Orta’s Power Five: Wingers

Greetings & Salutations. Welcome to the newest episode of Orta’s Power Five, where I hope to discover some of the names of transfer targets hidden in a top secret location by Victor Orta on a little notebook.

This episode will look at wide players, primarily wingers playing in advanced locations across the Top Five European league’s. I will explore which players Orta may have on his list through the use of data driven analysis, The data I look at will be entirely from this season up until the 20th April 2021.

Thus far this season the preferred Wide players have been in general Jack Harrison on the Left & Raphinha on the right. Although there has been a spattering of starting appearances by Helder Costa mixed in throughout the season.

On the left wing Jack Harrison has had a super debut season in the English top flight and so far has scored 7 goals & assisted 6 in 28 starting appearances which brings his Goals & Assists p90 tally standing at 0.50.

On the right flank Raphinha has scored 6 goals & assisted 6 in 23 starting appearances which once again is a strong start to Premier League life, Raphinha has a Goals & Assist p90 of 0.52 which is very similar to Jack’s tally.

Lastly we have Helder Costa who has been a much more sporadic squad player for us this season, Helder has 3 goals and has assisted 3 in 12 starting appearances & 9 substitute appearances. Helder has a G&A tally of 0.5 which impressively is the same as Harrison & just below Raphinha’s.

It does look quite likely that we will have an influx of new players this summer going off recent stories by Phil Hay in The Athletic, I would anticipate also a few squad players leaving. It’s possible that Helder Costa is one of these squad players and so we would look to bring in a replacement player.

One thing we do need in the squad in this area is a Right footed wide option, with all 4 of our wide options(Ian Poveda included) being left footed we don’t have a way of changing up our focus on either wing.

There may be a time when it would be beneficial to have a naturally right footed player swing a cross in or for that same player to cut inside on the left wing. It’s definitely a weakness to not have this kind of option in the squad.

As such any players I will be recommending will be right footed players and secondly they need to be able to press so I have filtered out all players who haven’t pressed more than 15 times p90. I picked 15 because this is slightly less than Raphinha who presses least out of our wide options with 15.26, Harrison has 19.3 & Costa has 20.2. In addition I won’t be recommending any players older than 28 or who play for a club currently in Champions League as we probably would struggle to attract these players.

Ball Carrying & Dribbling

The first visual I look at will look at their capability to carry the ball and dribble past players, it would be incredibly helpful if we had a player on both flanks capable of running past his marker in the same way that Raphinha is so proficient. Lets see who stands out.

In the visual I have only included players from the top 5 European League’s without Premier League, the reason for this is that I believe we will be targeting players from Europe as there will be more value for money to be found, I have left our players in though as reference points.

Firstly our players, Raphinha is the only player above average in both Progressive Carries(6.1) & dribbling past players(2.5), however his pressing numbers are less than the others with 15.4 p90. Both Harrison(1.5) & Costa(1.7) put out similar numbers for dribbling past players but Harrison(6.25) is someway clear of Costa(4.4) in Progressive carries. Costa(20.1) is our best presser with Harrison (19.3) coming close behind in 2nd.

Here there are a number of interesting outliers, firstly in the top right section we see Javier Ontiveros putting up very impressive numbers, he is the leaders for both dribbling past players(4.5) & progressive carries(12.1) in what I like to call my “Pressy Winger” filters. Ontiveros plays for SD Huesca in La Liga on loan from Villareal, the one proviso for Ontiveros would be that he has only started 10 games. But still these are very impressive numbers, he has scored 2 goals & registered 1 assist which while reasonable isn’t overly impressive in terms of end productivity.

Jeremy Doku is the next players of note, being 2nd for Progressive Carries(10.6) & 3rd for Players dribbled past(3.65) Doku is a very interesting option, Doku is a recent signing from Anderlecht by Rennes in Ligue 1, he has started 21 games and is loving life in Ligue 1, however with only 2 goals & 2 assists there may be question marks about his final product. Jeremy also has decent pressing numbers with 16.8.

The next I want to look at is Mikkel Damsgaard, Mikkel I have chosen because of his extraordinary pressing numbers, Mikkel is the clear leader with 28 pressures p90, he is someway clear of 2nd placed Pierrick Capelle with 23 pressures. Mikkel is putting out extraordinary defensive numbers and is only 20 years old. In addition he dribbles(2.87) past more players than Raphinha does while having less progressive carries(5.6), he has started 16 matches and 13 sub appearances and in this time he has 2 goals & 4 assists, for his first season in a top league playing for Sampdoria in Serie A he is settling in very well. Sampdoria are the pressiest team in Serie A, we press 169 times p90, Sampdoria press 161 times p90. This would mean he should adapt seamlessly to the way we press.

