Tag: Profile

Lessons In Stagnation: An Unhinged Data-Driven Rant About Stoke City

George Weaver1 Comment

Well, it just gets worse and worse, doesn’t it.

For the second season in a row it feels like a fixture against Sheffield Wednesday, after a poor run of results that followed a pretty lucky/unsustainable unbeaten run feels likely to decide a manager’s fate.

Saturday’s 2-2 draw to Cardiff, with a very late set-piece equaliser saving Stoke from a feeling of the sky falling in, wasn’t enough for fans. The boos rang out in the bet365 Stadium, and honestly, who can blame them?

No other relegated side, since Stoke first came into the Championship in 2018, has gone without a play-off campaign after dropping out of the Premier League.

It seems like the fans’ view has shifted significantly, with talk of unfair Profit & Sustainability Rules, ‘Not His Squad’, and ‘He Just Needs Time’ fading out in favour of a deeper frustration with the past 8 years of Stoke City. With no top half finishes to speak of, and another relegation battle possibly looming, there appears to be very little credit left in the bank for the club’s hierarchy.

Let’s take a look at what the data shows about Stoke’s most recent fall in performances, which unfortunately appears to have been off a rather large cliff.

Has It Been All That Bad?

In a word: yes. In more words: yes, it has been that bad.

Since Narcis Pelach took over, Stoke’s underlying numbers have plummeted to one of the worst in the division, creating more than their opposition in just 2 of his 17 games in charge.

With 16 points from 16 league games, and some big slices bad luck in some poor refereeing decisions (particularly in draws at home to Millwall and away at QPR), it was hoped that Pèlach’s recent run of form – 4 points from 7 games with no win – is somewhat of an anomaly, having only lost 1 game from 10 prior to the Burnley match.

But as a big data nerd – as I sit here and look at and play with all my silly machines as much as I like – the performances tell a different story.

The blue line indicates Stoke’s attacking prowess, as the average xG they’ve created per game. The red line is the same average but for xG created per game by the opposition. Each point in the lines is an average of the previous 7 games. The dashed lines show trends under Schumacher and Pèlach for xG created and conceded.

Whilst Stoke’s attacking numbers under Pèlach have remained relatively stable (although certainly not impressive), their defensive numbers have been shot directly downwards into the Mariana Trench by a howitzer.

It’s interesting that even in the run of 1 loss in 10, Stoke were still putting up poor underlying numbers, and after this perfect example of the role of data as a measure of ‘sustainability’, I think this is something I’ll point to forever as a reason to use it to predict future performance, rather than relying on results.

Looking at the table, Stoke have only conceded 28 in 21 (22 in 16 under Pèlach), with 4 of those being own goals (more on that later). This disconnect is why I’m not too keen to call Pèlach and the team currently ‘unlucky’ for those poor decisions.

To quantify that defensive ‘luck’, using the chances they’ve conceded in games since Pèlach took over, we can calculate the probability that Stoke concede the number of goals they have conceded in that time.

Simulating their shots 100,000 times (own goals excluded), we find that the most likely number of goals for Stoke to concede in their 16 league games under Pèlach is 29, compared to the 18 they’ve actually conceded.

In fact, in 99,585 of the 100,000 simulations, Stoke conceded more goals than they have in real life.

For those with a willingness to debase football with technical jargon, they’re almost 3 standard deviations away from the mean prediction.

Simulating each Championship shot since Narcís Pèlach took over 100,000 times, this plot shows the most likely number of goals conceded on a per game basis for each team in a blue marker, with the error bars show 1 standard deviation either side. The red markers show the actual number of goals conceded in this time frame.

Looking at the rest of the league for comparison, only Plymouth conceded more on average in the simulations than Stoke, with the Potters about level with Oxford (who incidentally just sacked Des Buckingham) in terms of predicted goals conceded per game.

In fact, no other team is ‘luckier’ – in that no other team has a higher probability of conceding more goals than they have – than Stoke, with Sheffield United close behind.

Not Just A Brick Wall, A 10m Thick Nuclear Bunker

A huge part of that is down to Viktor Johansson, with the Swedish number 1 conceding an incredible 11 (eleven) goals fewer than expected for the shots he’s faced.

In fact, no other Championship goalkeeper has excelled by such a margin in shot-stopping since FBref started measuring Post-Shot Expected Goals.

