Orta’s Power Five: Reserved 8
Bonjourno and welcome to the next edition of my series of articles on Orta’s Power Five, we take another stats based look at some potential names Victor Orta may have on his little notebook kept close to the side of his chest he thumps when Leeds score.
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This article will look at our Left Central Midfield position, as some will be aware Leeds play with two box to box midfielders or 8’s as I will call them. One of which operates a little closer to the opposition goal on the right of our CM and this I will refer to as our “Advanced 8". The 2nd one is more involved in our buildup than the other on the left of our CM and this I will refer to as our “Reserved 8”.
As most Leeds fans will be aware there has been calls for investment in our midfield options for some time. A lot of the issues the club has faced this season has come from a phrase most Football Manager players will be all too aware of “We’re being overrun in midfield”, our midfield players commit themselves a lot going forward and at times both of CM players were doing this which left us wide open for attacks, the away Manchester United game comes to mind for this with Fred & McTominay being made to look like Prime Viera & Zidane.
The season started with Mateusz Klich taking on the reserved 8 role & Rodrigo as the Advanced 8. More recently we have seen Stuart Dallas take the reserved 8 role as his own moving away from LB and becoming an irreplaceable part of our Midfield and Tyler Roberts has had a lot of gametime in the advanced 8 role.
We have also seen as the season wore on Mateusz Klich taking some backwards steps, possibly as a result of playing for more than 2 years without any real break, this led to him having 6 games on the bench after barely being out of the starting 11 for over 2 years.
We also saw some changes to how the reserved 8 operates, Dallas has been marking in a more zonal fashion covering gaps in our midfield which has led us to be more solid defensively. This would seem to me a temporary fix to a problem Bielsa will hope to solve in the summer as this change is contrary to his tactical ideas during his time in Yorkshire.
The data I am using for this article is coming from FBREF courtesy of Statsbomb, as ever a massive thank you to them for this data being available free to use. In addition all the data will be per 90 as this is the fairest way to show how productive a player is.
I am not showing players from teams who look likely to finish in Champions League positions as we wouldn’t be able to attract them, this should also show the best of the rest in a very good light.
Lastly I will only be looking at players under the age of 28 as we should be trying to find players who still have resale value.
Buildup Play
The reserved 8 is the more defensive of the two CM spots, and when I say “more” defensive I use this term loosely as with every Bielsa player this position still needs to have a lot of technical and attacking expertise, this player needs to have the positional sense as to know when to commit and play a riskier pass/carry when it is safe to do so and also should be well aware of his midfield partner so he can cover for them if they concede possession as his partner will usually be the one taking more risks in possession.
Dallas has done an excellent job at the above role in the latter half of the season, but one of Dallas’s main downfalls is his direct creativity, he is good at buildup play but his personal creativity isn’t as strong as others and an ideal Bielsa player in this position would have the positional awareness and buildup strength of Dallas combined with a more creative spark, as such this position is very difficult to fill.
Identifying some of these strengths is difficult with data alone but a good starting point I feel is to look at a player who is calm under pressure and able to play passes under pressure, secondly they should be able to be heavily involved in the play in the middle of the pitch, the below visual will show players Pressure passing & Middle 3rd touches
Also please note I decided to exclude players from the below visual who have less than 12 pressures p90, on average our CM players attempt 19 pressures p90 with Phillips completing the most pressures with 22.2 p90. So I feel it is paramount that players are at least capable of 12 p90 with emphasis put on the players who complete more.
Buildup Play
There are a number of strong outliers in this graphic, the one which stands out straight away is Manuel Locatelli who has popped up in a previous article I’ve done. Manuel plays in Serie A for Sassuolo, he started his career with A.C Milan where he came through the youth ranks and was then sold to Sassulo in 2019 for a bargain of £11mil, he’s currently 23 years old and has 140 Serie A appearances to his name. Manuel has played 9.6 Pressure passes & has 61.5 Middle 3rd touches p90. Manuel has mainly played in Defensive midfield across his career but also has 63 apps as a Central Midfielder.