My 4th player to look at is Matheus Cunha of Hertha BSC in the Bundesliga, Matheus may well be quite an expensive option but his numbers are extraordinary, while his ball carrying(6.8) isn’t close to the top players his numbers for dribbling past players(3.6) puts him 4th, on top of this he’s quite pressy with 20 p90, however his end product is much more impressive than other options with 7 goals & 4 assists in 23 starts. Matheus is only 21 years old and for such a young age is looking very impressive.

The 5th player to look at here for me is Kike Barja of Osasuna in La Liga, Kike has played for Osasuna all his career, this has been his breakout season in La Liga after impressing for Osasuna in their promotion from Segunda to La Liga, he has only started 13 games but has played an additional 15 games as a sub and in these games he has 2 goals & 3 assists. While his dribbling & carrying numbers aren’t as strong as the others I’ve picked out he still is slightly ahead of our best dribbler in Raphinha with 2.7 p90 & 6.9 progressive carries p90. In addition his pressing numbers are strong with 17.6 p90.

Progressive Passing & Shot Creating Actions(SCA)

Now we will look at passing, our wingers need to have good end product as well as being able to get past their marker, this is something that Raphinha & Jack Harrison both have shone in thus far.

For the next visual since we identified a number of strong dribblers I have upped the filter to include dribbles/progressive carries, so all the below players will have dribbled past at least 1.5 players & made at least 4 progressive carries p90. This really does cut down the volume of players and make the visual a lot cleaner.

First thing we should notice here is Helder Costa, his passing numbers are in the area we don’t want them to be in with low numbers for both Progressive Passes(1.24) & Shot creating actions(1.24) from Openplay it’s unsurprising he hasn’t featured as heavily as Harrison & Raphinha who both are in strong positions, Harrison being our best for SCA(3.4) and Raphinha being the best player in the visual for Progressive Passes(5.39). Both are significantly above average in this area.

Of the players we identified in the previous visual we see Jeremy Doku with impressive numbers for SCA(2.5) & Progressive Passes(3.7). Javier Ontiveros is above average for Prog Passes(3.8) however he is slightly below average for SCA(1.9). Mikkel Damsgaard is the same as Ontiveros for SCA(1.9) and falls a little short on Prog Passes(3.5).

Kike Barja is considerably below average for SCA(1.5) and is also slightly below average for Prog Passing(2.9) and lastly Matheus Cunha is slightly below average for SCA(1.8) & above average for Prog Passing(3.3).

So now which new players has this visual brought up, Firstly lets look at Enis Bardhi, Enis plays in La Liga for Levante and has a lot of experience in La Liga with 112 appearances. His season has been disrupted by a muscle injury which forced him to miss 10 games, however he isn’t an injury prone player with the most games missed in previous season standing only at 3 games. Despite this injury problem he has still started 14 games and has strong numbers for Prog Passing(4.5) and slightly above average numbers for SCA(2) He hasn’t been as productive this season as in previous years, no doubt his injury has disrupted his game. Last season he had 0.38 G&A p90 while this season he is down to 0.21. Enis isn’t the strongest ball carrier(5) but his dribbles(2.15) is reasonable. A strong feather in his cap though is his versatility, being capable of playing in any role in midfield with most of his experience coming in Attacking Midfield & Left Wing, he also has experience as a Central Midfield & Striker. As we all know Bielsa likes versatility.

The next player I’d like to look at is Adil Aouchiche from Saint-Etienne in Ligue 1. Adil is only 18 years old and playing regularly in Ligue 1 having started 19 games this season and playing an additional 10 games as a sub, he has very strong numbers for SCA(2.7) and is slightly below average for Prog Passes(2.96). Adil likes to press a lot with 18 pressures p90, his ball carrying(6) & dribbling(1.7) aren’t as strong as his passing though, but still being young this part of his game could be developed. Adil has end product too, with 2 goals & 5 assists it’s clear he’s been an asset to Saint Etienne.

There is no new players other than the two I mentioned which the latest visual brought up, the other outlying players were either too old or were left footed so I ignored them.

