Part 1 of Newcastle United Transfer Shortlist — Creative Midfielder
This is a follow-up to my last article on Newcastle United’s takeover. That article can be found here:
https://medium.com/@shreyansh273/can-newcastle-united-be-the-next-man-city-dc2dd2d6b133
In this article, I am going to address one of the key issues at Newcastle United which is their lack of a creative midfielder. They spend £22 Million on Joe Willock but he is more of a number eight who is good at progressing the ball and making late runs in the box rather than being creative. This can be seen as he is ranked in the 62nd percentile in terms of expected assists out of all the midfielders in the top five leagues in Europe. The only player at Newcastle who can fill that role is Miguel Almiron but he has also not performed in the Premier League since joining and is ranked in the 56th percentile in terms of expected assists. In this article, we will look at three potential candidates which Newcastle can target to fill the creative hole in their team.
- Aleksandr Golovin (Monaco)
Glovin is a complex player with a mix of great skills. He can operate as a conventional number ten, center midfielder or on either flanks. He has great dribbling and passing skills which can be seen as he is ranked highly in terms of the progressive carries and passes per 90. He is also great with the set piece delivery and is always ready to assist and score from them which can be seen from his ranking in terms of expected assists and non-penalty goals per 90.
Not limited to his attacking contribution, Golovin can also be deployed in a holding role, taking advantage of his impressive ability to read the game and break up opposing attacks. He is also ranked among the 90th percentile of the midfielders in terms of his defensive contribution interms of pressures, tackles, interceptions and blocks per 90.
2. Christopher Nkunku (RB Leipzig)
Nkunku is a dynamic player with good dribbling ability, eye for decisive passes and technique on the ball. He is ranked among the top 90 percentile of the midfielders in terms of assists and non-penalty goals scored. However, he is best poised to make a difference when he plays through the center of the pitch rather than on the flanks, mainly because of his ability to open up spaces and spread out passes upfront to the strikers or to wingers on the flanks. He is also difficult to mark in such positions as his low center of gravity allows him to drift around the center of the pitch, confusing the defensive midfielders and center-backs equally.
3. Lucas Paquetá (Lyon)
Lucas Paqueta is one of those players that feels like he has been around forever. Some may even be surprised to know he has only recently turned 24 years old. His reimergence as a player came when we joined Lyon from AC Milan. Despite playing as a number 10 for much of his career, Paqueta has been used as a more traditional central midfielder under Rudi Garcia. He has stepped up on occasion to reprise his regular role, but by and large, has adapted his game to play slightly deeper as well. This has not diminished any of his creative powers, however. This can be seen as he is ranked among the top 90 percentile of the midfielders in terms of progressive passes.
Despite being a primarily creative player, however, Paqueta does not shirk his defensive duties. Tracking back to provide additional cover to his full-back, while also being adept at forcing opposition defenders into uncomfortable situations, he proves just as useful out of possession as he is in it. This can be seen as he is ranked among the top 90 percentile of the midfielders in terms of pressures and tackles per 90.
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All this analysis was done using data from https://fbref.com/en/ . The code where I scrape the data and perform player profiling in order to find players top-rated defensive midfielders in the world is present in the github repository below:
