Leeds United — The Search for the Perfect 10
Hello There, welcome to this article in which I will use data to try to find a 10 for Leeds Utd under Jesse Marsch. With there likely being a certain Brazilian being sold this summer we will need a replacement if he does indeed leave.
But what about Brenden Aaronson I hear you say, yeah he is likely to be an incoming player in this position, however there is potentially room for 2 players in this position new to the squad. Especially if the rumoured Spurs interest in Jack Harrison proves to be genuine.
Firstly we need to work out what precisely an attacking midfielder under Jesse Marsch would look like. Would it be tremendously different from this position in other sides? Would they need to have certain attributes that maybe a 10 wouldn’t need in other systems?
I believe there is some differences between the traditional 10 and what Marsch wants his 10 to be. Most Leeds fans haven’t been treated to many tremendous 10’s, however there has been 1 extraordinary example and one good example just in Bielsa’s time at LUFC. One Pablo Hernandez & the other being Samu Saiz.
I don’t have to tell most Leeds fans what either of these players were all about in great specific’s, but for anyone who has started following Leeds since we returned to the Premier League I’ll just quite simply say they were both fun players who liked to run with the ball, create goals and score goals. Both had excellent ball control, neither were gifted tremendously with pace but both had agility and superb close control.
A lot of the above characteristics are important to what Marsch wants from his 10’s. But there are some key differences which I’ll try to cover. Firstly there is less need for a Marsch player to dictate play in a Pablo Hernandez style, as Jesse Marsch doesn’t look to control the ball like a lot of possession orientated styles.
I have watched games from a few of Marsch’s previous clubs, at RB Salzburg and in addition at RB Leipzig, and one thing to say firstly is there is a compactness to the way attacks are built, nearly all the width is generated from one player on both sides(Usually a fullback/wingback)
This compaction leads to a lot of congestion in attacking area’s, this compaction is key to the counter pressing structure Marsch employs, if the players are spread too wide they cannot properly counter press when the opposition wins the ball.
This leads me to the first quality a Marsch attacker needs to have, the ability to play without a lot of space, to be able to quickly progress the ball to the strikers via ball carrying or quick passing. Good close control, quickness in movement and in thinking. Players who thrive in chaos basically.
They probably won’t have a lot of time on the ball so need to be able to quickly make the right choices and be good enough to make that right choice. Now this is a very difficult thing to find from pure data scouting which is why I’ll be watching some of the players we find to see if the data told us what we wanted.
Firstly there is one particular metric which could prove useful, which is “Pressure Passes”, this is a metric provided by FBRef. This basically tells us a pass which was made while under pressure from an opponent.
The player data I am using is from the Top 5 European League’s, La Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1, Premier League & Bundesliga. I have applied a number of filters to this data, player age between 18–27, secondly they need to have started at least 15 games. This is so we recruit players of the age profile we need(Pre-Peak) and secondly that they have played enough football.
In addition another thing I have done is filtered out players who play for Top 4–6 position clubs who we may struggle to recruit from.
Due to difficulties in finding specific positions amongst the rather general Midfielder & Attacker terminology FBRef uses, I have also added a filter to show only players with at least 15 attacking third touches p90 as this should filter out most of the deeper midfielders.
Firstly I wanted to look at players who made a lot of passes to the penalty area combined with a high amount of pressure passes played. This combines two important facets of a Marsch attacker. But this only looks at one way of entering the penalty area, so I combined passes & carries into the penalty area into one metric, which leaves us with the below.
Let me quickly note the colours present on all the charts are a function to group together players with similar numbers in each of the represented metrics and don’t hold their own values. Also all data comes from FBRef courtesy of Statsbomb.
There are a number of familiar names on here for most people who pay attention to the European leagues, but also a lot which maybe won’t be familiar names, these are the one’s I’m going to pay more attention to.
The cluster we want to pay attention to for our purposes is the orange cluster and additionally the ones towards the top right of the blue cluster.
Lucas Höler, Antonín Barák, Illan Kebbal, Hamed Junior Traore, Christoph Baumgartner, Rafael Borré & Angelo Fulgini are some players here who play as attacking midfielders are realistic targets and show up well in this data.
Now we have seen which players in this data set stand out, we need to move on to the next key facet of a Marsch attacker which is pressing ability. They need to be capable pressers of the ball and in addition they need to be capable of taking on players.
As is my style I am going to add more filters into my next data set based on the previous one, players who had at least 5pressure passes p90 & more than 1.2 Penalty area entries p90.
Firstly, Allan Saint Maximin….Stop it. You’re making the rest of these guys look bad at dribbling. Massive outliers out of the way there is a few of the names we picked out in the previous data set who also show up well in this one.
Such as Hamed Junior Traore, Rafael Borre, Angelo Fulgini & Illan Kebbal. But in addition some new names have came up like Patrick Wimmer, Denis Bouanga, Álex Berenguer, Dwight McNeil, Chris Führich, Dejan Ljubicic amongst many others but a lot of these players are wingers by trade and may not be suitable but we will keep them in contention.
