Thread by @m3ngMengz

Jack Peter Grealish, the FIRST ever £100mil Englishman: A purely statistical analysis.

Here goes my first ever thread:

Grealish made 26 appearances in the Premier League for Aston Villa, scoring 6 goals and assisting an additional 10 more playing out of the left wing.

This means a goal every 4 games and an assist in almost every 2 games! The 0.41 assists per 90 minutes has Grealish ranked in the top 98th percentile of all players across the top 5 major leagues across Europe!

Looking at his xG and shot numbers, he has only generated a mediocre 0.18 xG per90. The main reason for the low xG is almost definitely his longer average shot distance of around 16.8m away from goal.

But he is capable of converting an above average amount of his chances (6 actual goals scored vs 4.3xG) as evidenced by his above average ranking of goals scored per shot on target.

Despite all this talk about scoring, Grealish's main strength lies at chance creation.

Jack Grealish may not have the most eye-popping pass completion rates, only completing 78.5% of his overall passes. He completed 85% of his attempted short and medium passes, along with an above average 60% of long passes.

Despite that, Grealish ranks in the 98th percentile of assists, xA, key passes, progressive passes and progressive pass distance.

The 0.35 xA per90 generated (98th percentile) can be interpreted as being a great creator of high quality chances who will place the ball in threatening spots for his teammates to finish off.

This is well backed up by his key pass numbers, averaging a whopping 3.42 key passes per 90. And these numbers makes sense considering his combo of 2.97 passes into the penalty area per 90 minutes (97th percentile) as well as 3.46 passes into the final third (87th percentile).

That is not all. Grealish was an outstanding progressive passer, completing 6.92 attempts per 90 minutes and 208.50m in progressive passing distance!

Besides being a progressive passer, he is also a progressive ball carrier, with 12.6 progressive carries per 90 minutes, including 3.75 carries into the final third, and 3.3 carries into the penalty area, both of which spelled danger for his opponents!

Grealish also completed 66% of his dribbles (87th percentile), showing that when he gets in these dangerous positions, there's little his opponents can do to stop him, save for fouling him, leading to this Englishman drawing a jaw-dropping 5 fouls per game (99th percentile)!

According to Statsbomb, Grealish also ranks in the 98th percentile of Shot & Goal-Creating Actions. Grealish creates a total of 6.18 shots with his actions, primarily earning shots on goal with his passes during open play (99th percentile) and dead ball deliveries.

Don't be fooled though he can also create shots through his dribble (76%), consistently leading to fouls drawn (95%). However, goals created by him are usually a result of his pinpoint passing from open play (0.7GCA from PassLive).

Although I expect GRealish's numbers to fall during his tenure with Manchester City, I still expect him to perform well, especially with better players around him to convert more of his dangerous passes into goals.

Also, with his capability of progressive passes and carries up the field, I think there is a possibility Man City might deploy him at Centre Midfield alongside or in place of Kevin De Bruyne.

Comparison with the players Aston Villa has brought in: Aston Villa brought in Leon Bailey, Danny Ings and Emi Buendia to potentially replace the contributions of Jack Grealish.

Danny Ings is no stranger to the Premier League, scoring 12 goals with Southampton last season. Leon Bailey also played at a high level, scoring 9 goals and creating 8 more for Bayer Leverkusen last season.

Finally, the most intriguing option and perhaps the most similar to Jack Grealish in terms of playstyle would be Emi Buendia who had 15 goals & 15 assists for Norwich in the Championship last season, but only 1 goal & 7 assists in '19-20 the last time they were in the Prem.

For comparison of data, I used 2020-21 stats for Danny Ings and Leon Bailey, but used both 2019-20 (Norwich in EPL) and 2020-21 (Norwich in Championship) for Emi Buendia as some of the more advanced metrics were unavailable for the Championship season.

fbref.com/tiny/rbPfD

In terms of shooting, all players brought in had a better shot-on-target rate than Grealish and all were slightly better in the goals scored per shot-on-target category as well.

In terms of outperforming their xG, Leon Bailey also slightly outperformed his xG numbers (9 actual goals scored vs 6.9 xG) but it is worth mentioning Danny Ings completely blew his xG out of the water, scoring 4 more goals than expected!

But of course, shooting the ball was not Grealish's main strength!

Looking at passing stats, where Grealish excelled in, the closest player would actually be Emi Buendia's 2019-20 season in the Premier League with Norwich!

In terms of the key passing stats, Buendia had 2.88 key passes, 5.29 into the final third and 2.12 into the penalty area, which wasn't a far cry from Grealish's numbers.

His completion numbers are also the closest to 20-21 Grealish, only lacking by 4%. Buendia was also an impressive progressive passer, attempting 6.31 progressive passes per 90 throughout the 2019-20 season, covering a distance of 255.55m.

Another department where Grealish excelled in was his dribbling. His progressive carries were second to none, but Leon Bailey and Emi Buendia could possibly fill in the other gaps where he left behind.

Bailey and '19-20 Buendia had slightly lesser numbers in terms of carries into the final third and penalty area but while Bailey had a worse dribble completion rate, Buendia was impressive in '19-20, completing 77% of his dribbles, ranking him even higher than Jack Grealish.

Perhaps, instead of individually, a combination of the both can create terror on the wing for their EPL opponents throughout the next season!

Finally, looking at these player's goal and shot creating actions, Bailey's and Buendia's shot creating numbers through passes and getting fouled by opponents definitely can compare with Grealish's.

However, the exceptional ability of Grealish to put a ball in a spot where only his teammate can reach stands out here, as Grealish's 17 passing actions that created a goal for Villa this season will be sorely missed by fans and teammates alike.

One interesting stat to take into consideration is the Team Success metric, calculating +/- Goals scored and xG splits for the players.

While Grealish boasted a +0.71 on-off GD splits when he's on the pitch, Bailey posted a slightly better +0.73 GD! All while Emi Buendia posts a +1.06 on-off GD split in the Championship (note that EB only posted a +0.56 on-off GD split in the EPL in 19-20)

If you look at xG on-off splits, Grealish's on-off splits is a +0.41, Ings is a better +0.5, Bailey's is a worrrying -0.19 (meaning opponents try more shots/higher quality shots when he's on the pitch than when he's off), while '19 Buendia posted a comparable +0.36 xG split.

Verdict: Based on stats alone, it's clear that Danny Ings wasn't the answer to Villa's main man leaving, but instead they will rely on B&B combo (Bailey & Buendia) to replace Grealish's contributions!

One thing to consider here is whether performance across the top European leagues are translatable. IMO, the EPL definitely has a much higher floor to overcome, no disrespect to the other top leagues.

What do you think? Will Leon Bailey and Emi Buendia be able to cover for Jack Grealish's absence? Or will one of them step up and be the new talisman of Aston Villa?

#Grealish #ManCity #AstonVilla #PerformanceAnalysis

All data courtesy of Statsbomb via fbref

If you love stats, definitely check them out! Eg. Jack Grealish's scouting report: fbref.com/en/players/b0b…

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