Luke Young is potentially the most underrated player in the league. Wrexham’s number 8 has been an ever present this season
Here’s a thread on the midfielder, covering why he could be the most important #WxmAFC player 🧵👇
Firstly, Young has played 2,451 minutes so far this season. That ranks him 16th for the whole league.
Of #WxmAFC players only Howard (2,638), Tozer (2,638) and Hayden (2,542) have played more minutes. Straight away we can see his importance
Young operates to the right of a midfield 3, playing as the shuttler, providing energy between both boxes
O’Connor plays at the base, while Lee to the left is given a free role. Young therefore has a lot of running and ground to cover
We will come onto his role on the ball later, but first let’s start with his role off of it
We’ve established he’s the runner in midfield, and he leads the press. Here he is the first to act when possession is turned over high up, squeezing up and leading the press
Notice how quickly he reacts here. He beats 3 Maidstone players to the ball, despite starting further away. Not only does it show his desire, but his physical attributes too
Most impressively is his the strength of his awareness and anticipation. Such a clever player
Defensively Young is strong too. He takes up good positions, providing support especially to the RWB.
His awareness is once again strong. He’s constantly scanning, processing the opposition. It’s a sign of a good midfielder; experienced.
He’s also a scrapper. He’s not afraid to get his hands dirty, and he is extremely effective at turning over possession
Young has been involved in 147 defensive duels. Only Hayden has been involved in more, once again showing how active Young is
Off the ball he’s a threat offensively too. His positioning opens up space for others around him, especially down the right where his runs inside can open up space out wide
Here’s another clever run from Young, opening space for a cut back, once again dragging defenders out of place
Also note his starting position. He makes up ground SO quickly here. He goes from the halfway line to the byline in no time, really impressive
When the going gets tough he’s also not one to shy away from the ball. They’re chasing the game here, and he gets on the ball, leading by example
His quality is underrated on the ball. He has a fantastic range of passing, as he displays here
He also possesses a fantastic set piece delivery. Young has 8 assists this season, 7 of which have come from set piece deliveries
People rave about Hayden’s heading, and it is impressive, but Young’s delivery is often overlooked
Young also has that knack of scoring goals, and important ones. That are all almost exclusively screamers
Not only does he have the technique to strike from range, but he has the grit to grab the game by the scruff of its neck and score at important times
Overall, as well as being extremely talented individually, Young is important to the team as a whole; he’s what I’d describe as a facilitator.
He makes those around him perform better. Not only does he work extremely hard, running tirelessly, but he fills gaps too. He’s superb
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🆕🧵A few days ago #oafc added midfielder Mark Shelton to their ranks
At 26 he’s just entering his prime, but the Nottingham born lad has plenty of experience at this level already, having won promotion from this division on 2 occasions
Here’s a thread on Oldham’s new signing
Shelton is a box to box midfielder, one who contributes to both phases of play. He’s energetic, and often starts moves from the base of midfield, before building through the phases of play. Here he continues his run, providing a foil by making a run to the front post
Here’s another perfect example of Shelton building from the back, being involved in the continuation of play at all stages. He makes strong runs into space, constantly making himself available for passes. His strong physicality allows him to make driving runs
A comfortable win for the Magpies. Not as much to analyse but it’s great to see a slight shift from the Yeovil game
Credit to Notts and Scunthorpe for the footage
The first goal comes from something I identified in my Yeovil post match thread; the long diagonal. It stretches a low block, creating space for the likes of Castro and Rodrigues as their defence can’t shift across. Having a player of Baldwin’s quality makes it possible
The finish is also superb - takes it first time and is so cool with it. Quevin is our best striker of the ball, but this is a different technique, and he executes it so well. He also does what we needed to do against Yeovil - shoot first time to catch them out
The first thing I noticed is Cook has the freedom to step out of defence. Scunny are reluctant to press, and don’t seem to have the team shape to prevent these runs from deep. Cameron should have no difficulty stepping out of defence and progressing the ball
One area we have to be careful with is the high line. Their goal against Wealdstone comes from a clever run in behind. However, we do tend to hold a higher line than this; either Slocombe would sweep up or one of our CBs would have the required recovery pace to get back
🆕🧵 Here’s my thread on #Notts v #Blues from Tuesday night
Sorry for the delay in this one, #FM23 has got in the way a bit 😅 lmk below how you want to see the progress of my Notts save 👇
Limited footage for this one as Southend acc have less highlights than us!
One thing that Baldwin provides which is such a weapon is his long passing. I know we overused the diagonal to Nemane early on this season, but it’s such an effective move, and having Aden back in the side makes it possible to bypass the opposition press with ease
Nemane got quite a bit of criticism online but I thought he was a real threat down the right, and the battle v Bridge was fascinating. Here he gets in behind, causing them all sorts of issues, but it’s a shame that Scott couldn’t get good contact; his movement was superb
My FM save content will be coming soon - would people want to see it on here or over on YouTube?
Watch out for FM content coming from @AnalystsBar soon too!
Sam Slocombe
First one up and I think they’ve got it absolutely spot on. Only thing is rushing out, perhaps could be a little higher but that’s only this season so understandable. Love the communication being high and the physicals are accurate too. Great start
Brad Young
Can’t really comment on this one too much as we’ve only seen him against Coalville. Think the Aerial Reach is good as he’s absolutely huge altho 6ft3 is not correct; he’s way taller than that!! Got great potential in game
Sorry that it’s later than usual but had a mad busy day!
Image credit goes to Torquay for this one
Aaron has this move in the locker, and has used it often recently, and it opens up space for him to drive into. I was also impressed with how Rawlo adapted to that new role to the right of the defence, and how he pushed up into that pocket of space. The cross is good too
Rawlo had a really strong game in his new role, and he pushed into that space really nicely. It compresses the Torquay defence, and is a real tactical tool. Note how Baj is filling in as he pushes up and also the movement of Palmer, who moves into space to make the pass possible