Weekly Dribble #1: Wood and Anderson under pressure, and fullbacks in GW1
Gameweek 1 notes and some developments in the transfer market
I mentioned that, starting this week, the newsletter will feature a new format.
However, I believe there’s great value in understanding the impact of new arrivals, and analysing things based on only one week's worth of information isn’t something I want to explore extensively.
Plus, I enjoy discussing transfers. So, let’s do a bit of both today.
Noah Okafor to Leeds, and busy days at Nottingham Forest
That I dedicated a standalone deep dive to one of the newly promoted teams during a hectic pre-season must mean they’re doing something right. I even went as far as to label Anton Stach as a game-changer.
Still, it’s not hard to notice this imbalance between their defence and attack. While they have quality and depth at the back, their threat in the final third of the pitch still needs some boost. After the deal for Igor Paixao fell through, and the Brazilian signed for Marseille instead, Leeds shifted their focus elsewhere.
Firstly, they signed Dominic Calvert-Lewin on a free transfer, and now, less than two weeks before the summer transfer window closes, they have finally secured another attacking player, reportedly reaching an agreement with AC Milan for Noah Okafor.
The former Salzburg left winger and number 9 only managed about 1,600 minutes over the last two seasons in Serie A, partly due to injuries that hampered his adaptation to a much tougher level of competition than the Austrian Bundesliga.
There were some glimpses of him in Italy, mainly showing his decent movement in the box. He scored 7 goals, and his shot map looks quite good. He dominated the league in Salzburg, but that’s not really a benchmark, so let’s see how quickly we’ll see him starting for Leeds. I’m sure there’s still a lot going on in their recruitment department.
Nottingham Forest represent everything Leeds aspires to become.
In just a few days, they revealed not only one or two but a total of three offensive-minded players. And they are far from finished, as another arrival could be announced very soon…
I don’t find the signing of James McAtee particularly exciting at the moment, mainly because although he looked good in the Championship, he never really stood out in the Premier League when given a chance. So, I’m not quite sure what to think of that.
I already discussed Arnaud Kalimuendo last week, so I recommend you check that. It means Forest now have four #9s to choose from—apart from the French, there is obviously Chris Wood, along with Igor Jesus and Taiwo Awoniyi (who’s likely on his way out).
The most exciting addition is 21-year-old English winger Omari Hutchinson, who signed for a club record £37.5 million from Ipswich. Last season, it wasn't easy to produce much in the relegated team, but the season before that, still only 19 years old, he was quite an influential figure in the pursuit of promotion.
He ranked in the 95th percentile for expected threat from carrying and dribbling, and offered a good deal of creativity, leading to a high volume of passes that created shooting opportunities.
He has averaged 0.17 expected assists per 90 minutes, mainly distributing within the box to his teammates, crossing from wide areas, and executing some nice throughballs from deeper positions.
Douglas Luiz is just an average Premier League player who happened to take penalties and experienced a hot finishing streak, so you remember him as a popular FPL pick. No, seriously, I nearly forgot how dull he is from a wider football perspective, until I found out that Forest are after him.
As long as Elliot Anderson continues to perform like he did in GW1, he’s safe. He’s a much better player than Luiz. Regarding the other Forest players, their xMins are probably becoming less secure with each passing day. If Wood suddenly enters a prolonged goal drought, there are now options for how to tackle that.
Fullbacks watch: Who did well?
Sometime in early July, I was convinced that fullbacks would be one of the most-discussed topics of the pre-season.
Simply because there were so many transfers in that position across the entire Premier League, with some exciting prospects joining from abroad. Then the defensive contributions were introduced, and the discussion started to fade a bit.
But I shall not give up on it.
There were a few names that caught my attention for different reasons in Gameweek 1, so I’ll do a quick round-up, with some comments:
Malick Diouf: Calling West Ham’s performance underwhelming is an understatement. However, Diouf was one of the few positives.
He took three shots, one from inside the box, and delivered two key passes in his Premier League debut, finishing with 0.17 xG and 0.14 xA. A promising start and definitely one to watch moving forward. Nothing changed.
Pedro Porro: He shared set-piece duties (2 corners taken) with Mohammed Kudus (4 corners taken). The good thing is that he also posed a substantial threat from open play, creating three chances with a total of 0.35 expected assists.
He also had the second-most touches in the final third on the pitch, and no other player received more passes in that area. Plus, his 8 crosses were the second-most after Mohammed Kudus. Sure, it was Burnley, but you can see how vital he will be in Thomas Frank’s system.
Adrien Truffert: He could have started with a bang—in the 5th minute of that Liverpool game, he delivered a cross into the centre of the box to Antoine Semenyo, who blasted it over the bar. It was a 0.35 xG chance created by the French.
Gabriel Gudmundsson: In Lille, he wasn’t very attack-minded, which was certainly not the case in Monday’s game, as no other player on the pitch racked up more touches in the final third, and he also completed the second most passes there.
His 4 crosses were bettered only by Anton Stach, Daniel James, and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall. He took 3 shots, two inside the box, and provided his teammates with 2 passes that directly led to a shot—totalling 0.17 xG and 0.12 xA.
Marc Cucurella: As always, he was super-advanced, took 2 shots and created a good chance from which Andrey Santos could score a late winner in the 92nd minute of the game.
Michael Kayode: No one talks about Brentford, and rightfully so, because they were terrible. But I’m making an exception. Kayode was struggling in a low defensive block, yet he still managed two open-play crosses (0.15 xA) for Sepp van den Berg, who didn’t convert any of his headers.
Pay attention to context
The early stages of the season are hard to judge accurately. In Gameweek 1, we still have about the same amount of information as we did in the pre-season. That’s how it works.
With so little information to work with, it’s essential to put it into context to ensure you make the right decisions later, when it really counts. You need to distinguish between the signal and the noise.
As always, it’s important to look behind scorelines, but at this stage, xG numbers and other metrics are also noisy, and you should see them more as subtle hints. Ask WHY they happened.
A few examples from the last Gameweek:
Brentford were poor in all phases of play, no doubt about that. We all know what happened to them over the summer, and such changes of this magnitude would shatter almost any team out there.
Moreover, they were missing Mikkel Damsgaard, their key midfielder, and had to play Antoni Milambo in his position. A youngster, still going through an adaptation period and better suited for a 6/8 role, suddenly faced the physically imposing Forest players, and it didn’t turn out well.
Does this mean that Brentford’s days are numbered? Probably not, because once Damsgaard returns and Dango Ouattara/Kevin Schade are ready to play 90 minutes, it will look very different.
Tijjani Reijnders was outstanding and will continue to provide huge value in FPL. However, the conditions for him to excel were almost ideal—with Rodri still injured, Pep chose to protect the centre of the pitch by using a compact midfield three, where González, Silva, and Lewis carried out most of the defensive duties.
With Doku holding the width, Reijnders was allowed to crash into the box as the most advanced central midfielder and ultimately benefited as an FPL pick. In other games, his role might be completely different.
Yes, he is constantly on the move and demands the ball to carry it forward. There are about a million ways he can get the ball inside the box, given the breadth of his skill set. However, it’s important to keep this in mind and not get carried away after just one particular game.
And there are other examples of this:
West Ham lost to Sunderland, but they didn’t give up many clear-cut chances. Let’s see what happens in the next GWs.
Liverpool was without Ryan Gravenberch, which significantly impacted their defensive performance.
Ezri Konsa was sent off—I know Villans were poor even before that happened, but it killed the little momentum they had, and certainly didn’t help their offensive numbers in that game. Again, just one specific game.
That’s a wrap for today!
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