How Jordan Williams Could Fit Into John Mousinho’s Portsmouth
Portsmouth have made their first signing of the Summer transfer window, let’s take a look at him!
General Information
Age: 24
Height: 5'10"
Name: Jordan Williams
Nationality: English
Former Club: Barnsley
Position: Right back (can also play as an outside centre back and right wingback)
Preferred foot: Right
Strengths
At his best when he can use the touchline as a second defender, Jordan is a really capable 1 v 1 defender who’s got a pretty decent ability to delay crosses and actions, and hardly ever gives up a duel once he’s beat. He’s got the legs to match powerful wingers over large spaces, but also the agility to shift and match more tricky opponents. He can struggle at times against attackers who can go both ways and are super predictable, but also gets a considerable amount of joy against one-dimensional duelling partners. He also reads the game pretty well, putting up really solid interception numbers, and is also a committed box-defender. Very solid defensive fundamentals there, particularly 1 v 1, has that “block/no foul mentality” that Max Kilman speaks about.
One of my favourite qualities of Jordan Williams’ is his movement and mobility on and off the ball. In terms of his movement, there’s a lot of intelligence in when to overlap and when to underlap (it is CRUCIAL that our right back can underlap consistently), but as well as the intelligence of his movement, there’s a strong level of intensity and timing to his runs. This allows him to either A) get to the ball before his opponent does, or B) Drag opponents away because he sells the run so well. When it comes to his mobility, arguably the biggest reason we’ve signed him to replace Joe Rafferty (NOT, Zak Swanson) is because of how well and quickly he gets around the pitch, I love Rafferty but he doesn’t quite have that top level athleticism that Jordan Williams does.
We can talk a lot about statistics, benchmarking, KPIs, other technical jargon. But it’s also crucial that we focus on the statistical intangibles. Jordan has proven throughout his budding career that he’s someone who can be entrusted with leadership positions both on and off the pitch, and is a vocal presence that keeps his teammates organised and accountable. On top of that, although he’s only 24, he’s got a really healthy amount of EFL (and Championship!!!) experience under his belt. Having that bit of know-how and guile whilst being able to combine it with that bit of youthfulness is such a lovely concoction. And finally, he’s fantastically versatile, and even though he doesn’t thrive in all positions, he has proven that he’s capable of deputising at left wingback and right centre back in a back three.
Development areas
One weakness of Jordan’s from a defensive perspective that I do worry about quite a bit is when wingers either A) pin him with their back flat to his and then roll off him to receive a pass that goes beyond, or B) When a through-ball is played and his opponent runs off his back and around him. Both often lead to him getting a bit uncoordinated and tend to result from him being too square-on to his man and flat-footed, and not being aware of the rotations happening behind him. In regard to backing up the press high up the pitch, he’s certainly happy to press high and assert himself on the opposition, but there’s the danger of the space behind him being exposed by rotations. And to be perfectly candid, in the two images below, he does eventually win the ball back, but the concern is against higher level opponents, will he be able to replicate those outcomes?
To put it simply, I’ve not seen enough of him being given really heavy responsibility in build-up over the last year or so. Luckily for Jordan, although we do play a lot of our goal kicks short, the responsibility is more heavily given to our centre backs, goalkeeper, and double pivot, with the fullbacks being a bounce option particularly when the opposition’s pressing shape is really narrow. His body shape is pretty good though, there’s just a natural question mark on how he’ll adapt to our set-up. A promising sign though is that his technical execution when under pressure is pretty solid, showing good levels of composure and clarity of thought, which bodes pretty well, despite not having super high-level technique.
Not a particularly high-volume crosser, so I’d certainly expect those numbers to rise, unless Mousinho has him pegged for the hybrid fullback role that Joe Rafferty made his own for the majority of our title-winning campaign. His cross-selection is fine, the issue is his execution, often rushing his build-up and over or under hitting them. I will say though, his low-crosses across the face of goal certainly have potential, and he’s a decent threat when dribbling 1 v 1 over short distances around the edges of the box, so I predict will result in a fair few assists for Colby Bishop. Click the following link for more on how to get the most out of our strikers. https://x.com/HancockAnalysis/status/1798361749743403135
Statistics
The statistics behind the ex-Barnsley man are pretty largely in-line with what the eyes tell you, in fact there’s hardly any data points that massively surprise me and conflict with the video work I have done on him. The biggest positives are naturally his defensive duel success rate, progressive passing, and interceptions. Outside of his progressive actions, he isn’t exactly the most high-volume player, middling out in the percentile rankings in most volume metrics.
The areas in which I think we’ll see the percentile points grow are certainly in the crossing department, it’s hard to say if the success rate will drastically improve but I think the volume certainly will. The biggest indicator to his on-ball threat are the shot assists and xA (expected assists), ideally you want those to be considerably higher. I think his defensive duel success rate will probably drop, but that’s more of a result of the quality of opponent improving rather than him getting worse.
Possible line-up fit
When pressing, our shape and instructions will change constantly depending on how the opposition set-up, but what probably won’t change is that around six players will be given duel-marking responsibilities high up the pitch, one fullback tends to back up the press and the other stays deep, and that a very high level of game-intelligence, athleticism and appropriate intensity is required. Although I did highlight that one weakness of Williams’ can be when he’s got a lot of space behind him, I think we can gamble that between our pressing structure, Poole’s wide-defending, and Jordan’s athleticism, I think I’m comfortable with him backing up the press.
Let’s face it, we stand little to no chance of seeing Abu Kamara play for Portsmouth again, but that doesn’t stop us signing someone of his profile, this is where Jesurun Rak-Sakyi comes in. A scintillating 1 v 1 dribbler who’s very comfortable starting wide and then either driving inside to work the goalkeeper, or carrying it to the byline and flashing cutbacks across the front post to service Colby Bishop or a late-runner into the box. From here, Jordan can support with the opposite movement, and although he doesn’t quite have the complete attacking toolset, he’s got certain qualities that can harm an opposition.
Once Regan Poole is ready to start consistently, the best move is probably to have our left back be the ‘hybrid fullback’, this allows us to push our right back high whilst having the solidity of a 3–1/3–2 rest defence unit. Another benefit of having Regan Poole on the outside of the back three from an in-possession perspective is his ability to step-in with the ball, driving forward and committing opposition players to press him. He’s also almost definitely our best wide defender, although naturally I have no idea how he’ll play once he’s recovered from his awfully timed ACL injury, but pre-injury his ability to eat up ground in wide areas and duel wingers was fantastic.
Conclusion
Normally I keep this section pretty brief, but I think the discussion around the signing is equally as important as just listing his qualities and letting that do the talking. And just before I say anything, Jordan Williams massively has age on his side, and yet is still really experienced and a good leader, with a decent amount of potential to build on.
Jordan Williams is quite clearly the Joe Rafferty replacement, and the immediate question that develops being, is he an upgrade? To that I’d say yes, in the mid-term. He’s much more of a floor-raiser than a ceiling-raiser, and will hopefully be brought in with the intention of making us harder to beat for the next few years before fully transitioning to having a right back of Zak Swanson’s profile in the team when we’re able to be more ball-dominant and controlling. Joe Rafferty was always going to be the easier of the two right backs to replace, purely because his profile is less unique than Swanson’s (absolutely no disrespect meant there).
My concern is more of a question, he’ll likely play the majority of our right back minutes next season, so are we comfortable playing someone every week who offers less offensive-upside and on-ball value than Joe Rafferty, but is certainly more mobile, athletic, and slightly more dynamic? I don’t think this is necessarily a right or wrong, and for what it’s worth, I probably think it’s a positive. But what I do think is important to bare in mind is that if our hybrid fullback this season is our RB, it does limit some of the best qualities of Regan Poole both with and without the ball, and I’m not fully convinced of him as the more advanced of the two fullbacks, due to his lower technical ability. It’s a real conundrum, although it’s important note that he certainly does have some of the attributes needed to play that role, I’d just love to see him develop his skillset more.
Not that I need to clarify this, but I’ll do it anyway, by absolutely no means do I think Jordan Williams is a bad signing, or that he’s a bad player, for what it’s worth I actually think he’s pretty decent, but the balancing act of profiling players together is a difficult one. It borders on cliché now, but if Rich Hughes, John Mousinho and Brad Wall et al., want a player, I’m incredibly inclined to trust them and run with it, they’ve got my backing!
Fingers crossed you’ve enjoyed the return of this series, hopefully you’re ready for much much more! Play up Pompey, and up the blues 💙