PSxG is similar to xG, but instead of predicting how likely a chance is to be scored before the shot, it takes the trajectory of the shot after it’s taken, and predicts how likely it is to be scored based on historical data. So, for example, Peter Crouch’s volley against Manchester City had a low xG (far out, difficult chance), but a high PSxG (struck powerfully into the top corner).

A plot showing how much a goalkeeper has over-performed PSxG on the vertical axis – above zero means they concede fewer than the average goalkeeper for the shots they faced. On the horizontal axis is the total xG they’ve faced. Johansson is shown by the Stoke City badge.

As you can likely judge from the plot above, being high up means good shot-stopping, and Johansson is so far above the rest as to almost be in my previous blog post.

As Narcís Pèlach was keen to point out, the defensive shape – a very deep, very compact and narrow block – was in place not necessarily to prevent opposition shots, but to prevent them getting clear cut chances. As much as that has likely helped Johansson exceed expectations by giving him a smaller area of the goal to cover, it’s certainly a push to say it’s been ‘working’.

Defending The Space

The first of the two major tactical issues is one I’ve written about in depth before on here, so I won’t dwell on it too much, but the ultra-conservative low block, that Stoke are desperate to get back into and rely on, has started to bring the results I feared it might back in early November.

Stoke have now conceded more shots than any other team in the division, and more xG than all but one side in Plymouth Argyle. They’re not close to the defences above them either, sitting almost 5xG conceded worse than Oxford United.

A map of the location of Stoke City’s defensive actions (tackles/interceptions etc.) with each zone coloured to indicate whether there are more or less actions per game than the league average in that zone.

Reposting the plot above, we see that Stoke look to pretty much defend 2 areas and 2 areas only.

Firstly, they sit in a mid-block, and force the ball wide in the opposition’s half – indicated by the big red strip just inside the opposition half, with the darker red areas in wide positions.

If that gets bypassed, they then sit incredibly deep in their own penalty area and essentially concede the space in front of their own box – indicated by the red penalty area and the blue/white areas outside their own box – hoping to get enough bodies between the ball and the goal to prevent a big opportunity.

The idea is clear, defend the most dangerous areas of the pitch, and don’t allow the opposition to have uncontested possession close to your goal.

But the ideas have been muddled, and as Narcís Pèlach himself put it:

 “When you go from one thing to another, sometimes you can go to the extreme. This is what we have done. Now we have to try to rebalance it a little bit to win more duels, basically.”

A similar heatmap showing the start (left) and end (right) location of opposition passes against Stoke in the Pèlach era. Again, blue indicates fewer than average per game in the zone, and red indicates more than average for the league.

As above, looking at the passes Stoke’s opposition are making, it’s clear that the first line of the defensive press isn’t effective enough at preventing the ball getting into dangerous areas.

Opposition build-up simply plays around Stoke’s compact and narrow lines, and manages to consistently get into dangerous areas wide of the box.

Now, the plan here is for Stoke to simply pack the box full of players and prevent big chances for the opposition. But their unwillingness to press the ball on the edge to prevent crosses, alongside the unwillingness to mark a man moving between spaces in the box, has led to Stoke still conceding above the average xG per shot on average in the division according the Opta.

xG per shot (the average quality of chance) for opponents on the vertical axis against the number of shots per game for opponents on the horizontal axis.

As shown above, Stoke have not only conceded more shots per game than all teams bar Plymouth Argyle, but the shots they do concede are also higher value, on average, than 14 other teams in the league.

Click each image to zoom in.

Telestrations: Metrica Play

In the above images, from the first half against Cardiff, we see an example of Stoke’s defensive passivity and zonal defensive shape being far too easy to exploit.

As the ball is played out to Cardiff’s right back, Stoke are sat loosely in their 4-4-2 shape, narrow and compact to prevent passes through the centre of the pitch. Koumas presses aggressively towards the player who receives the first pass, and the passer moves forward towards Junho.

But Koumas is pressing alone, and Cardiff play a simple pass into the centre of the pitch to Ralls.

Not a problem, on its own, but because Stoke are so obsessed with keeping their shape and preventing central passes, they give Ralls complete freedom to turn on the ball and pick a pass forward.

And now we see the major issue.

Click each image to zoom in.

Telestrations: Metrica Play

Cardiff do one thing very well in this phase of play – spreading their attacking line to fill the width of the pitch.

