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.
