Ball Progression Report: Arsenal, Villa, Brentford, and Brighton
Explanation of categories
Progression: how many yards toward goal a player progresses through carries/passes per 90 minutes. Percentile is in group
Efficiency: yards progressed per ball loss
Receiving: progression gained through receiving passes
Shot Buildup: How often an action is followed by a shot in the next 10 or 20 seconds
This is purely looking at what a player does offensively…we also are not seeing lots of stuff strikers do (mainly turning chances into high quality chances), that is not the focus of this piece.
Arsenal
The Gabriel numbers are kind of what Arsenal thought they were getting with Ben White. What is interesting here is Tomiyasu is playing so deep he qualifies as a defensive player, basically part of the Arsenal backline while every other fullback/wingback on this list will be part of the midfield, the second tier of buildup.
Lokonga looks like a near complete offensive player, what a great piece of business that was this summer to sneak him in for 17.5 million Euros. Xhaka as always grades out extremely well and the opinion of him will not stack up to those grades. Partey’s lack of receiving is interesting and something I hadn’t noticed before
he almost never receives a ball forward in the opposition half.
Pepe has been very good to start the season, and it’s kind of slid under the radar. Smith-Rowe and the poor man’s Smith-Rowe, Odegaard, have similar profiles in that they are good (ESR incredible) at moving the ball forward with ball at feet, but are not generating shots at a high rate and are both quite bad at earning the ball via progressive pass. When they are combined with Partey, you get situations where these players will look good when you think back about who played well with the ball but the attack as a whole won’t…part of that is that all three struggle to receive.
Aston Villa
Targett retains his reputation as the progressive one of the Two Matt’s but this midfield is an area of the pitch Villa should try and fix. A lot of players with lots of progressive weaknees…Nakamba and Young don’t generate shots, Luiz doesn’t move the ball forward, Cash loses the ball constantly. They have spent large on their forwards, but moving the ball from defense to that attacking talent will always be precarious with this unit.
While Bailey impressed mightily in his limited minutes, other big money signing Ings and Buendia have been atrocious so far. Ings xG + xA per 90 is 0.31, in the Jacob Murphy/Alex Iwobi range. Buendia’s xG + xA is down to 0.22 from his 0.34 at Norwich two years ago.
On the bright side, youngster Jacob Ramsey has emerged as a big time prospect in the early season, progressing the ball beautifully without many losses and contributing more often to shot buildup than basically anyone else.
Brentford
Kristoffer Ajer was sold (or at least appeared in my mind) as a slick passing, progressive center back when he moved from Celtic. He has not performed like that at all so far on the pitch which could be why we’ve seen Zanka take his spot in recent matches.
Janelt plays a role that no other Brentford player seems to fill. He takes the ball from the defense/goalie and turns it into a shot. He’s not a Kovacic-esque progressive maestro, but that’s fine: Brentford aren’t ever playing that way.
Onyeka and Jensen are inside the cutoff for attacking players by inches. Toney is the central hub that everything works around.
Brighton
Pre-injury Webster was inhaling yardage like your average Oklahoman at Golden Corral. Duffy is not the ball playing guy that Brighton seems to stand for but his large shot count probably provides just as much of an offensive punch.
Dunk hasn’t gone anywhere, still the same analytics darling as ever.
Cucurella has been a revelation, stepping right into the team and looking like one of Brighton’s best players without any “settling in” needed. Brighton’s receiving numbers are often inflated because they kind of just recycle the ball around throughout possessions. So Lallana will get 3-4 “handoffs” in a minute sometimes.
Trossard joins Dunk in his “I’m Still Here” position as an analytics darling. Mac Allister has been incredible but Potter doesn’t seem to trust him yet…I finally cut bait in my dynasty fantasy league but am now tempted to go back to my favorite Argentine Scot again. This is still an area Brighton can really push to improve to cap off a good attack.