José C. Pérez Profile picture
Engineer turned marketeer. Writing about lasers & photonics @EffectPhotonics and football analysis @ManagingMadrid and @Footballespana_. Tweets in 🇬🇧 🇪🇸
Dec 27, 2022 28 tweets 8 min read
I'm seeing a few misconceptions about Gakpo, so let’s clarify: he’s more ten than striker, more ball-to-feet than runner, and despite his 1.9-m frame, he’s the one sending the crosses, not at the end of them.

Let's look at his qualities and how they fit and scale at Liverpool 🧵 At PSV Gakpo has been primarily a left winger who likes to receive the ball to feet and then combine with a teammate or shoot around the box's left side.

His scoring and creation relied mostly on his elite ball-striking ability rather than off-ball movement or physical presence.
Dec 16, 2022 13 tweets 4 min read
Don't see why a team with so many attackers with ball-to-feet tendencies (Bruno, Sancho, Martial, Antony, even Rashford has some) would add another one. Just get an actual striker.

Got doubts too on how some aspects of his game will scale to the PL.

I'll elaborate a bit here. I wanted to do this for a while: I used @fbref data to sample Gakpo stats vs stronger opponents in the last two seasons. Breakdown of which opponents is below.

Decent sample (2167 mins) and more representative of the opposition Gakpo would face if he played in a big 5 league. Image
Jan 22, 2021 19 tweets 9 min read
With the #Odegaard move to #Arsenal about to be completed and my graph making the rounds on Arsenal Twitter, it's a good moment for a quick thread to my Gunner friends on what to expect from the Norwegian playmaker, with some images, video, articles, and data on him. WHY IS ØDEGAARD GOING ON LOAN?

From what I've seen on my timeline, fans in the Real Madrid environment are not happy with this move. Real Madrid have suffered chance creation issues for several years already, and Ø seemed like a great fit to help with these issues
Oct 28, 2018 12 tweets 3 min read
If I had to point out Lopetegui's biggest problem as #RealMadrid manager, is that he sacrificed too much of his original possession + pressing game plan to not upset the existing dressing room hierarchy.

The team then devolved into a bad, Ronaldo-less copy of the Zidane system. And when you see how strongly the dressing room leaders have supported Lopetegui (in the press room, not really on the pitch), you understand why he took that decision.

But a philosophy manager renouncing his philosophy often doesn't end well.
Oct 7, 2018 10 tweets 4 min read
Couldn't live tweet about #RMA vs #Alaves, so here go some thoughts on R. Madrid's issues.

I could rationalize the CSKA loss as a more isolated incident (see below), but this match confirms there are now chronic issues in the final third.
RM still plays well in the first two thirds: they build well from the back, play past opposition presses, control games and reduce the frequency of successful counterattacks.

But once in the final third, there are no clear ideas on how to create chances.