stuff has really progressed since he was wowing people at Forums with his early work on vectorization of passing models and space control. This talk provided insight as to how he thinks data helps them right now (to remove bias, to act as a force multiplier), plus some cool, relatively basic application info.

His background probably makes him the nerdiest of the professional football analytics practitioners, but Will's so smart and good at communicating that he's able to compress these incredibly complex ideas into understandable bites.

OBSO does an awful lot to help smooth the progression of scoring expectation in a football match to something closer to what we generally see on the pitch. After the event finished, we were taken on the team bus to Camp Nou, where the gala to kick off the Sports Tech Symposium was held and I got this photo.

And the next day there was a morning discussion panel on Analytics for the more general Sports Tech audience. Panels with people who actually work for teams are often boring because they have to be guarded about their insights, but I thought Luke did a great job moderating this panel, and extracting interesting perspectives from the panelists. I recorded some of the highlights in a tweet thread.

The afternoon of this event coincided with a monstrous thunderstorm that went on for hours. I think I’ve been in Barcelona about 20 days in my life and this was the first one I can remember rain. Obviously I failed to bring a coat and ended up drenched while waiting for my cab back to the hotel.

Dinner that night was a jaunt to Enoteca Paco Perez, which was good but not amazing and certainly not value for money. This is basically the opposite of how I feel about the rest of the cuisine in the city, and pretty much Spain in general. I don't know if it's my favourite country in Europe, but it's way way up there.

One thing that was amazing were the brew pubs in central Barcelona. Friends thought I was in Copenhagen when I posted this photo, but no, there is a fantastic Mikkeller pub smack in the middle of Barcelona. Mmm, beer.

And Garage Beer Co was pretty great as well.

After dinner on Thursday, I ended up at the hotel bar with people from Liverpool, Ajax, Huddersfield, and MIT and drank waaaaaaaaay too many old fashioneds, and forgot to set an alarm before passing out into bed. Luckily my internal body clock woke me just in time to catch a cab to the airport for my flight home. Sometimes you run hot, though the hangover from Thursday took forever to shake off, so maybe the karmic scale zeroed out on that one.

Anyway, StatsBomb. Barcelona.

Really smart people giving lots of football insight. Very lucky.

Maybe we can do it again next year? Peace.

--Ted ted@statsbomb.com

@mixedknuts

Alban Lafont has been a source of fascination since the moment he became Toulouse’s starting goalkeeper at the age of 16 during the 2015–16 season. He was thought of as France’s answer to Gianluigi Donnarumma when Toulouse anointed him their starter, a phenom who would go on to reach the highest levels possible from the goalkeeper position. Unlike Donnarumma who’s gotten to play on some decent Milan sides, Toulouse have been bad during his three seasons as a starter which made it a bit harder to assess his true talent level, but considering he was a teenager being asked to man the sticks for a French club in a big five league, he mostly held his head above water. That, at least, should give you a bit more confidence about Lafont’s future prospects.

A summer move to Fiorentina represented the next stage of Lafont’s career. He'd now be at a club that could provide more defensive stability and not ask its keeper to put out quite so many fires. That’s been the case through 12 games. Fiorentina are fifth best in expected goals conceded and 8th best in shots conceded. It's one thing as a defense to be good at either suppressing shot volume or limiting shot quality, but being good at both things is a recipe for a very sturdy defense, which has been the case for Fiorentina this season under Stefano Pioli.

Fiorentina defend with a man marking approach across the pitch, a method which is especially pronounced when they’re trying to apply pressure higher up. When the ball is played back to the keeper, you'll often see Giovanni Simeone make an angled defensive run to take close down the ball while taikng away one of the center-backs as a passing option. Once the ball is circulated to the flanks, it triggers a pressing action where there's pressure applied to the man in possession near the sidelines and all that could be had is a long ball to the middle third. Fiorentina have even been able to leverage this into potential goal scoring opportunities through misplaced passes from the wide areas.

Fiorentina's man-marking hasn't been quite airtight. There'll be instances when Fiorentina players are trying to switch man-marking duties, particularly if the opposing goalkeeper rolls the ball out quickly, and there's a bit of a delay as everyone's trying to figure out who's supposed to mark which player from the opposition. That can lead to opposing players being free in the middle and having enough airspace to receive a pass and dribble forward. The good news is that Fiorentina have recovered well in these instances and turned potentially dangerous situations into low efficiency shots, which is a win for the defense all things being equal.