The next one who stands out for me is Florian Grillitsch, Florian plays in the Bundesliga for TSG Hoffenheim, he is an Austrian international with 21 Senior Caps. Florian is 25 years old and has 158 Bundesliga appearances between his current club and the club he started with SV Werder Bremen. He can play in any position across the centre of midfield with most of these app’s being at DM or CM. Florian stands out because he is the leader for Passes made under Pressure with 11.5 p90 and he also has a respectable 43.1 Middle Third Touches.
I want to point out Valentin Rongier, once again I have came across his name in a prior article. Valentin plays in Ligue 1 for Bielsa’s previous side Marseille. Valentin wasn’t with Marseille at the same time as Bielsa though as he was playing FC Nantes, he joined Marseille for a fee of £11.7mil in 2019. He is 26 years old and has 166 Ligue 1 app’s with majority of the app’s coming at CM however he is comfortable playing also at either DM or AM. Valentin stands out with 8.5 Pressure Passes & 52.9 middle third touches.
Defensive Qualities
Next I want to look in more detail at the role’s defensive side, this position needs to be strong at pressing, tackles & interceptions. As such the next graphic will examine this facet. This player needs to be ready to win the ball back as soon as it is lost and is a vital part of our pressing structure, usually this work goes under the radar but it is very obvious when this role isn’t being done well.
Based on the previous visual I have added a second filter this time to only include players who have 25 or more middle third touches & 5 or more pressure passes, that should make the next visual look cleaner.
Once again quite a few interesting outliers, and for a second time we see Mr Rongier making an appearance, this time in an even more impressive position, he leads the charts for Tackles & Interceptions with 6.6 p90 and his stats for pressures are also just superb with 24.7, this stat is higher than any other LUFC player.
The next player I like the look of is Leonardo Bittencourt, Leo plays for SV Werder Bremen in the Bundesliga and is a German international with 20 senior caps. He has played for a number of clubs in Germany, the most recent being TSG Hoffenheim who he left in 2020 for a fee of £6.3mil. Leo is 27 years old and has 204 Bundesliga app’s. Leo is more of an attacking midfielder by trade spending most of his career playing as a winger on both sides or a Central AM, having strong defensive stats is great for a more attacking player. He leads the Pressures chart with a monstrous 29 pressures and has a more than respectable 4.3 Tackles & Interceptions. Leo’s stats for buildup aren’t as strong with 5.97 press pass & only 26.8 Middle Third touches which may make him more suited for the advanced 8 role.
Lastly in this section I like the look of Yacine Adli, Yacine plays for FC Girondins de Bordeaux in Ligue 1. Yacine is the youngest player I have selected thus far being only 20 years old. Yacine came through the youth ranks at PSG but only made 1 senior appearance for his boyhood club before being sold to Bordeaux for only £5mil in 2019. Yacine has 66 app’s for Bordeaux since signing for them and has spent his time playing as a CM & AM with most of this season’s appearances being at CM. Yacine has 26.1 pressure passes & 4.9 Tackles & Interceptions, he is also in a strong position in our buildup section with 9.6 pressure passes & 47.6 middle third touches p90. This lad seems to have some potential.
Progression & Final Third Play
The next visual I want to look at for our reserved 8 will focus on progression & final third entries as these are key part’s which our left sided CM needs to have to be effective. The player needs to be able to progress the ball with both passing & Carrying and then put quality balls in to forward players in the final third.
I will combine Progressive Carry & Pass distance to show just how progressive they are on one side and on the other I will combine Final Third Passes & Carries. Once again I am going to add some more of these juicy filters based on the previous visual, to make this cut you have to have more than 13 pressures & more than 2 Tackles & Interceptions p90.
Once again we see a number of players we have seen in outlier positions from previous visuals, this is very promising. I have chosen to ignore a good chunk of these players because they would cost more than we probably could afford.
Florian Grillitsch makes another appearance of note with the 2nd most Progression Distance with 523 Yards & a strong stat for Final Third entries with 6.9. He wasn’t in an outlier position in the previous visual but he does still have respectable stats with 3.7 tackles & interceptions & 15.8 pressures p90.
Manuel Locatelli is again in a strong position with the most progressive distance with 549 Yards & 9.9 Final Third entries which is 3rd. Locatelli wasn’t an outlier in our defence visual but again has strong stats for this with 4 tackles & interceptions and 14.4 pressures p90.
