Looking at passing combos can be a good way of seeing how teams are moving the ball and creating shots in the seasons early days. Buying a combo at the restaurant is probably a bad deal, you should just get 2 burgers and drink the free water…healthier and tastier. Unless you are in Europe and then have to pay 3.20 for 33cl of water and portion it out slowly through your meal, 50 cents a sip…fast food and speedy eating culture is one of the best parts of America…anyway onto the passing combos.
Ayling-Raphinha
By one measure I like to look at (Fields Gained*), Ayling to Raphinha vs Everton progressed Leeds further up the the field than any other combo bar two have in two games combined for their team. Let’s say that again: Ayling-Raphinha vs Everton was basically worth two games of Azpi-Mount, Marcal-Adama, or whatever other combo you can think of. How did this happen, particularly after we talked about Leeds struggles getting out of their own zones?
*Fields Gained is simply a progression number where yardage is converted into % of field remaining. So a 20 yard progression in own half might be just 25% of field, which is equivalent to a 10 yard progression when starting 40 yards from goal.
Ayling is passing mostly as a right back, but listed as part of a back three. This sort of uniqueness seemed to leave Everton unsure of what to do and they wound leaving Ayling in just acres of space. He then had both Dallas and Raphinha (each in their own “line of 3” according to the scoresheet) as passing options down the right. This often left the receiver either in space or with lots of space to pass into along with Ayling as Everton kind of lacked numbers.
This combo led to the opening goal and several other very dangerous situations within seconds, and without really much risk at all on the side of Leeds. It’s hard to imagine watching this tape and following a similar defensive approach against this setup for future Leeds opponents. Last week United pressed Leeds into anemia, this week Everton were cut open through laying back.
Adama Traore-Neves Both Ways
Adama has been immense in the season’s first two games, basically being Peak Adama in many ways. He’s 4th in carrying and 3rd in receiving fields gained, 1st in shot buildup involvements…and has 0 G, 0 A. Commentators get a bit annoyed with his lack of end product, he’s missed at least 2 clean-through 1-on-1s, but no one can deny just how forceful he has been in pushing Wolves to their high-energy, field-dominating start. From the chart in the previous section, we can see that Saiss and Marcal have been the source of much of Adama’s receiving yardage
and from the chart in this section we see it’s Neves, both ways, that Adama combines with in shot buildup. It almost all happened against Tottenham.
No one is within 12 of Adama in shot buildup actions, his total helped by the insane number of players he dribbles past. And again, no goal or assist. At least he’s helping my fantasy team roar out to an astonishing start.
Elliott to Salah
What a debut from Harvey Elliott. 18 years old. He struck early in possessions to Salah. Interestingly, 6 of his 7 completions leading to dangerous territory were in the first 10 seconds of a Liverpool possession. It’s interesting because Liverpool have the 4th-lowest share of progression coming early in possession in the league (Chelsea, City, Brighton).
Check out a collection of his passes to Salah here. And the offside assist here.
Webster-Gross
and
Webster-Lallana
Luke Ayling leads the PL in yards gained but right behind him is another right-sided defender playing from a similar area in Brighton’s Adam Webster. Webster to Lallana was a volume proposition (34 completions vs Watford). It is the second most common combo that actually gains any noticeable yardage behind the Ayling-Raphinha duo. There are plenty of combos that do absolutely nothing at all really, as anyone who watched that Leicester-West Ham match can tell you about Caglar Soyuncu and Daniel Amartey. Webster and Lallana is more than nothing, but really mostly kind of a handoff that indicates Brighton is settled into possession and has pushed defense back. Almost half of the Webster-Lallana passes occurred 20 seconds or more into a possession, which indicates the length of Brighton possessions on the weekend…almost City/Chelsea-like.
They gain a higher share of their yardage late in possessions than even Liverpool so far, making this example possession vs Watford a telling one for both Webster (lots of handoffs to Lallana, a nice progressive ball up the right to Trossard pushing Brighton upfield, then a big crossfield switch to March to get the ball on the edge of attacking zone), and for Brighton in general.
Brighton/Webster possession example
TAA-Mane
The number one player in fields gained passing so far is Trent Alexander-Arnold. The early narrative from Liverpool pods seems to be of a player rejuvenated by a surprise break from the Euros and he has been great as usual in the first two games. From the clips it’s just astonishing how high up the pitch he is at times, it’s Alonso-esque* but in a back 4.
*Alonso has played 40 passes within 50 yards of the opposing goal though, edging out Trent’s 35.