Fiorentina have been quite good defensively and while they haven't necessarily been elite on that end, they've certainly provided a more stable environment for a goalkeeper like Lafont than what he experienced at Toulouse. Because of Fiorentina’s defense, it’s meant that Lafont hasn’t had to face the same high volume of shots he did last season. Last season, Lafont faced the ninth most shots on target in Ligue 1 among starting goalkeepers. This season, only Donnarumma and Wojciech Szcesny have faced fewer shots on target than Lafont.

We usually talk about shot stopping ability from goalkeepers when they’re on clubs that are conceding shots on target at a higher than average volume, and their performances in goal are propping up a leaky defense. David De Gea is an example of this as he’s been the biggest reason why Manchester United haven’t been a total catastrophe. Lafont is an example of a goalkeeper making a good defense even better. Using Statsbomb’s post-shot expected goal model, Lafont’s expected save percentage from the shots he's faced when accounting for placement of shot is 73.2%, which is the 5th highest mark in Serie A. This makes some sense: Fiorentina allow few high quality shots when looking at pre-shot xG, so it stands to reason that they’ll have a better chance of limiting the shot placement from opponents that can be captured in a post-shot xG model and have an above average xSV%. Even with that high xSV%, Lafont has vastly out performed with a save percentage of 80.6%, which is 3rd best behind Luigi Sepe and Samir Handanovic, and only Sepe and Handanovic have outperformed their xSV% by mmore than Lafont's 7.4%.

Now it’s important to note that Lafont’s only faced a sample of 30 shots on target as Fiorentina’s starting goalkeeper, so it would be a bit reckless to suggest that he’s going to be able to maintain his impressive form over the rest of the season. He was basically around average when it came to his shot stopping last season in Ligue 1, with a 70.2 SV% and a 70.7 xSV%. Something that’s interesting when looking at some of the shots that Lafont has faced is that Fiorentina have done a decent enough job in getting a man in front of the shot taker to make it a bit harder on the shooter to place his shot into the corners. These are still really good saves that Lafont made, and it highlights his quick reflexes, which is what helped Lafont gain much notoriety in France.

Lafont's distribution has not been quite as sparkling as his shot stopping, but it's still been pretty good, especially given his reputation coming out of France as a sweeper keeper who is a capable distributor. His pass% of 67% is nothing remarkable but what's notable is that his pressured pass% of 78% is joint top with Luigi Sepe. Given that Lafont has only been pressured on 5.8% of his passes, which is the 5th least mark in Serie A, it could just be that his passing under pressure drops off just a tiny bit if teams start to hurry him a bit more as the season progresses. Alban Lafont's first season in Italy has gone about as well as one could hope for when Fiorentina spent €7m over the summer for his services. Playing on a good defensive side to begin with, his shot stopping has made them even more formidable. His distributions has shown promise, and there's even been instances where Lafont has made aggressive plays as a sweeper keeper to bail out his backline. It's fair to expect a little bit of regression with his shot stopping and ability to pass under pressure, but it's clear that Lafont has given a very good account of himself in his debut season in Serie A.

This summer, Liverpool shocked the footballing world by not just breaking but smashing the transfer record for a goalkeeper that had stood since 2001. Then Chelsea broke it again less than a month later. One was bought to fix a long term weakness in the side, the other needed to replace a departing former Golden Glove winner. Alisson Becker and Kepa Arrizabalaga have become the two most expensive goalkeepers in the history of football. By a lot. As such, it’s not unreasonable to judge them both by very high standards.

Alisson Becker

Liverpool are at this point well known for incorporating data into their recruitment, so it would hardly be a surprise to know that Alisson has shown up well in a lot of metrics. While StatsBomb’s new goalkeeping data has not yet recorded last season’s Serie A games, his performances for Roma did earn him praise from some existing goalkeeping models, with Colin Trainor and Mark Taylor both highlighting him as a standout. StatsBomb did record data for the World Cup, but the number of chances he faced (1.57 post-shot xG, from which he conceded 2 goals) were so few as to tell us almost nothing about his abilities.

While the price tag made expectations very high, Alisson’s predecessors in a Liverpool shirt did the exact opposite. Of the 20 “first choice” goalkeepers in the Premier League last season, Simon Mignolet’s shot stopping is rated as the 19th best.

While the model estimates that the average keeper “should” have saved 68.4% of the shots Mignolet faced, the Belgian only managed 61.4%, a goals saved above average percentage of -7.0% only beaten by Joe Hart at the negative end of the scale. He can hardly complain that he was dropped halfway through the season, and while Karius did offer an improvement, he was only saving at around an average rate which, combined with a disastrous Champions League final, saw him get the hook as well.

As for Alisson, it seems to be so far, so good for the Brazilian. Thus far in the Premier League, he has saved 2.48 more goals than one would expect from the average goalkeeper, or 0.19 per 90. Alisson has surely benefited from a much less chaotic Liverpool defence this season, with the average keeper being expected to save 75.1% of the shots he has faced so far.

Liverpool have made sure that the average chance Alisson faces is the second easiest of any keeper in the Premier League this year, but he has still beaten expectations with a save percentage of 83.3%, and a goals saved above average percentage of 8.3%. Had Mignolet been playing (and performing as he did last year), the model estimates that Liverpool would have conceded around 9.25 goals. That Jurgen Klopp’s men have only let in 5 shows the value Alisson adds over the current number two.

It’s worth pointing out that Alisson has still only faced 29 shots on target. If he is able to maintain his current form over a full season then he will have surely justified his price tag, though this remains an open question. The information that exists about Alisson’s previous performances, and Liverpool’s reputation for incorporating analytics into recruitment, suggests that the expectations should be high, though, and his shot stopping performances so far have matched what one might expect from a £65 million goalkeeper.

Of course, it is not merely his shot stopping that has earned Alisson such a reputation. His ability with his feet has been lauded and highlighted, earning him the reputation of a “modern” goalkeeper who is able to kick it as well as  save it. On this front, it is also mostly as one would expect. Alisson’s raw passing completion percentage of 80% remains slightly shy of league leaders Kepa and Ederson, though he is playing passes about 12% longer than the Chelsea and Man City keepers on average.

Where he really shines with his feet, though, is when we incorporate StatsBomb’s pressure data. His passing accuracy under pressure of 73% is the best in the Premier League, despite four other starting keepers playing it shorter in these situations. He is only seeing a 7% drop in his completion under pressure, while Ederson and Kepa are seeing a 15% and 19% decrease, respectively. This might be a key aspect of why Liverpool wanted him so badly.

It’s well known at this point how Klopp likes to invite the opposition to press his side at strategic moments before being able to launch a counter attack. If Liverpool can invite the press onto Alisson while he is able to stay calm and still play the pass he wants, this helps open up spaces higher up the pitch as the opponent moves forward to press the keeper only to find themselves easily bypassed. If this is worth a few goals a year, then Alisson’s value is even greater than that which his shot stopping brings.

Kepa Arrizabalaga

The situation Kepa found himself in at Stamford Bridge could not be more different to Alisson’s. The Spaniard replaced a widely praised goalkeeper in Thibaut Courtois, who left Chelsea for what he expected to be bigger and better things at Real Madrid. It is worth pointing out that though Courtois’ reputation remains high, the data does not quite support this, with the Belgian merely performing around as expected last season, conceding 30 goals from 29.52 post-shot xG.

So Kepa comes into a spot where merely outperforming the average keeper will appear as an upgrade on one of the world’s best. With David de Gea’s disappointing performances in the World Cup (though his Manchester United form remains excellent), there was also a genuine chance for Kepa to become Spain’s first choice.

Easy, right?

Well… It’s worth mentioning that we here at StatsBomb have priors with Kepa. Back in the summer, our data scientist Derrick Yam wrote about the signing and came to the conclusion that the Spaniard was “an okay shot stopper, average cross collector, and average distributor”. Yam took the view that “at that price, I don’t see the value in Kepa Arrizabalaga. We wait for years from now, to find out how wrong I am”. We don’t yet have years, Derrick, but so far we haven’t seen reason to think you got this wrong. Having faced 7.35 post-shot xG, Kepa has conceded a middling 8 goals.

While it’s far too early to make any huge claims on his shot stopping ability at Chelsea, this is about in line with his Athletic Club form last season, where he conceded 39 goals from 40.29 post-shot xG.

Kepa is fortunate to be playing in a very effective Chelsea side. 76.3% of the shots he has faced would be expected to be saved by the average keeper. No other keeper in the Premier League has been backed to save a higher percentage.

A combination of strong organisation from Maurizio Sarri’s side and likely a touch of bad finishing from the opposition is ensuring that Kepa has not had to face extremely difficult shots. Even so, it is not obvious that the Spaniard is averaging a great deal of value from his shot stopping. When looking at his distribution, there’s not too much to complain about.

As one would expect from a keeper in a Sarri team, Kepa generally keeps it short, with only 4 first choice keepers in the league hitting a lower average pass length. His passing accuracy of 85% is only marginally behind league leader Ederson, very much a positive for a side so often playing out from the back. There are some concerns in his reaction under pressure, though.

