In this shorter set piece analysis, I will analyse two successful attacking corners which have resulted in a goal for the Lyonnais outfit. The video is retrieved from Wyscout.
In the video above you see Olympique Lyonnais in their game against EA Guingamp. They have a corner from the left which is taken by a left-footed player, meaning the ball will swing away from the goal rather than towards the goal. Guingamp employs a two-player zonal structure in the six-yard box.
There is one player for a short corner option, while two other plays are positioned deeper on the field. They are tasked with dealing with cleared balls, but also as the first line of defence. In the penalty area, we see one player in the six-yard box and a unit of four runners, who are deeper in the penalty area. They will make a movement towards the six-yard box.
The ball is played short and is not taken as an outswinger, but as an inswinger to the edge of the penalty area. The idea is to get the ball headed into the area between the six-yard box and the penalty spot as that is the area where danger is created a lot. This ball bounces back and because of the nature of the players to sit in and around the penalty area, Olympique Lyonnais score a fantastic volley from that particular area.
In the video above you Olympique Lyonnais against Stade de Reims with a corner from the right. This corner is taken by a left-footed player, meaning the ball will swing towards the goal rather than away from the goal. Stade de Reims employed a two-player zonal structure.
There is one player for the short pass option and two players standing outside the penalty area. They are tasked with the cleared balls, but also form the first line of rest defence in case a counter-attack happens. There is one player in the six-yard box and she is man-marked. There is a unit of 4 runners who come from deep and are late, who will charge against the zonal structure and attempt to head the ball in the goal. There is also one player on the penalty spot, who will move towards the near post zone.
In the last data scouting piece I spoke about the fact that I wanted to look further than the usual countries in Europe and scouted the Finnish Veikkausliiga. Although I still stand by those words and wanted to broad my view, I came to realise that I’ve not really looked into certain countries in Europe that are worth looking into. My eye will focus more closely to the leagues in eastern Europe, this time I’m focusing on the Polish Ekstraklasa
Polish football does have enormous talents and players who develop into world class players, but how is football in the domestic league? In this article I will look more closely to the central defenders in that league.
In this scouting piece I’m going to look for a central defender with an accent for ball progressing capabilities. There are different types of central defenders, but I’m looking for a profile that fits a central defender who can carry the ball and thinks progressively.
The data The data used in this analysis comes from Wyscout. In the dataset for the central defenders, I’ve selected each player who primarily plays on the central defender position. Obviously, there are other players who have played in this position, but I’ve only selected the players that have played as a central defender as a dominant position in the current season. This leaves me with 91 players who qualify in the Ekstraklasa 2020-2021.
Because I’m looking at the current season, which is a full season, I want to make a selection for players that played a decent amount of games for me to assess them. For me it’s important that they played at least 800 minutes in this season. After looking at that I’m left with 54 players in my dataset and they will go through my analysis process. The data was retrieved on 3rd December 2021.
I will look at the following categories and metrics to assess their abilities through data:
Defensive abilities:
Ball-carrying abilities
Passing abilities
Defensive abilities
The importance of defensive duels is evident. It’s to measure the physicality of a central defender and the ability to win defensive duels to assess how well a player defends in defensive situations.
The most defensive duels conducted per 90 are by the following players: Szczesńiak with 9,78 defensive duels per 90, Krivotsyuk with 8,90 defensive duels per 90, and Diogo Verdasca with 7,88 defensive duels per 90.
If we look closer at the players that have the highest percentage of won defensive duels, the following players stand out: Milic with 83,67% defensive duels won, Satka with 77,05% defensive duels won, and Cichocki with 76,47% defensive duels won.
The importance of aerial duels is to assess two things. Firstly, to look how many times a certain player conducts in an aerial duel during 90 minutes of football. And secondly, to assess how many of those aerial duels are won per 90. The aerial capability can be a contributing factor in the defensive strength of a central defender.
The most aerial duels conducted per 90 are by the following players: Golla with 6,91 aerial duels per 90, Petrasek with 6,88 aerial duels per 90, and Wieteska with 6,59 aerial duels per 90.
If we look closer at the players that have the highest percentage of won aerial duels, the following players stand out: Israel Puerto with 75% aerial duels won, Augustyn with 73,91% aerial duels won, and Petrasek with 73,85% aerial duels won.
In the scatterplot above we can see the metrics shots blocked per 90 and the interceptions per 90. These metrics help us assess the defending quality of a central defender, because it shows a form of an intelligence of a player. You have to recognise the movements of the opposition to adequately make a defensive actions, and therefore these metrics are useful.
The most shots blocked per 90 are by the following players: Raphael with 1,38 shots blocked per 90, Nalepa with 1,02 shots blocked per 90, and Maloca with 1,01 shots blocked per 90.
If we look closer at the players that have the most Interceptions per 90, the following players stand out: Tekijaski with 7,56 interceptions per 90, Nalepa with 7,27 interceptions per 90, and Ivanov with 6,91 interceptions per 90.
Ball-carrying abilities
Ball-carrying is a valuable thing for a player to have. The ability to literally carry the ball from the defensive third to the middle or attacking third is not to be underestimated, and this is no different for central defenders that I’m scouting. I’m well aware that this is not something every central defender can do, but I’m looking for a progressing central defender in possession. In what manner do they conduct themselves in progressing the ball? This can be translated via data with the metrics dribbles per 90 and progressive runs per 90.
