Another midfielder? Another? Welcome Marc Roca.
Salutations and welcome to my article about our newest midfield addition Marc Roca. Who we have just signed for a pretty small fee of around €15 Million Euros from our old European final foe Bayern Munich.
This time we have actually signed a Central Midfielder, one who is actually quite similar to our last CM signing Adam Forshaw, not because he has the ability to grow a fine ginger beard but because he is also a deep lying play maker of a similar profile to Forshaw.
There is rumors that Roca is a Kalvin Phillips replacement and I hope by the end of this article you will see why that isn’t the case and he is more a player to play alongside Phillips or whoever we sign in replacement of Phillips should he end up leaving to join Erling Haaland at Manchester City.
Background and Playing Career
Okay so who is Marc Roca? He’s a Spanish midfielder who started his career with Espanyol going straight into their first team in La Liga at 19 years old in 2016 making 25 appearances in his debut season with 14 of those appearances being starting ones.
Roca went on to appear for Espanyol 121 times but was then sold to Bayern when they were relegated in 2020 for a fee of around 8 million pounds.
Since he’s moved to Germany Marc has found game time hard to come by and has only played a total of 24 games with a lot of those coming from the bench playing a total of only 974 minutes which equates to just under 11 full 90 minutes.
Roca hasn’t had any issues with injuries keeping him out of Bayern’s squad but even then it’s a hard team to break into with the likes of Leon Goretzka, Joshua Kimmich, Colentin Tolisso & Marcel Sabitzer ahead of him in the pecking order and as such is being sold to us for a fee not that much more than they paid for him.
Data & Clips
I’m going to do things a little differently this time, rather than seperate sections for data & clips I am keeping them all in the same section so you can see some examples from what the data tells us.
All the data in the below visuals is from FBRef, and to explain the percentiles, if a player is in the 90th percentile this means this stat is in the top 10% of players.
Passing
Below is Marc’s passing data, which shows quite nicely that he attempts more passes overall than the average top 5 league midfielder, especially when it comes to long passes.
His penchant for playing long balls will be a very helpful thing under Marsch, being able to quickly get the ball into advanced areas with precision is important for a Marsch midfielder.
As we can see in the below clip, he can quickly make the right pass when he needs to and do it with accuracy, creating a shot in this action. This is where the bulk of Marc’s progressive passes come from, longer passes breaking into the final third.
In the next clip we can see some examples of his short passing, he likes to move the ball forward whenever possible not always taking the safer option which is something I love to see in a CM/DM.
From what I’ve watched of Roca he generally favors the harder pass option over the easy one, and he doesn’t often mess them up. Also a line breaking passes from the defensive midfield area to the central attacking area is a commonly seen pass from him and as we know Marsch prefers to keep his play narrow, so it seems like he is a good match for Marsch.
Ball Carrying & Dribbling
Next we can see from his carrying data below that he doesn’t attempt too many dribbles but does like to carry the ball, meaning he isn’t going to dribble past many players but he will drive into space and he does still progress the ball a lot with the ball at his feet.
From watching him play there is a particular kind of ball carrying you’ll see from him and it isn’t going to be him driving into space far up the pitch, but more driving into a little space from his own half into the oppositions half before passing the ball forwards like you can see on the below clips.
These may seem of little value but they are actually a helpful thing to do, as opposition players further up the pitch may move towards you to close you down which leads to space being opened up behind them which is a thing you see a lot of the top CM/DM’s in the world do.
Progression & Creation
Next up we have his progression and creation, he produces quite a lot in terms of progression and final third entries. You can also see that he produces most of his shot creating actions from set pieces, which could be useful considering Jesse Marsch is a fan of set pieces in general.
We have already covered progressive passes in the passing section so I’ll mainly focus on what he can offer creatively for the clips. Most of Marc’s direct shot creation will come from either Set Pieces or longer passes behind the last line. Both will be very useful under Marsch.
Defending & Pressing
Finally the defensive side of his game, it has been observed by some from the eye test that he lacks a little physicality to his game. But this doesn’t stop him from being very active defensively. He attempts a lot of tackles & makes a lot of pressures. Will see what the eye test says when we watch him play.
While watching Roca I can comment that I have noticed what others have referred to about his physicality, specifically his strength and speed.
He doesn’t appear to be a player overly blessed with either of these. On the whole it shouldn’t be an issue as it took me awhile to spot any issues.
In the below clips you can see him having some struggles physically and is quite easily brushed aside in both and in the first one he is not only shrugged off physically but is left behind as can’t keep up with the player.
The above also extends to being weak in 1v1 battles, in the below clip it’s agility which lets him down, he’s pretty slow to turn in this instance and the player quite easily leaves him behind.
While he isn’t the most physical of midfielders this doesn’t mean that he isn’t going to recovery balls and be active defensively, He has a good work rate with stamina to go with it he has a good awareness of space and generally is disciplined in where he should be as part of the teams structure. A good instance of his ball winning is below.
Conclusions
I hope I’ve given you a good sense of what kind of player we are getting in Marc Roca, as with all footballers he has things he excels in and others that he doesn’t.
He will be an upgrade for us in all aspects of his on ball ability, his press resistance and range of passing will really be a powerful tool going forwards, we need to try to play to these strengths and have a solid structure around him.
Marc will provide a level of composure to our midfield with his calmness on the ball, he will help facilitate our football in deeper areas and get the ball quickly forward with long range passing, he won’t be a player you see marauding up the pitch often with the ball at his feet but will wiggle his way out of a press and play a cute progressive ball forward instead.
He will need to be paired with a more physical and battling midfield partner, should Kalvin Phillips stay an LUFC player then he will be perfectly suited for this job, but if he does leave we will need to bring in a replacement who has lots of energy, strength and pace in my opinion.
Someone who will be able to help out Roca when needed and be the midfield partner he needs so his on ball abilities can shine.
We will need to be patient with this signing I feel, he’s not played much football for the last few years and will take some time to adjust to Premier League football.
The signing is without a big fee which should help fans be a little more patient with him, and I feel it is a very good signing and one which will improve the overall quality of the squad when he is fully up to speed with the league.
On top of the above we have a player in Roca who will be able to excel in different systems too, so if things don’t work out under Jesse Marsch he should actually be even better suited to a role in a more possession orientated system.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and know a little more about our newest addition. If you’ve enjoyed this article please share it and follow me on Twitter on the below link.
Thanks again
Martin