His pressured pass completion is down to 66%, and the drop in pass completion rate under pressure is the 4th worst in the league. This may simply be a side effect of choosing to often punt it longer when put under pressure, as his increase in pass length when pressed is second only to Jordan Pickford. Considering how much Sarri’s build up play generally starts with Kepa, if teams want to unsettle Chelsea then pressing the keeper might be an effective way to do it.

What needs to be clear about Kepa’s transfer fee is that it was a situation which should perhaps not be interpreted as representing his true value. The player was bought from Athletic Club, a team with a strict rule over only signing players with Basque heritage. With Athletic’s tradition being what it is, the club are very reluctant to sell existing players due to the small talent pool available, and will generally insist on the full release clause being met.

With the market inflated by Liverpool’s purchase of Alisson, these factors likely made the Kepa transfer fee justifiable to Chelsea’s hierarchy. Even so, one still has to ask whether this was the best way to spend the money. Goalkeepers such as Bernd Leno and Rui Patricio made moves in summer 2018 for a fraction of the fee Chelsea paid Athletic Club, and it is not especially obvious that Kepa is a level above. Nonetheless, there is no reason to think that Chelsea have a particularly bad goalkeeper. There remains scant evidence, though, that he is adding huge value to the side.

Header image courtesy of the Press Association

In the last year or two the Championship has become a breeding ground for players who have gone on to become established not just in the Premier League but internationally players as well. England's second tier allows younger players to test themselves in a highly competitive league, whether those players are on loan from Premier League side or just coming through the ranks at clubs within the league. To that effect I wanted to find the breakout stars of the Championship from the season so far. I looked at players who had played less than 1000 mins in the 17/18 season (although this was loosely applied) but had contributed at least 600 minutes in the current campaign to find those excelling in their various roles who might just be the names that light up the future. My only other caveat was that I kept my searches to players who 24 or younger. Also, in order to look at a diverse group of prospects, I decided that I would pick two players from each area of the pitch; defenders (inclusive of fullbacks), midfielders and forwards to give a fair reflection of players who are shining in those areas.

Defenders

Jayden Bogle – Derby County – Age 18 Bogle’s rise at Derby under the faith and guidance of Frank Lampard has been nothing short of incredible. Bogle did not make one senior appearance for Derby prior to this season and yet his assured performances and the athleticism he's added to a previously ageing back four have contributed greatly to Derby’s outstanding form. The young fullback possesses the perfect blend of the more “old school” characteristics mixed with the attacking outputs expected of a modern day wide defender. He shows great strength and tenacity in 1 v 1 situations. His pace and athleticism allow him to make a high volume of tackles and interceptions, well above the league average. On the offensive side Bogle is highly accomplished on the ball with a very good technical skillset. Bogle is currently hitting 6.86 deep progressions (pass or dribble into opposition final third) per 90 minutes. That is far above the league average for a full back and shows his composure and quality. Bogle is also a very adept dribbler of the ball, crucial for a modern day full back who often find themselves in 1 v 1 situations out wide. He currently leads the way in successful dribbler per 90 for Derby. This allows him to beat his marker and open up space to play into with his control and technique to manipulate the ball. In the last year we have seen the rise of two fullbacks at Liverpool who also have the perfect fusion of defensive attributes with attacking output, Bogle's upside suggests he could hit similar heights, and is certainly one to monitor his progress as the season wears on. A future England international? Perhaps too early to hazard a guess but without doubt the ceiling on the talent and potential is extremely high.   Joe Rodon – Swansea City – Age 21 A name that may be unfamiliar to more casual EFL viewers but definitely one to remember. A direct product of the increasingly successful Swansea academy, Rodon has taken the opportunities afforded to him by progressive head coach Graham Potter. Another who had not played a senior game for his club before the start of the season, Rodon has benefited from a huge reduction in the Swans squad size and a transformation under Potter to a younger more vibrant side. The Welshman has the outstanding blend of a dominating “old-school” center back while having the technical qualities expected of a defender in the modern game. The 21 year old has been integral to Swansea’s successful start to the campaign, amassing 13 appearances and contributing significantly to a defense which is, at the time of writing, the joint second best in the league in terms of goals conceded.  Rodon possesses excellent distribution with his passing. He's both accurate and incisive, often starting creative moves from the back. This is particularly vital with the Swans due to the style Potter is trying to implement by moving the ball quickly and vertically through the team. The Championship is an exceptionally physical league for center backs, featuring teams with direct styles with highly physical forwards. This is does not appear to bother Rodon who has the physicality to win duels and be dominant in the air. The Radar below shows Roden compared to the league average for center backs. Rodon is performing above the league average for a center back in aerial wins per 90. He is as fiercely combative as he is technically proficient on the ball and is showing fantastic potential that will no doubt raise awareness to clubs in the Premier League. His xGBuildup is highly impressive too (0.46 per 90) showcasing his ability to contribute to good attacks from the back. He's an outstanding young defender performing exceptionally in his first foray into senior football.  

