Bertrand Traoré is reportedly close to moving from Lyon to Aston Villa for €19m. At RW last season he was average in attack by a Premier League standard, with excellent ball retention, outstanding as a defender, very good in the air as well. Read on...
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Traoré's role changed a lot between 2018-19 and 2019-20. Have a look at his smartermaps for those two seasons at RW. He shifted from short passes further back on the pitch to longer passes, more dribbles in and near the area, and more shots in the box, raising his output:
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Despite this, Traoré's involvement in Lyon's goals was low. That was mostly because of his own finishing, which took a turn for the worse in 2019-20. He was more involved in 2018-19 despite the more withdrawn role.
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If we look for players with a similar style to Traoré's in Europe's top five leagues, there are some really good names – versatile playmakers who work hard off the ball. Here's a side-by-side comparison with two of them:
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We suggested that Leicester sign Traoré in the summer 2019 window. At the time, they were another club with young talent trying to generate a strong passing style. Either way, it's good to see the former Chelsea man back in the Premier League.
P.S. We think the key to this transfer is creating a counterweight to Grealish. Traoré has a different style, can be more of a crosser, and has learned to draw defenders. Also, Grealish's attacks from the left can result in loose balls on the right, and Traoré can hoover them up.
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First off, the basics. Vlahović has a total of 13 non-penalty goals and assists in about 3,000 league minutes over two seasons at Juventus. (Juventus! In Serie A!) You don't need fancy stats to say that's not too impressive. But let's look at the fancy stats anyway....
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Vlahović's attacking output in our models has actually declined since he left Fiorentina. His ball retention has also been decidedly lousy. So what's special about him? He's an avid defender and a great finisher. But let's find out just why he looks like such a deadeye....
Chelsea's new owners spent more than £550m in the transfer market – what did they get, and how have the players performed?
We start at the top with Enzo Fernández. Though his attacking output is down, his numbers are similar to at Benfica:
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Next, Wesley Fofana. He has also looked good, though not quite as good as at Leicester. And playing wide in a back three tends to boost metrics (more attacking opportunities, fewer backstop defending plays):
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Mykhailo Mudryk. There was supposedly a battle to sign him, but we warned about his poor finishing. Pretty sure we got that one right. But even his underlying attacking output is way down from Shakhtar.
He's now 23 and was never flagged as a smarterscout young prospect. His attacking output was decent last season (even at Atleti!), but he rarely got shots off for a striker. His finishing and skills are so-so at a Premier League standard:
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A big reason behind the drop in João Félix's attacking output this season has been lower shot quality. But his shots were never so great for a striker – we'd want to see something more like 0.15 to 0.20 xG per shot:
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Here are João Félix's shot maps in open play from this season and last at striker. Lots of lousy long-range efforts and, when he's successful, finishes from the edge of the six-yard box. Feast or famine.
THREAD: Where does Enzo Fernández fit in at Chelsea?
We flagged him as a smarterscout young prospect in 2021 with Defensa y Justicia, and just two years later he's a World Cup winner heading for the Premier League. His overall stats at a PL standard are amazing:
The main caution with Enzo Fernández is that his skill ratings are pretty average for the Premier League so far. But he's an aggressive player on both sides of the ball. He's a very attacking DM, involved in the majority of Benfica's goals when on the pitch:
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But the majority of Enzo Fernández's attacking comes from incisive passing – he hardly gets into the box at all, as our smartermap shows:
A short thread on Casemiro. At age 30, he's still a very aggressive defender with high ball retention and good attacking output at a Premier League standard. But his defending quality has been dropping, and he's been relatively worse in the #UCL.
Casemiro covers a lot of ground but stayed quite central for Real Madrid last season. He doesn't come out to cover on the flanks very often, and he rarely gets in to the box. That doesn't stop him from taking pot shots, though....
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Right now Casemiro has a lot in common with countryman Fernandinho in his early 30s. Casemiro is better in the air but worse in 1v1s. He also dribbles less and does more progressive passing than Fernandinho did back then.
Norwich have signed forward Milot Rashica ("hra-SHEET-sa") from Werder Bremen for €11m. We've been following him since 2015 – and he hasn't been as productive lately as he was in 2018-19. Let's find out why not.
Stats at a Premier League standard:
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As you can see above, Rashica has played mainly as a striker for Werder Bremen, with great skill in 1v1s but declining attacking output. His style hasn't changed much, but his passing has gotten less aggressive and his dribbling has declined a little bit:
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The share of Rashica's ball progression contributions from receiving doubled since 2018-19, while the share from passing is about the same. The remainder is his individual actions – so he's not taking the ball forward and winning as many duels as he used to: