Victor Orta on the phone, again. He wants Tyler Adams this time……
Salutations and welcome to yet another transfer article about a new Leeds United signing, this time Tyler Adams who has signed from RB Leipzig, making this the 3rd Red Bull signing of the window but the 1st arriving from Leipzig.
Tyler joins for a fee of around £20m on a 5 year deal running until 2027, 23 year old Adams has worked with Jesse Marsch at 2 previous clubs, firstly with New York Red Bulls and again with RB Leipzig.
As is now confirmed, Kalvin Phillips has left Leeds to join Manchester City which means that Adams will take Kalvin’s place in the squad, but what will he bring to the role in Kalvin’s stead? and can he fill the void left behind effectively.
Playing Career
Tyler came through the academy at New York Red Bulls and this is where he played his first senior football, and it was Jesse Marsch who gave him his debut at the age of 16, actually playing in the same team as two former LUFC players Lloyd Sam & Mike Grella as you can see in the below image.
His early development with NY Red Bulls continued, very quickly becoming a regular player under Marsch in the 2017 season starting 22 games only being 17 years old at the time, he was then sold to RB Leipzig for a fee of around £2.5mil in January 2019 when he was 19.
Tyler has never really solidified a regular starting position In Leipzig, but came closest in 20/21 when he started 21 out of the 34 available Bundesliga games but that figure has dropped this season, especially when Domenico Tedesco took over at Leipzig when Jesse was sacked in November, with Tyler only starting in 6 of the 21 league games Tedesco was in charge of.
He is a USMNT player getting his senior international debut in 2017 and has since gone on to make 30 appearances for his country scoring 1 goal and contributing 1 assist.
Playing Style & Data
Now onto the stuff you’re all really reading for, what is Tyler going to play like? Well firstly his position, most of you will already know that he’s a CM or DM depending on how the formation looks. He’s played most of his time in a double pivot midfield.
However what you might not know is that he’s also able to play RB or RWB, in the 20/21 season in particular he started 16 games as either a RB or RWB(Mostly as a RWB) But I doubt we’ll see him there for us often considering we’ve just signed Kristensen. But it’s a useful thing to note.
I’ll breakdown each area of his game in the below sections, along with some handy Phillips comparisons. There will be direct comparisons between both players in these sections based on stats in their respective leagues.
Any stats in these next sections should be taken with a pinch of salt as they are playing in different league’s and for teams of widely different statures in their respective leagues. But there is still some things you can learn from them.
Passing
As you can see from the above image there is a few differences to note in their passing, Kalvin attempts significantly more long range passing with more than double Tyler’s total attempts.
While Tyler is capable of playing long balls in a similar way we loved to see Kalvin do, he doesn’t do it as often as Kalvin would. But he does however look better with shorter range passing and is quite crisp and tidy in the way he executes his passes.
In general Tyler completes more short passes and with a slightly higher completion rate, however as noted before RB Leipzig are one of the top Elite clubs in the Bundesliga and the same can’t be said of Leeds in the Premier League.
One thing tonote is that Tyler is quite good at keeping possession for his team, his short passing is generally accurate, he is able to complete quick one touch passes when under pressure to keep the ball either in safe possession or even progress the ball up the field.
Below are a few different clips of Tyler’s passing to show you what I mean.
The above clips were used just as a demonstration of the things I’ve talked about that I liked, it doesn’t mean you’ll be seeing these kind of things all the time, I would note in general Tyler is a less progressive passer and generally does prioritise keeping possession so there will be sideways passes & back passes.
However this isn’t a problem as he is going to be paired with a player in Marc Roca who is a forward thinking passer most of the time so they should work well together as a midfield double pivot.
Press Resistance & Ball Carrying
This section will be a little shorter as less stats to look at which are relevant to defensive midfielders for the job they have to do and not all of them would be very helpful.
As you can see in the above, there isn’t a massive difference in dribbles however Tyler does attempt more and is more successful when he does so, but more telling is his progressive carries which are significantly higher than Kalvin.
This is a useful ability for a deeper midfielder to have because if there isn’t a viable passing option they can try to drive into space and pull players towards them, which in turn create space for team mates to move into, which can be used to escape from pressing traps as well as creating space to attack.
This isn’t something Kalvin wasn’t capable of doing to escape from pressure and it did lead to possession being turned over in dangerous moments on occasion.
One thing that he does share with Kalvin though is ability to use his strength to shield the ball to keep hold of possession, Tyler isn’t as strong as Kalvin is but he is still capable of doing it.
Below are some clips of the kind of ball carrying and press resistance I’m talking about.
Defending & Pressing
This section is possibly the most important aspect of Tyler’s all round game, to analyse how well he does in this area I decided to watch a Champions League game against Manchester City, as this is a game where he would have to do a lot of defensive work as Man City will be expected to have the ball a lot of the game.
In this game Tyler completed the most pressures on the pitch with 29, the most tackles with 4, the most blocks with 3 and the most ball recoveries with 9. Which was a very good defensive performance.
One of the first things I noticed was how quick he was to snap to a player to apply pressure, either when a ball was played near him or if a ball was lose anywhere in his vicinity. In the opening 19 minutes I noted 6 positive defensive actions with more than half of these stopping either counter attacks or passes into his own box.
Pressing is an important aspect of Tyler’s game because the counter press is the main method Jesse Marsch uses to help create goal scoring opportunities, with Tyler Adams, Rasmus Kristensen & Brenden Aaronson we now have 3 players who understand a Red Bull style press, and a good press relies on the whole team understanding their role in the press.
Above you can see their stats compared, should be noted again that the above will be influenced by team style and comparative strength of team to their league. However one thing to note is both players have a similar low dribble duel success. However in the position they play it is difficult to attain a high dribble success due to the fact that most dribbles will be in a time of transition leaving players exposed, and considering both Marsch tactics & Bielsa tactics leave players open to transition attacks a lot, it is natural they would have low success at stopping dribblers.
One thing I did notice while watching Tyler is that he is particular vulnerable to stopping dribblers with high agility, in particular he struggled to deal with Jack Grealish, he won’t be the first player to be skinned by Grealish but it’s still something to be aware of as far as weaknesses go.
Conclusions
I am very happy with the signing of Tyler Adams, firstly the fee is about right for a player of his age and providing he adapts well to the Premier League we would be able to sell him on for more in the future.
Across the board I feel in a Jesse Marsch system he will be an upgrade on Kalvin Phillips in a Jesse Marsch system, Kalvin’s role in a Bielsa system was unique and maybe he wouldn’t have been a good lone DM but as a double pivot player he has a lot of upsides.
We have a player who is reliable in possession, capable of driving forward with the ball to progress when needed. He’s capable of breaking apart counter attacks with his pressing and stamina, even if we won’t see him leaving something on a player in a way that Kalvin Phillips would do.
I was unhappy at first with this signing, but this was more because I was very much looking at Mo Camara with a lot of respect. But now I’ve watched Tyler player I am very much happy with this signing and think he could be a success, I’ll still miss our Yorkshire Pirlo though.
Thanks for Reading
Martin Riley
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