Midfielders

Mason Mount – Derby County – Age 19 Whilst I wanted to try and find players who the wider readership may not be acutely aware of it seemed completely remiss to write an article on breakout star players in the Championship without covering one of its best performers in the season so far. Mason Mount’s season under Frank Lampard has been one of the most highly anticipated narratives of the EFL. Mount set alight the Eredvise last season and big things were expected of his time at Derby. One of Mount’s major strengths, is actually an off the ball event in terms of his pressing. From the eye test Mount looks to press the ball in high, advanced areas, and he presses with lots of intensity. His defensive activity map below shows exactly this. Lampard has deployed Mount as an attacking no 8 this season, pressing opposition defences high up the pitch. It’s been a huge part of Derby’s recent style which has seen them achieve fantastic results. Mount ranks as high as 7^th in the league from all Attacking midfielders/wingers for pressure regains per 90. He presses the ball with intent and with large success and has become the platform for Lampard to base a high intensity pressing game on. As a creative midfielder Mount also contributes greatly. The Englishman ranks sixth in the league from all attacking midfielders/wingers for open play key passes. The quality of those chances created is also high with Mount producing 0.16 expected assists per 90. Mount has been integral to Derby’s build up play this season, offering variety and incisive passes that have opened up opposition defences. What makes the Chelsea loanaee stand apart is the extra goal scoring threat he offers from that deeper midfield position. Naturally there have been comparisons with Lampard and there may be some merit in that comparison, not in terms of style but output. Mount’s shot map is indicative of his confidence in his own technique. Many of those out of the box shots are from direct free kick attempts. Mount will always back his ability to strike the ball with conviction even from distance. However, it’s those penalty box shots that truly showcase the midfielder’s strengths. Mount carries a goal scoring threat due to his intelligently timed runs into the box. Naturally, some of these shot selections could be hugely improved, Mount’s xG per shot is not of the highest quality. As a young player there will always be improvements to be made and Mount’s decision making is certainly one aspect he will look to better as he progresses. The platform is set though for Mason Mount to be the star of this Derby team this season, and he has had a very encouraging start.   Kalvin Phillips – Leeds United – Age 23 Admittedly this one is slightly against my minimal minutes in the 17-18 season rule, however, for good reason. I am acutely aware that much of the analysis of midfielders centers on their creative contributions or their chance creation. Kalvin Phillips has been the base for Leeds United’s Bielsa ball style this season. Most likely the biggest managerial shock appointment of the summer, Marcelo Bielsa has gone about transforming Leeds into a fluid, high intensity and possession dominant team. However, the glue that holds that side together and gives the likes of Samuel Saiz and Pablo Hernandez opportunity to concentrate on creating is Phillips. Under previous managers Phillips has been a more advanced midfielder but despite having some excellent technical attributes playing the game on the half turn and in tight spaces did not suit his skillset. One of Bielsa’s first acts this season was to drop Phillips further back, making him the team’s primary defensive midfielder and the player to win the ball and give it to those highly creative players further forward. Phillips has responded in fine manor. As the team’s main, and pretty much only, defensive midfielder, Phillips is tactically restrained to those central deep areas for his work, as can be seen from his defensive activity map. Generally not much over the half way line and summing up the role Phillips has been asked to play by Bielsa. Phillips has excellent distribution with his passing both long and short. He ranks sixth overall for passes per 90 (from all midfielders) and is constantly recycling the ball for Leeds to those in more dangerous areas. Defensively, Phillips ranks second for combined tackles and interceptions (adjusted by their team’s possession) from all midfielders too. The Leeds man’s positioning and reading of the game are also integral to the side's success, as the areas he protects and takes up allows Leeds’ wing backs to drive forward and wide, opening up the pitch as wide as possible helping to exploit space for their creative players. Phillips may not appear, on the face of it, to be one of the more impressive performers in the numbers but their aren’t many better in the whole division in that defensive midfield role, even more impressive considering how quickly Phillips has transformed himself into this role in a Bielsa team.  

