Jeremie Frimpong Analytical Scouting Report

A 19-year old right sided ball-progression wizard

We are on a Scottish kick this international break, looking through the league for the next Moussa Dembele (22m to Lyon from Celtic), Kieran Tierney (27m to Arsenal from Celtic), Stuart Armstrong (8m to Saints from Celtic), John McGinn (3m to Villa from Hibernian), Andy Robertson (3.6m to Hull from Dundee United), Virgil van Dijk (16m to Saints from Celtic). When you look through the history of buys from Scotland you don’t see many big-money misses and you see plenty of huge hits. The first recommendations start at the Old Firm, where the best players congregate and start with 19 year old Dutchman Jeremie Frimpong, who Celtic bought from Man City last year.

Celtic: Jeremie Frimpong, 19, RWB, 3m TM (1.6)

A good starting point statistically speaking would be to look at other Old Firm fullbacks. Celtic’s pair of Frimpong and Taylor with Rangers pair of Tavernier and Barisic

Frimpong tops the group by a big distance in progression per touch forward and also progression receiving the ball. His efficiency moving the ball up and down the field is where he stands out.

He doesn’t see as much of the ball volume-wise as the others but that doesn’t effect his end product, where he is right near the top in terms of open play shots and key passes.

Pass Type Rating is a stat where every pass is clustered into one of 75 “types” and each of those types has a standard completion% based on the hundreds of times it has been played across the league and yours is compared to that. So if “Type 3” has a 75% completion percentage normally and Frimpong is 8/10 on those passes, he is credited with +0.5 completions there. Do that for all types and you see the rating, his at 110 means 10% more completions than expected.

Here is his map of pass types that he plays noticeably more often…

Here is a compilation of that dark green pass type from the right forward in the attacking half. Frimpong has played this pass 63 times, his most common pass type, and completed 55/63 for 87%, compared to league average of 75%.

He’s also gotten into and around the box to play that short pass from the left side of the box 25 times, going 20/25 (well above the league average of 56%) and leading to a shot 6 times. Here is a compilation of those further forward passes. These compilations are mostly chosen randomly: I find a game with a good example and then choose all passes of that type from that game…do this with 3-4 games and figure that’s a decent compilation.

Here is how he receives the ball most commonly, I think the previous two compilations have given you enough of a taste of that so we do not need another.

So now how is he defensively. He tackles and intercepts very rarely (19th and 22nd among 22 qualifying fullbacks in Scotland). A lot of this is simply playing on a 62% possession Old Firm team: Taylor and Barisic are right around Frimpong in terms of tackles and Taylor is 21st in interceptions. Let’s look at how often passes into his areas are turned into shots for a better feel as to how he holds up on his side of the pitch. There we see a much rosier picture: Celtic’s right side has been rock solid in the league this year.

Maybe you think he’s a flat-track bully: so to the international data we look where he’s played

-Ferencvaros, ELO rank 141 (10 min)

-Riga FC, ELO rank 549 (56 min)

-Sarajevo, ELO rank 471 (90 min)

-AC Milan, ELO rank 29 (90 min)

-Lille, ELO rank 43 (90 min)

-Sparta Prague, ELO rank 156 (90 min)

In Europe this year Celtic have struggled, but Frimpong’s yardage inhalation has continued unabated. He is 9th among all 490 outfield players in yards per touch.

And among players with at least 5 penalty box touches and 3 key passes (he has 9 and 4), he is 6th in yards per ball loss (behind 2 Spurs players, Florian Grillitsch, Nacho Monreal and Slavia Prague’s Oscar Dorley) and 5th in yards per minute.

If we look at his European minutes in the context of Big 5 league players we can see that he would rank:

-92nd percentile in yards gained per touch (~Kolarov, Luke Ayling…it’s really hard to find non CBs who do this well in this category)

-83rd percentile in penalty box touches (~Neto, Robertson, Mukiele, Isco, Che Adams)

-62nd percentile in yards gained per ball loss (~Sabitzer, Reece James, Masuaku, Kurzawa)

-57th percentile in xg+a (~Reece James, Naby Keita, Ander Herrera)

-16th percentile in pressures per minute (~Leon Bailey, Jesus Navas, Hector Bellerin)

-15th percentile in Tck+Int per minute

Despite lining up in a back 4 for almost all of his starts, I labeled Frimpong as a wing back for numbers like these. He’s an offensive weapon like a Kolarov, Mukiele, Robertson type and has not been a defense-first lockdown type like AWB. Those defensive counting stats are worrying and despite the nice Scottish League time to shot map, I would not feel comfortable recommending Frimpong as a shutdown defender yet.

Those progression numbers in the league and Europe should have Premier League level teams salivating and readying bids for the 19-year old, who has years of development left to do and is already at a level that provides something rare and valuable. Would a 10 million bid get him? It would certainly be worth it for teams who are looking for a right-hand boost

-Everton (Coleman is 32 and the backups have been brutal)

-Crystal Palace (have played the deteriorating Nathaniel Clyne alongside offensive nobody Joel Ward often)

-Sheffield United (maybe my favorite destination as he is perfect fit as a wing-back and big upgrade over Baldock)

-West Brom (big upgrade over Furlong)

and maybe even teams like Manchester United and Man City could keep an eye out for something different down the right. Why not buy now, loan to one of the teams above and then see if Frimpong can make the cut next year or the year after instead of waiting and then having to pay 30-40 million if he’s a hit at Sheffield United.