Stoke do many things badly, but my biggest problem comes with the lack of recognition of how to prevent attacks like this in their shape and structure.

If you’re sitting as narrow as Stoke are (look at their defence in the left image), and allowing the opposition to have the space wide, you have to be willing to press and compact the space higher up the pitch.

As it stands, Stoke’s forward lines (both midfield and forward lines are disjointed and leaving huge gaps in the middle 3rd in this case) are essentially training cones, with no pressure on the ball at all, allowing a relatively fast break through from Cardiff, and forcing recovery runs of almost 40 yards from their own defenders and midfield.

As the wing back gets the ball, he has 10 yards between himself and Wilmot, and a massive space to drive into with the ball. There’s a 4v4 on Stoke’s back line, and a huge gap in front of them to the recovering Seko and Manhoef.

Telestration: Metrica Play

In the end, the wing back has a very easy time driving into the Stoke box, and as Stoke’s defence recover well to defend the 6 yard box (more on this later), passes to the late arrivers into the area are free, and in the end Johansson’s save keeps the score at 0-0.

With 2 simple passes, Cardiff went from 20 yards in their own half with all 11 Stoke players behind the ball, to a shot from 6 yards inside Stoke’s penalty area from a cutback.

Telestration: Metrica Play

Here we have the build up to Cardiff’s equaliser. Wilmot plays a loose pass to try and slot Cannon through, thinking he’d drop into receive to feet (lol). But as Cardiff win the ball back, Stoke have every player behind the ball apart from Cannon, and all but 2 players on the right hand side of the pitch.

But, as has become common for Stoke this season, the spaces occupied in the defensive shape higher up the pitch are far too easy to get through. Look at the two pictures above, and as the Cardiff player takes the ball forward, he misses a pass inside to the completely free players between Tchamadeu and Junho.

He plays a simple pass wide, which Stoke are in a good position to close out and prevent danger.

But the recognition of where to press, and the ability to press while cutting out passing options, is so poor again.

Wilmot presses aggressively on his own, but the direction of his run blocks off neither the pass down the line nor the pass inside. Moran has, almost inexplicably, dropped off the midfielder to mark an area of space that Seko is already sort-of covering (although he’s also switched left to right about 4 times by this point).

The lack of pressure on the ball, and fundamentally the inability to recognise which spaces are dangerous means Cardiff easily play a pass inside and down the line, and Stoke have turned a 3v3 into a 3v1 in Cardiff’s favour with their positioning.

I believe this focus on defending the spaces leads to confusion in higher areas of the pitch, where players aren’t able to put pressure on the ball and create pressing traps.

Then, as he makes the run down the line, we see another two issues in Stoke’s defensive structure in the low block phase, as every Stoke player watches the ball and defends the centre of the goal.

In the blue dotted area is a 3v1 on Junior Tchamadeu (and the eventual goal comes from a ball deflected to the back post), and in the yellow zone is something we often see with Stoke’s shape, a massive gap on the edge of the penalty area as everyone defends the 6 yard box.

This is the source of the eventual goal, as a cleared header gives someone a free shot 12 yards out. And it happened more than once in the game.

On the left we have the first goal, and on the right we have a similar opportunity that hit the bar. A cross into the box, headed away towards the edge of the box, but every Stoke player is so obsessed with defending the 6 yard box, that they give free shots from 12-18 yards out.

Yes, there are bodies in the way, but I don’t believe these chances – however low value – exist with a more aggressive and less conservative defensive plan in place.

Final 3rd Woes

When looking at Stoke’s attacking issues, two big things show up.

Firstly, they’re actually very good at attacking on the break into space. They create the 2nd highest number of shots from defensive actions, and have scored the joint-2nd most goals from fast breaks in the league this season.

But whilst their build up has improved (and I do believe that’s one of few positives from recent performances), the ability to get the ball into the final 3rd and create when they do get it there is so heavily reliant on individual skill, that there are highly variable outcomes.

Their ability to create chances is poor, below average in both getting in the final 3rd and in creating chances in all of the above metrics. Only really excelling in creating big chances from low-value passes – an indication of their ability to be aggressive on the break and drive at defenders.

When playing into space and giving their best players the opportunity to attack, Stoke are dangerous. The much-debated Million Manhoef has produced two exceptional passes into space to assist Lewis Koumas vs Sunderland and Tom Cannon vs Luton.

But when the opposition is set in their defensive shape, Stoke narrow the pitch and stop making runs once the first pass doesn’t come.

The lack of structure in the final 3rd when trying to play the final pass has been a big issue for these young players, and as momentum and confidence tails off, it feels difficult to see much improvement on the horizon. Even for what were our clubs ‘stars’ only a few months ago.

It comes to something when I’m pining for something Alex Neil did, but I really do miss that willingness to set pressing traps and play with a bit more risk.

Alongside it being something I enjoy watching personally, I fully believe it suits the attacking talent we have to be trying to win the ball high up the pitch and break quickly in a structured manner

Yes, we may concede big chances and 1v1s against opponents who can play through us, but we’re already conceding almost 2 xG per game on average by sitting in our own box and allowing opponents who shouldn’t be able to get through to waltz to the penalty area.

As an example of that poor press, here’s Cardiff keeping the ball with about 10 minutes to go, as Stoke need a goal.

As a preliminary question, I ask – ‘Where are Stoke trying to force the ball in any of these images, and how do they want to win it back?’

Yes, Stoke are chasing the game a little here, so you might expect it to be more disjointed, but in fact this situation appears across the 90 minutes.

On the left image, Cardiff have the ball with one of their centre halves. The two pivots in midfield are more risky passes because of Gallagher’s press, and the midfielder pushing up onto their line. So the ball is played across to the left.

As it’s played, Tom Cannon presses to force the ball central. A good idea, right? But no, because the midfield is 10 yards off the pivot player who receives the ball.

Not only could he turn easily and try to find a forward pass between the (huge) spaces of Stoke’s midfield, but he can simply play the ball out left to the opposite side, where Stoke have no man within 30 yards.

Whilst they can sit in a compact block well, and prevent easy passes centrally, Stoke struggle so much with actively being able to win the ball back in these higher areas against sides with a bit of composure.

The pass out wide is mishit and poorly-weighted from the Cardiff player, which gives Gooch time to press higher. But as he’s had to run full tilt for 30 yards to press, a simple shift of the ball allows another easy pass into the midfielder at the end of the white arrow, who can turn and attack Stoke’s defence directly, because the midfield have pressed on.

Wilmot (spotlighted) is stuck between marking the central player and the wide player, as Seko (the deeper of the midfielders, is 10 yards off.

Every pressing run from a Stoke player ends up having to screen two possible passes, because there doesn’t appear to be a plan to win the ball back aside from ‘don’t let them play centrally’.

As a result, it becomes really easy to drag the shape around with controlled and composed possession, and with it being so compact and narrow, even poorer sides can play around the shape, as Cardiff did in the first example all those paragraphs ago.

A Final Rant About Structure

To finish this off, I have to talk about the club as a whole.

The situation Narcís Pèlach is currently in feels entirely avoidable, and I have such deep sympathy for him in this position.

Having created a brand new club from scratch 6 times since relegation in 2018, it feels like the new Jon Walters era continues where the previous eras left off.

With 1 manager and 2 head coaches in the past 12 months (or just over), 2 technical directors (or sporting directors now), and 2 managers sacked 5 games into a season in the last 4 years, Stoke are grasping around for anything they can to find the answer.

But to me, therein lies the permanent issue with Stoke City as a football club.

There is no ‘answer’ to football.

There’s no such thing as ‘the right’ way of running a club, ‘the best’ head coach, ‘the best’ sporting director, or ‘the best’ signing to make. Football is such a high-variance sport that you can rarely rely simply on ‘good’ to get you into the best position. You need to produce a process and a plan that you think is right for your club, and stick to it until you feel you need to change. From the top to the bottom.

The issue with Stoke has been that, for far too long, they’re a club playing catch-up. From the ‘it’s what Liverpool do’ technical board of Michael O’Neill that lasted 5 games, to Ricky Martin sacking the manager who brought him in, the ideas have almost never lasted more than one or two bad runs of results.

The entirety of Stoke City’s plan for the club hinges on a Fear of Missing Out.

‘What are the ‘good’ clubs doing? Oh Brighton are doing data scouting, let’s get one of them in, but only for a few months because we’ll have a completely different club structure the following summer.’

There’s no issue with learning from what successful clubs are doing, but it’s never done with a depth of understanding of why those ideas are working at those clubs. Stoke take the most surface level idea from an iceberg of a principle that’s worked for other clubs, and then sack it off when it doesn’t immediately turn them into a top 6 side.