If we look at the dribbles per 90 metrics, we can see that three players really stand out from the crowd here. Grzybek has 3,55 dribbles per 90, Tudor has 2,52 dribbles per 90 and Stiglec has 1,67 dribbles per 90.
When we look at the progressive runs per 90, we see slightly different players. The top players in this metric are: Gryszkiewicz has 2,04 progressive runs per 90, Wieteska has 1,91 progressiverunsper90, and Grzybek has 1,78 progressive runs per 90.
Passing ability
Passing abilities. I could focus on the percentage of successful passes, but that doesn’t say a lot in itself. I want to see how well they progress the ball as well as without the ball. I’ve looked to the progression with the ball on their feet, but I also want to see how well the progression in passing is. That’s why I chose to look at progressive passes per 90 and passes to the final third.
Looking at the progressive passes we see a few players stand out: Flis with 12,18 progressive passes per 90, Zech with 11,14 progressive passes per 90, and Israel Puerto with 10,85 progressive passes per 90.
If we look closer to the passes to the final third, we see some of the same names featured at the top. Flis has 9,6 passes to final third per 90, Sadlok has 9,41 passes to final third per 90, and Salamon has 7,90 passes to final third per 90.
First day of December already? How time flies. In this first article of December, I will have a look at key passes. In particular, I will look at Harry Wilson’s key passes at Fulham in the English Championship 2021/2022 so far, and analyse how well he does compared to his peers.
In this article, I will analyse the key passing stats of Harry Wilson in 2021/2022 Championship. I will look at the data given by Wyscout and compare him to his peers, after which I will use visualisations and data to demonstrate his abilities.
I will use Wyscout data and video to assess how well Wilson does among all midfielders in Championship, performed in the 2021-2022 season. In the end, I will use video to look at some of his key passes in this season.
In my data, only players are concluded who have played on the midfield position and have played over 800 minutes. This leaves me with 160 players. I’ve made the decision to include all midfielders as they are prone to different roles over the midfield – in general – and therefore this will give me a better idea of how well Wilson is doing.
In the scatterplot below you can see how well he performs in the progressive passes per 90 vs passes to final third per 90 metrics.
If we look at the progressive passes per 90, we see that Wilson has 4,47 progressive passes per 90, in the 2021-2022 season in Championship. Wilson has 2,59 passes to the final third per 90. He performs below average when we look at progressive passes per 90, and also performs under average when we look at passes to the final third per 90.
If we look at the Passes to penalty area per 90, we see that Wilson has 3,41 passes to penalty area per 90, in the 2021-2022 season in Championship. Wilson has 1,24 through passes per 90. He performs on average when we look at through passes per 90, and on average when looking at passes to penalty area per 90.
In the image above yousee Harry Wilson from Fulham, compared to midfielders in the 2021-2022 Championship. This shows us the rank of his key passing data compared to his peers. He doesn’t do well in the passes to final third and progressive passes, but in every other metric, he scores in the 75th percentile and up. If we exclude the through passes, we can see he even scores 85th percentile and up.
This can also be seen in the beeswarmplot below. This visual shows us the same information, but the visual is slightly different as it visually shows us where the players are in terms of the metric and shows us how far ahead Wilson actually is. Or isn’t.
Now I will look at the passes from the last 4 games Wilson has played in Championship: Peterborough United (A), Barnsley (H), Derby County (H) and Preston North End (A). I will look at his heatmaps and pass maps to establish where he was and where passed the ball.
In the images above you can see where Wilson operates in these games. In all games he operates on the right side of the pitch with the game against Derby being slightly different, as he also played more centrally. In defence he covers that same flank, but going torward he tries to also invert and occupy the half space, which makes hum a good option in creating chances. Those passes created from there, can be seen in the image below.
In the images above you can see where Wilson passed the ball on the opponent’s half to see how Wilson contributes in attack when he progresses on the field. He is very present in the game against Peterborough, but less so in the game against Preston North End.
Video analysis
In the three fragments below you can see three key passes that Harry Wilson made in the last four games. It illustrates the way he contributes to the Fulham side and where his key passes come from.
In the video above you see Wilson on the right flank, initially combining and after saving the ball from going behind. In doing so he creates space by surpassing the opposition’s defender and scans his surrounding for a good option to pass the ball to. He doesn’t opt to give the ball into the six-yard box, because it’s too crowded. Instead, he cuts it back to the player outside the six-yard box, who then attempts to shoot on goal. A good shot assist by Wilson.
In the video above we see Wilson picking up the ball on the right flank. He shows his technical skill to hold on to the ball, use his body and invert towards the middle of the pitch. He comes into the central areas of the pitch and in doing so the strikes react to his run, and make their movement forward too. His through pass is perfect for the striker as it sets him in a 1v1 against the goalkeeper.
In the video above we see Fulham with a throw-in and the movement from Wilson is quite good. He receives the throw-in and immediately passes it on to a teammate, whilst getting into the space at right wide midfield. He comes to the flank from the middle and that movement creates space for other players to go into, as can be seen by the player who shoots.
Final thought
Harry Wilson is a player we all talk about a lot because of his history with Liverpool. We keep asking ourselves what his full potential is and in this analysis we have looked at just a small part of his talent, but it’s an important one. He does very well in the data and creating opportunities for his team is what he does well. If he keeps progressing like this and keeps on being important, he will be in the Premier League.