Forwards

Harvey Barnes – West Bromwich Albion – Age 21 I almost feel under pressure writing about Barnes due to affection StatsBomb’s fearless leader Ted Knutson has shown “Harvey Danger” this season, and quite rightly so. I could have put Barnes in the midfield section but felt his positions as a no 10 or winger suited the more advanced category. For an indicator of just how good Barnes has been; only three players in the Championship this season have an xG and open play xA per 90 above 0.2. Barnes is one of those. He is one of the most potent and dangerous attacking players in the whole league, either from creating for others or taking up goal scoring positions. Barnes is one of the best technicians in the league. He has a brilliant touch, a great weight of pass and a very strong shot. His skills make him a standout in a team that possess some of the best attacking talent in the Championship. A look at which players create chances and the quality of those chances sums up his importance to the team. From a numbers perspective, Barnes is far and away the most important player to that West Brom attack. Those other offensive players may look clinical on paper, but Barnes appears to be the imagination and the creative spark that West Brom need to mount a challenge this season. Barnes will be Premier League ready next season, perhaps even now. I also don’t think it will be long before we see him in an England shirt. Leicester have a serious talent on their hands.   Neal Maupay – Brentford – Age 22 As I was piecing this together it dawned on me, I haven’t actually included a proper striker. The predator type striker who simply scores goals. That is why I chose to abandon the rule of limiting mins from previous season and just provide a view of the Championship’s current most lethal man. An outstanding, technically gifted striker with pace and dynamic movement, Neal Maupay has all the tools to be a star. He is another of the three players spoken about above who have over 0.2 for xG and xA per 90, even more impressive when you consider the other 2 are wingers and Maupay is a centre forward. This ability to not only be on the end of moves but be involved in creating chances stands Maupay apart from many of his peers at this level. Ranking as the highest player in the league for passes and touches in the opposition box, the Frenchman is more than just a finisher. Brentford have long been revered for many aspects of their operation. In football style terms they play almost clinically and with an analytical approach, trying to create the highest quality chances for their forward players. This results in a lot of six yard box attempts on goal and consequently a LOT of goals. Maupay’s shot map shows the benefits of playing in such a system. A striker is naturally judged on goals and how clinical they are at taking their chances. Despite the fact Maupay is the top scorer in the league one of the criticisms against him is that he can miss the odd easy chance, which quite frankly can be true of all great strikers. However, his conversion rate is still high which shows he can be a clinical striker. An overall non penalty xG of  8.77 with nine non penalty goals shows that Maupay is indeed clinical enough especially at this level to score goals on a consistent basis if presented with chances. His radar speaks for itself in terms of the quality of the player in general. Maupay doesn’t shirk any of his defensive duties either. The young Frenchman is Brentford’s second best player in terms of pressure regains per 90. He works extremely hard but his pressing isn’t just functional, it is actually highly tactical. Look at Maupay’s defensive activity map in terms of the areas where his defensive activities take place. The majority of Maupay’s actions and those with the highest intensity and frequency just happen to occur centrally and on the last line of defence or on the last midfielder. Happy coincidence? I highly doubt it. Brentford are an exceptionally intelligent side and they will be well aware that regains in this area will have a high % of a good quality chance on goal. Maupay is key to this strategy with his work rate, athleticism and mobility key factors in setting the tone for his team mates. Without doubt one of the long line of exceptional talents bought to the EFL by Brentford, however Maupay could easily be the best.   Thanks for reading guys! I hope I have peaked some interest in one of the most intriguing and brilliantly chaotic leagues in the world of football!

Player evaluation is as much art as science. All players will be better at some things than others. Questions of talent and system intermingle. How many downsides are too many to carry just because a player has one particularly great skill? How much of a great match, or month, or season is the result of playing in a system that flatters a player’s skills and hides their faults? How much of that performance will translate in a new system? Too often, all of that gets flattened into a simple, impossible question to answer. How good is this player? That flattening makes good player analysis more difficult. Unsurprisingly, statistics are an effective way of more accurately framing the discussion. Two players this season illustrate that dynamic in opposing ways. On one side there’s Chelsea striker Alvaro Morata. He’s developed a reputation as underwhelming, and even on his best days he manages to leave Chelsea fans feeling cold. Like last weekend, for instance, when he scored two goals in Chelsea’s 3-1 win over Crystal Palace but also managed to miss a golden chance at a hattrick after being played clean through on goal in the dying minutes. On the flip side there’s Arsenal midfielder Lucas Torreira, a young, promising tenacious presence in the center of the field. The excitement over Torreira’s genuine talent is understandable but it also glosses over some real holes in his game. It’s easy to ignore the possible drawbacks when a player makes an early successful impact.  