Expected Assists & Non Penalty xG

Lets now look to see if anyone has been missed out by taking a look at end product by the players xA & npxG. This will show us which players have good end product.

Firstly let us note again that Raphinha is a leader here for Expected Assists(0.31)and in addition Jack Harrison has put out strong numbers with 0.21. Non Penalty xG wise Harrison & Raphinha have identical numbers both with 0.23. Costa once again severely lags behind his team mates only producing 0.16 npxG and 0.08 xA p90.

Of the previously identified players a good number of them are either below average or around the average mark, with only Matheus Cunha being above average for both npxG(0.24) & xA(0.2). While Adil Aouchiche is well above average for xA(0.26) but is slightly below average for npxG(0.17)

This visual brings up a number of new players not previously shown as outliers, firstly I want to point out Hirving Lozano of Napoli. This player would be a difficult player to persuade but if Napoli miss out on UCL we may be able to convince him to sign for us. He has very strong numbers for npxG(0.35) and also reasonable numbers for xA(0.19). While he doesn’t complete many dribbles(1.5)he has elite numbers for progressive ball carrying(8.71) and he has a strong work rate with 19 pressures p90 completed. He is very involved in and around the penalty area with 7 touches p90 in the box and 2.45 carries into the box. He has started 20 games this season and scored 9 goals & has 2 assists which is a strong return.

The next player I’ve identified is Jorge de Frutos of Levante in La Liga, Jorge is having his breakout season in La Liga starting 15 games and entering 15 times from the bench. He has 4 goals & 7 assists which is mightily impressive for his first proper season in La Liga at 24. His xA(0.27) numbers are very strong and his npxG(0.18) is only slightly below average. Jorge has a strong defensive output which is promising with 18 pressures p90 and 2.2 tackles p90 too. His progressive passing(2.55) & progressive carrying(4.94) are a little underwhelming however considering he has strong numbers for xG & xA he maybe isn’t tasked with helping in the buildup for Levante and looks to be more involved with the end product.

The last player I want to identify is Armand Lauriente of Lorient in Ligue 1. Armand is also having his breakout season and having a good time while doing so. His xA(0.29) is 2nd in this visual and npxG(0.18) only slightly below average, he has started 16 games and played 9 games from the bench and has 3 goals & 3 assists. Armand loves to dribble with 3 dribbles completed p90 and his SCA is very strong with 4.47 p90. He has strong numbers for progressive carrying(7.2) but his progressive passing(1.8) is weaker but being only 22 he has time to improve this part of his game.

Narrowing down the Targets

We have identified a lot of players thus far but now it’s time to decide which players make the final cut. We need to look how they look across the board and who has the most positives.

As previously mentioned an absolute core for a Bielsa attacked is being strong in the Press and as such Mikkel Damsgaard is my first pick, while Mikkel doesn’t shine as much as some of the other players here he does have very strong numbers for progressive passes & players dribbled past.

My 2nd pick is Jeremy Doku because he is the leader for both Penalty Area passes & crossing as well as being 2nd for Progressive Carries & dribbles past players.

Coming in at 3rd is Javier Ontiveros being the leader for Dribbling past players & Progressive Carries he is clearly a very capable player.

4th in my picks is Jorge de Frutos, I couldn’t leave out Jorge due to his highly impressive tally of 0.62 for Non Penalty Goals & Assists, while he isn’t high on any other metric he has well rounded numbers across the board.

Lastly I am choosing Matheus Cunha for his combination of SCA & Dribbling past players. On top of these he is strong in multiple other categories and is only weak in crossing.

Conclusion

Now we have narrowed down our targets to 5 players we need to see who would be possible financially, for this I will be using Transfermarkt to see firstly what the market value of each player is and each clubs own record sale to try to estimate how much they may demand for the player.

Any of these players would be good targets for us to look at but I do feel we wouldn’t be willing to spend the money it would cost to bring Doku or Cunha into the team but the other 3 players to me are definitely realistic, if I had to choose one I like most it would be Damsgaard purely because of his insane pressing numbers, I think he would be an ideal Bielsa winger and would enhance both our attack and defence.

In closing thank you for reading if you have read this far, usually I will look at players in more detail but I don’t have time to put them through the eye test, maybe some of you know some of the above players and could comment to tell us your opinion?

I’ll be back next time looking at options for us in Central Midfield.

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed