Thread by @Ben_Mattinson_

✨ Baller Review - Edon Zhegrova ✨

Club: LOSC Lille
Nationality: 🇽🇰 Kosovo 🇽🇰
Position(s): RW, LW
Preferred Foot: Left
Height: 5’11”/181cm
Age: 24
Strengths: dribbling, creativity, ball-striking, acceleration, agility
Development Areas: lack of minutes, weak foot, strength

Edon Zhegrova is one of my favourite underrated talents. About time I did a thread on why I think he’s a winger who’ll explode in the right system

Watch out if he makes a move this summer & where. If the right team gets him we could be calling him a world class in a couple years

He’s is very agile & constantly tries to beat his man. Very direct RW who loves to cut in on his left. He has 9.28 take-ons attempted p/90 & 4.34 are successful (top 1%)

Edon’s drop of the shoulder helps him escape tackles.

Also, a lot of his ball-carrying stats are in top 4%.

An indicator of a potentially world class RW/LW is high shot vol p/90

Mbappé 4.68, Messi 4.03, Gnabry 3.76, Rodrygo 3.70, Raphinha 3.49, Sané 3.49, Leão 3.49, Rashford 3.38, Salah 3.31

Illustrates the quality of a player to consistently create the opportunity & space to shoot

Edon Zhegrova has this. 3.38 shots p/90 & 1.13 (1/3) on target. He only needs an inch of space to shoot accurately.

Considering he hasn’t had a lot of minutes/games, if he can sustain that shot volume with a more 90’s, we could be looking at a potential 15-20 goal season

Along with the volume of shots, the quality is very high too. Zhegrova has top ball striking and finishing ability. His composure in & around the box helps him take his time when shooting to pick out higher quality shots in the corners.

One way he is able to consistently take shots is positioning

His body orientation shifts so he’s facing side on & anticipates taking his first touch with the outside of his left

Easier to
- Get the ball out his feet
- Quickly create separation from defender

Here’s the result…

Shooting isn’t his only weapon in his arsenal. He also is a very creative winger who ranks highly in his passing stats.

Edon has great vision & can pick out passes that others can’t always see. Cutting in on his left opens up key pass opportunities (2.34 p/90). His quality delivery execution when crossing is a real threat

If played with a target man with good link up play, output would increase

He’s a top outlet & a high pass vol. RW (50.38 pass attempt), showing he’s a controller that impacts the outcome of the game. 49.16 passes received (16.47 progressive) displays that his team looks for him to make things happen. Rightly so as he has 6.24 shot creating actions p/90

Zhegrova is a difference maker. Earlier this season when Lille played Lorient, Lille were winning 1-0 then Lorient equalised in the 77th minute.

On comes Zhegrova at 82 minutes.
89’ - Zhegrova goal
90+1’ - Zhegrova goal

One area for development would be his his upper body strength. He’s not lightweight but he could definitely be a bit stronger which would help him when going to shoulder to shoulder taking on defenders. This is a fairly easily fix through strength & conditioning

That being said, Zhegrova is has real determination in his play and gets stuck in defensively too

He really reminds me of Kvarataskhelia in that he’s got serious aggression when pressing

Another clear area of concern is his lack of minutes. In 2021/22 he also had less minutes with 1283 in 29 games (44.24mins p/game). Again during these reduced minutes he had a high output of 6G 7A (0.45 G&A p/game).

During 21/22 he missed a handful of games due to a meniscus injury but has since seemingly recovered from that

But a knee injury like that would be a key area of focus for physio’s/S&C coaches due to the nature of his play style - high dribbling volume (lots of twisting of legs)

One thing to consider about his stats is he often comes on as a sub late in the game & makes a big impact so his stats p/90 are inflated. Out of 21 Ligue 1 games, 11 were starts & 10 were as a sub. However, his quality is very clear to see so I’d love him to get more game time

For me, he’s a very similar player to Raphinha, Saka & Kvaratskhelia in play style. But to hit the same numbers as the aforementioned, he must choose his next club wisely where he can feature regularly under a great coach & become a real key player for them.

The team he joins need to play with wingers that hold the width during attacks or play a direct counter attacking style eg. Arsenal, Napoli, AC Milan, Bayer Leverkusen, Dortmund

But his technical ability makes him a great creative outlet for possession based teams vs low blocks

We should all be looking out for where he ends up. Talented baller. Serious potential.

Thanks for reading! If you liked it, please retweet and share amongst others who love the beautiful game. Much appreciated🤝