Morata Scores Goals

There is one thing that Alvaro Morata is good at. He puts the ball in the back of the net. You don’t need any fancy stats to understand that. It’s a particularly crowded top of the scoring table this year in the Premier League, but Morata’s five goals puts him only two behind the league leaders. Although with three players at seven, and six players with six, that’s not that impressive. Adjust for minutes played (and the fact that Morata doesn’t take penalties) and things look even better. He’s fourth in the Premier League (among players with at least 500 minutes payed) with 0.71 non-penalty goals per 90 minutes. If you do want to look slightly deeper, his expected goal numbers are awesome as well this season, with 0.63 xG per 90. That’s the second highest in the Premier League, behind only Sergio Aguero. None of this is to say that there aren’t things about Morata to criticize. His scoring rate is great, but historically he’s never put up a monster season. He’s only hit double digits twice, and maxed out at 14. He’s never been the primary striker on a team for a whole season, and when he was given the opportunity last year he faded badly (perhaps assisted by injury) down the stretch. At 26 years old it’s certainly fair to winder when, and if, Morata will translate those impressive scoring rates into an entire season of success. Also, at least under Maurizio Sarri’s management, scoring goals is about all that Morata does. While over the course of his career he’s been at least competent at linking play around the penalty box, last year he had six assists, this season his goal scoring is all he’s bringing to the table. He’s not impressive in the air, his hold-up play seems to rely on falling down and asking for fouls, and while he’s a decently effective presser, he’s not a particularly active one. Compare him with Olivier Giroud and what you find is one player who does a lot and scores some goals, and another player who does a little, but scores a lot. The question isn’t about whether Morata is good or bad, the question is how good does Morata have to be at the things he is good at to make it worth carrying the thing’s he’s bad at. Right now, he’s clearly on the plus side of the equation. In the minutes he’s played he’s a top two expected goal scorer and a top four goal scorer. But, at some level, even as he remains a good goal scorer, everything else would make him not worth the goals. If he was the seventh best goal scorer in the league would it be worth it? The tenth best? There’s no definitive answer here, and the question is complicated by all sorts of other factors. Having a goal scorer is more important if nobody else is scoring goals. Tactically, if Hazard is supposed to be taking shots, rather than creating them, that would impact the decision. If the midfield is supposed to be generating goals by running beyond the striker into the box then Morata’s contributions become less valuable, and Giroud’s get more important. These are all things to consider when deciding how worthy Morata is of a starting spot. Judging Morata is important, it’s equally important to make sure we’re judging him by the right criteria. He’s good at scoring goals, not bad. He’s bad at things that aren’t goal scoring. How good does he have to be at the first thing to balance out the second thing? That’s the question that managers get paid the big bucks to answer.   Lucas Torreira’s Boring Passing The opposite phenomenon is going on with Torreira. Torreira looks like a strong signing for Arsenal. He’s done a great job at bringing stability to the middle of the pitch. He’s made midfield partner Granit Xhaka look less like a defensive liability, covered for the fullbacks and just generally been an all around calming and effective presence in Arsenal’s midfield. That’s a skill that’s especially salient for a team whose midfield has consistently gotten overrun for a generation. He’s also not a particularly creative passer. First, the good stuff. He’s ninth in the league in interceptions adjusted for possession with 1.96 and tackles adjusted for possession with 2.95. If your looking for Arsenal’s ball winner, it’s Torreira. He primarily patrols the center of the pitch, but also covers the right flank, which is particularly important given manager Unai Emery’s insistence on having his fullbacks bomb forward in order to create attacking chances. These are all great and important and necessary skills for Arsenal to have in midfield. They need these things. They need them so much that it’s absolutely reasonable to overlook Torreira’s lack of creativity on the ball. But, that doesn’t mean that Torreira’s lack of creativity isn’t a real part of his game. He only notches 4.86 deep progression per 90, well down below the team’s creators in midfield. On the other hand, with a 90% completion rate he’s the most consistent passer on the team. Combine the two and what you have is a player who is very conservative on the ball. Looking at some recent performances it’s clear that the lion’s share of Torreira’s passing is sideways and backwards. Here he is against Crystal Palace (skipping past the strong defense of Liverpool last weekend to give Torreira the benefit of the doubt). His most frequent passes were 11 to Shkodran Mustafi, 11 to Granit Xhaka (playing leftback, which admittedly makes everything weird) and 10 to Rob Holding. The week before against Leicester City, in a much better attacking performance, the pattern was the same with 15 to Mustafi, 12 to Xhaka and 11 to Bellerin. None of this is bad. There are lots of very successful defensive midfielders who profile this way. Win the ball back, settle possession with safe passes, be an option to rotate possession, and don’t make stupid mistakes. That’s the recipe for a very good player. It’s also somebody who needs to be surrounded with passing to succeed. Torreira has slotted comfortably into Arsenal’s side in no small part because he’s playing lots of minutes with Xhaka next to him and Mesut Ozil in front of him, two players who do just about all the creative passing you could ever need. If you took those players out of the lineup, and replaced them with, say, somebody like Aaron Ramsey, then Torreira would look different. Ramsey’s skill comes from getting forward without the ball, and having a creative passer feed it to him. Put Torreira in that role and all of a sudden Arsenal would begin to struggle. In the same way that Chelsea have to reckon with exactly how much scoring they need from Morata to overshadow all the things he can’t do, Arsenal have to consider how little passing they can abide from Torreira before that becomes a liability for their attack. Given the current makeup of the squad the answer to that question is that they need basically no passing from Torreira, and they’ll still be able to move the ball. That’s part of what’s allowed Torreira to seem so successful so quickly. Should that squad chance, however, then they might be forced to reconsider. There’s a lot more to life than whether a player is good or bad. What’s more important is figuring out what a player is good and bad at, and how often they are forced to use those skill given the system they’re playing in. Those are the questions that color how we think about players like Morata and Torreira, and how perceptions of them can, and will change over time. Morata’s a good goal scorer, but sometimes that doesn’t matter. Torreira’s not a good creative passer, and that hasn’t mattered yet either. Understanding that goes a long way to help figuring out everything else.