Next up is Progression, our 10 would need to be proficient in progressing the ball forward via ball carrying and passing, ideally capable of doing both. So applying some more filters as we have done in previous data sets we can narrow the list down further.
Firstly I can’t keep not commenting on these two, Yacine Adli & Romain Faivre have shown up well in most of these data sets. They are two players we should have gone for previously.
Faivre was picked up in January for only £13mil by Olympique Lyon and Yacine Adli for only £8mil by AC Milan in the Summer. Both are now out of our reach.
But onto players in this data set, once again Ilan Kebbal, Hamed Junior Traore, Chris Führich, & Angelo Fulgini all show up well. In addition we have Seko Fofana, Nedim Bajrami & Enis Bardhi show up well amongst the players who we may have a chance to sign.
The final data set to run these boys through is one targeted at creativity, there are a number of metrics that look at creativity, one of which is xA(Expected Assists) and another I want to use is Shot Creating Actions.
By this point all of the players on the above have been through a lot of filters, which means pretty much every player on the above is at the least average or above for all of the data sets I’ve been through.
However the ones who stand out again in this, most prominently is Nedim Bajrami. But we also have Hamed Junior Traore, Illan Kebbal, Enis Bardhi, Chris Führich & Patrick Wimmer.
Now I have covered a lot of different names in this article and now I need to narrow it down even further so I’m left with a smaller sample which I can run over the eye test to see if the data has found players who could fit.
Here is the full list of all mentioned names with all the data points we’ve covered, as well as a couple more.
It may look like there is no sorting going on in the above but there is, I have sorted the one’s towards the top with the most stats in Green and least in green towards the bottom.
Lastly to determine which of these players to go for, I decided to scout 5 players, one from each of the league’s and the players I decided on were Chris Führich, Enis Bardhi, Ilan Kebbal, Dwight McNeil & Hamed Junior Traorè.
Chris Fuhrich
First up on my watch list is Chris Führich, Chris is 24 years old plays for VfB Stuttgart, One concern is that by his age he doesn’t have a lot of senior appearances, he only started playing competitive football at 22 regularly and only has 56 senior appearances with 30 of these being in 2.Bundesliga.
Chris does seem to have a fair bit of versatility to his game having played as a wingback, central midfielder, attacking midfielder, winger and striker just this season which is a positive.
In the games I watched I noticed some promising aspects. Especially his ball carrying, he likes to drive forward with the ball to progress rather than progressing by passing and does show some capability in tight areas.
One thing I noticed was he would be in wide positions a lot, I am unsure if this is a natural inclination of his given he has played a lot as a winger or if this was a tactical instruction.
Often he could even be found filling in around the LB area when their LB was attacking the flanks providing security. In addition he would interchange positions with the LW, he would provide the width while the LW attacking more centrally.
If this is a natural inclination it could prove to be an issue in a Marsch system and could need coaching out of. He is a capable presser and doesn’t seem to lack stamina, evidenced by strong running late on in games. I did see some moments where he displayed quickness and good agility but it wasn’t often enough to say with confidence he is a speedy player.
Overall although he wouldn’t be an expensive purchase I’m not sure if he is the right player for us, he would suit a system which uses wide areas a lot and that definitely isn’t us and in addition he seems more comfortable in deeper areas of midfield.
Enis Bardhi
Next up on the watch list is Enis Bardhi, Enis is 26 and plays for Levante UD in La Liga. Enis has quite a lot of experience of La Liga in multiple positions, most importantly for us he has a lot of these games in central areas with 40 app’s as a CM and 29 as a CAM. He is also a compatriot of Gianni Alioski in the North Macedonia side.
Looking over his Transfermarkt contract data it says his contract expires at the end of this season, however they may have a 2 year contract extension option included in this, so potentially he can be picked up for free, in addition Levante are currently bottom of La Liga so even if they do extend his contract he could be picked up quite cheaply if they are relegated.
I watched a bunch of Enis’ games at Levante across the 20/21 & 21/22 seasons, recently he has played a lot as a CM but I also noted he is moved around often on the pitch, in one game I saw him play 3 different positions LM,RM & CM.
I saw a player capable of making smart decisions to keep things simple when needed and one who could progress the ball forward via ball carrying and passing and be more positive too.
He has a good first touch and is capable of turning a man with quick movements and drive past them. But sometimes the final ball can be lacking.
His off the ball movements are good, he shows signs of being a capable presser and I saw a number of instances of him winning the ball and immediately looking to move the ball forward.
He could be a great pickup for us especially on a free transfer, he’s just before prime outfield player years and could play across a number of positions for us, also in the eventuality we change head coach he is versatile enough to fit into different styles of football.
Illan Kebbal
Illan Kebbal is the next to scout, Illan is 23 years old and plays for Stade Reims in France’s Ligue 1. He’s into his 2nd season of senior football having played 35 games in Ligue 2 with USL Dunkerque & 28 games in Ligue 1 with Stade Reims.
While in Ligue 2 he played across a number of positions for Dunkerque with most appearances coming as a winger on both sides. Then when he moved to Reims he shifted to playing more games as a central/attacking midfielder with some appearances upfront or on the wing.
First thing I noted while watching Illan was his physique, he’s only just over 5ft5 and has quite a slim build. He could struggle with the physicality of Premier League or championship.
However his lack of physique is made up for with his impressive ball carrying, he has a good first touch and can turn and drive forward quite quickly, his decision making looks pretty good and knows when it’s best to play backwards if needed to keep hold of the ball.
I’ve noticed he seems quite vocal in helping his team mates, often gesturing towards possible dangers or players who need to be pressed which is a good sign for a young player.
He possesses some pace but nothing extraordinary, and this helps his pressing of which he is quite capable, he seems to possess good work rate, in one particular game he was playing as a ST and quite often when his side were under pressure he would be helping defend around their own penalty box.
Lastly he displays good decision making, has a good idea when to pass and when to carry and I think he would be a good fit in a Marsch side. He’s the one I’m most excited about so far.
Dwight McNeil
Onto one a lot of you should be more familiar with in Dwight McNeil of Burnley FC. Dwight started his career at Burnley and hasn’t played for anyone else, so far he has 130 career appearances all at Premier League level.
In his career McNeil has primarily played as a winger, primarily a left sided one with 110 of his app’s on the left side with the remaining games on the right side, besides one appearance as a Striker.
McNeil role in Burnley’s side has primarily been creative, supplying Burnley’s two strikers with crosses or passes and he’s been quite effective at this, at least as far as players at Burnley go. Dwight has been Burnley’s leader for Expected Assists(xA) in every one of his seasons at Burnley, barring his breakout season when he was 4th, but even then he had the most xA p90.
From watching Dwight there are a few things I noticed, first of all he’s a very hard worker. He is constantly getting back to defend, pressing and just generally being as much of a nuisance as he can out of possession.
In possession he generally looks to dribble the ball forward as quickly as he can when the opportunity presents itself, he has good ball control and is capable of taking on his man with success and seems to win a fair amount of fouls.
He attempts a lot of crosses which is probably more indicative of Burnley’s attacking style than it is about Dwight himself, as such it can be hard to envision him and what he could be like in a different system where he is asked to do more than get to the byline and whip crosses in.
My judgement on Dwight is that while he is a talented player and would be a good fit for a lot of sides I can’t see him working as a CAM under Jesse Marsch, but I’m sure he will have plenty of suitors as he’s a young player with a lot of skill, just a skillset which doesn’t suit a narrow system like Marsch employs.
Hamed Junior Traore
Hamed is my final player to scout for this article and I feel like he could be the best out of the bunch, overall his stats we identified were nearly all at a very good level and it will be interesting to see what the eye test says.
Hamed started his career at Empoli, playing there from 2015, he then moved on loan to Sassuolo in 2019, then Sassuolo bought Hamed for £14.4mil in 2021. So with his move being pretty recent it is maybe unlikely he will move on again this soon.
Hamed started is his career at Empoli and he mainly played as a CM playing 22 out of his 32 app’s in this position, then when he moved to Sassuolo he was moved further up the field playing mainly as an AM with 42 out of 100 app’s as an AM. However in this current season he has actually played more games a Left Winger.
The above adds up to a versatile attacking player who has played in every position from DM upwards on the pitch and this is something which I personally rate for an attacking player.
Quickly I noticed that Hamed while not looking the most imposing player does have a fair amount of strength, especially when holding off players while he is running with the ball, another physical attribute of note is acceleration, a few times while watching I noticed him being able to quickly burst away from a standing start while possessing the ball giving him an edge in 1 v 1's.
Technically he has a good first touch and likes to keep hold of the ball with short passing or by maneuvering his body away from opposition so he can carry the ball further.
His ball carrying is one of his strongest attributes which he uses to good effect to progress the ball further up the field, but he can also progress the ball with passing as well and has a good eye for a pass.
From my viewing I think he would be a very good player for us under Jesse Marsch, however he would be a significant amount of money considering he’s only recently moved to Sassuolo permanently, however it wouldn’t be impossible especially considering he’s in a similar position to Jack Harrison as he was on loan with Sassuolo for 2 seasons before permanently moving last summer.
Conclusions
Out of the 5 players I scouted there were 3 who stood out as options who could fit for us under Jesse Marsch, so lets so if they would be realistic signings or not.
Below is a quick list of the players who I believe would suit out of the 5 and some transfer details, I’ve also given an estimated cost, the figures are from Transfermarkt and the estimate is my own estimate based on the clubs previous record sale price and their current value.
Any of the above players would be realistic signings for us, Bardhi & Kebbal are both very low risk, and I also feel Traore while isn’t low risk due to the fee involved, he is still a good age being only 22, meaning he would have lots of resale value.
I hope you have enjoyed this article, if you have please share it. Also I’m welcoming any and all feedback, positive or negative.
Thanks for Reading
Martin
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