The 3rd player to make another entry is Yacine Adli and at such a young age Yacine is looking more and more attractive a prospect and I drool at the thought of what Bielsa could do with a player like Yacine. While some way short of the leaders he still has strong numbers here with 409 Yards Progression & 7.8 Final Third entries.
As I said I was ignoring some of these players like Curtis Jones, Thomas Partey, Dani Ceballos etc… As they would be beyond our price range.
So the newest & last entry I’d like to discuss from this visual is Mikel Merino, Mikel plays in La Liga for Real Sociedad, the same club where Diego Llorente joined us from. Mikel has 91 La Liga app’s and even spent a year on loan in the Premier League with Newcastle in 17/18 where he made 24 app’s. Mikel is 24 years old and is a Spanish International with 6 caps. Merino has decent stats for progression with 301.8 Yards & has better stats in Final Third with 7 entries p90. Mikel has played most of his career as a CM but is also a capable DM. Defensively he is strong and has 19 pressures and 3.8 Tackles & Interceptions p90. He also as respectable numbers for buildup with 38.4 middle third touches & is very strong under pressure with 10.5 pressure passes.
Creativity & Penalty Area
Next I want to move onto the creative side of the role, while this quality is more important to the Advanced 8, the reserved 8 still needs to be a capable creator and needs to be active around the oppositions penalty area for us to be effective in our attacking.
Once again I will up the filter this time including a filter on Progression of 250 Yards and a filter on Final Third entries set at 4 p90. These will eliminate even more of the non outliers from the previous visual making it even cleaner.
There is two familiar faces left in this visual Yacine Adli is here once again leading the way for Shot Creating Actions(SCA) from Openplay with 3 SCA per90 & has reasonable 1.2 penalty area entries. Yacine has pretty much been an outlier in every visual and is so young. He’s definitely on my list.
Secondly we see our friend Manuel Locatelli with a strong 2.5 SCA & a reasonable 1.3 penalty area entries p90. Manuel has been a strong performer in nearly all the visuals and is most assuredly gonna be one of my picks.
There is only one player I want to mention in this visual which is Amin Younes who plays in Bundesliga for Eintracht Frankfurt on loan from Napoli in Serie A, Amin joined Napoli in 2018 from Ajax for a fee of £4.5mil after joining Ajax for a fee of £2.2mil from Borussia Monchengladbach with who he came through the Youth ranks. He 27 years old and is a Germany International with 7 Caps & 2 goals so I’d imagine Monchengladbach are pretty annoyed with the small fee they received for him.
Amin is player in the most outlying position with very strong numbers in both metrics here with 2.8 for both Penalty Area Entries & Openplay SCA. Amine has been a winger for most of his clubs but more recently he’s been playing at AM. He has 50 Bundesliga app’s & 69 Eredivisie app’s & 20 Serie A app’s, this shows he isn’t afraid to move if the right offer comes in.
Targets
Now is the time to select my targets. I have decided on my 5 targets and they are all players I have discussed in previous sections of this article. I decided not to include Leonardo Bittencourt & Amin Younes because I feel they are more suited to the advanced 8 than the reserved 8 so they may well feature in that article.
Below is a run down of my selected targets key stats which we have already covered, just to refresh your memory.
Any of the above signings would be more than capable of performing well in a Bielsa side and in my opinion would improve the squad. I am leaning towards Yacine Adli as to who my best choice is but lets see which of the above are possible and how much they may cost.
I am using Transfermarkt for my transfer figures, and all costs are estimates based on the clubs previous sale in similar position etc…
There is some variation in these values and it’s very possible Merino & Locatelli may be beyond our reach financially given we need to recruit elsewhere too, personally I would be looking to Rongier or Adli as possibly being the best options. Ligue 1 clubs have been hit massively financially, not just due to Covid-19 effects but in addition TV deals have collapsed leaving many clubs out of pocket and needing to sell players to balance their books.
Conclusion
I have very much enjoyed putting this article together and feel I have narrowed things down to 5 strong targets, all are realistic as in we would be able to attract them, however some may be challenging financially but the rest are more than possible financially and would improve our options for our reserved 8.
I hope you have enjoyed this article as much as I have and I’ll be back next time looking at the advanced 8 in a very similar article to this one.