Below is a very lightly edited conversation as some of us here at StatsBomb HQ watched the growing Fulham disaster and speculated about their future management. The horror. The horror. There is a serious conversation to be had about what a team in Fulham's situation should do. Should the side cut bait and bring in a survival specialist in an attempt to survive at all costs? Should they stay true to the plan, trust that even if your relegated you'll be back (and you'll somehow afford to pay all those Premier League salaries with Championship revenue)? The question of how much to deviate from the plan when the specter of relegation looms is a complicated one. It's especially complicated for a squad like Fulham which has been constructed with a style of play, and philosophical aim that differs from the typical bottom dwelling Premier League side. To be absolutely clear, this is not that conversation. This conversation is a bunch of people being blown away by how absolutely terrible Fulham appeared to be (they managed a grand total of seven shots against Huddersfield despite trailing for the last hour of the match), and then randomly remembering a whole bunch of managers who are currently unemployed. Enjoy!   nikos [3:40 PM] This has to be it for Jokanovic, right? Grace Robertson [3:43 PM] First time I’ve watched them in a bit. Absolutely terrible. Michael Goodman [3:43 PM] This is brutal Ted Knutson [3:46 PM] yeah, he's gotta go Euan Dewar [3:55 PM] please show up at Hasenhüttl's door with infinite money. Dont even care about fit, I just want the opportunity to watch that madness in the flesh Michael Goodman [3:57 PM] Jardim is still just randomly sitting out there right? Euan Dewar [3:57 PM] yup Useful for finding available managers: https://www.transfermarkt.com/trainer/verfuegbaretrainer/statistik transfermarkt.com Although I will be saying Hasenhüttl for every available job until he inevitably gets the Leverkusen gig nikos [3:58 PM] Montella! Michael Goodman [4:00 PM] This is really great for reminding me of mediocre managers who I haven’t thought of in years. Pepe Mel! nikos [4:00 PM] Possibly the worst PL manager in recent years. Michael Goodman [4:01 PM] Di Canio is also on the list nikos [4:01 PM] Oh shit, Di Matteo hasn't had a job in 2 years. Euan Dewar [4:01 PM] wow, Villa feels so much closer than that Michael Goodman [4:02 PM] Speaking of Villa It seems unfair for Steve Bruce to be unemployed since he’ll have to wait for Sam to get hired before anybody calls him nikos [4:02 PM] Quique Sanchez Flores seems like a good choice. Michael Goodman [4:02 PM] I was just thinking that actually. David Moyes, also currently unemployed! nikos [4:04 PM] David Moyes is always employed _in my heart_ Euan Dewar [4:04 PM] uh oh, Stam is hovering Ted Knutson [4:22 PM] Mike, can we package this as content? it's good stuff Michael Goodman [4:23 PM] A brief discussion of who should take over Fulham? Sure.   And voila, we have content. I hope you enjoyed being reminded that Pepe Mel exists.