The ‘Sporting Director’ role is another example. The use of a sporting director is to provide accountability to the plans and processes that should already be in place for the whole club. They’re not there to control the club in its entirety, because even they rarely last more than 2 seasons.

I was going to put some examples from previous ‘Pre-Season Q&A’ nights still available on YouTube, just for even more depressing memories, but I’m already way over my word limit. If you’re wanting to see how this has unfolded over time, I highly recommend sitting through the ‘plans’ of the last 6 years explained in those chats.

This obsession Stoke have with finding one emperor figure to take control of everything and make it all suddenly click needs to stop, or I fear even medium term success is beyond them.

Sure, maybe we’ll get lucky and roll a 6 in the manager dice roll game, and win a few. But then what happens when they leave, and we have to restructure again? What happens if Walters leaves, either by choice or worse?

I feel for Narcís, he’s going to likely get a January window to bring in players at a club who have only retained only a few players from their squad 18 months ago, and he’s got to learn on the job very quickly, in an environment that has destroyed much more experienced managers than him, at a club that can’t decide what it wants to be.

It’s been crying out for someone to sit down at the highest level of the club, and plan processes and principles for what type of club Stoke City should be. From Men, Academy, and Women’s teams to the catering at the kids’ games. We can’t keep wanting a revolution every 6 months and expecting the same decisions to suddenly bring success because ‘this time we have the right man, honestly’.

Thanks to any and all readers, and please feel free to comment and follow on Twitter at @potterlytics. If you want to hear myself and Lucas Yeomans discussing each Stoke game alongside some exciting interviews, head over to the Cold Wet Tuesday Night Podcast at BBC Sounds.


George

*Chuckles* I’m In Danger

George Weaver

It hasn’t been the start Stoke would have wanted from their new boss. His first 7 league games in charge have delivered just 6 points, including a thumping victory, and 3 draws with more than a dollop of luck and goalkeeping excellence to thank.

A fantastic 6-1 victory over Portsmouth seemed to signal a bit of a shift in the tide of new manager Narcís Pèlach’s fortunes, and despite some poor underlying numbers, the 3 consecutive draws that followed pointed toward a more resilient and hard-to-beat Stoke side.

Saturday’s 2-0 loss to Sheffield United, who controlled the vast majority of the game, seemed to signal a turn in how fans’ have been viewing the performances, however.

In a vacuum, a poor performance and a 2-0 loss away at a promotion candidate might be a classic ‘oh well, onto the next one’, but in the context of 1 win in 7, and worrying signs defensively, there’s a worrying air of fear around the fanbase.

But just what do those pesky underlying numbers show? Why should you care? And what could it indicate for the future?

And yes, I will include a bit about Southampton.

Disclaimer: None of this should be used as a stick to beat head coaches with. Particularly those who are only 7 games into their first major head coach role.

Nar-sty Numbers

First, and most obviously, we can take a look at Stoke’s ability to create their own chances and prevent opposition chances, with a rolling average of xG created and conceded (xG explainer here).

The blue solid line indicates the average of the previous 7 games’ xG created, with the red solid line showing the average of the previous 7 games’ xG conceded. Each dashed line shows the trend of xG created and conceded for both managers.
The black solid line indicates the transition between managers.

A stark, and somewhat depressing plot.

As simpler stats point towards defensive issues, with Stoke having conceded 39 shots inside their penalty area over the past 2 league games against Sheffield United and Bristol City, the xG data agrees.

Huge caveats with the small sample size, but in Narcís Pèlach’s tenure so far, Stoke’s defensive numbers have fallen off a cliff.

According to Opta, Stoke have conceded > 1.5xG in all bar 2 games so far in Pèlach’s 7 games, including 1.9 xG or more in 4 of those matches.

In fact, at an average of over 1.8 xG per game conceded, this is the worst 7-game spell of league defensive numbers since a 3-0 loss against Wigan, at the very beginning of Gary Rowett’s tenure back in 2018, and even that window was taking into account 3 Premier League games under Paul Lambert.

But of course, stats need context, and much much more in-depth exploration than simply one 12-game set of xG data. So let’s delve into this in a bit more detail.

A Tale Of Two 10s

Shot maps for Stoke (left) and their opponents (right) for the Pèlach era so far.

Despite scoring 10 goals and conceding 10 (+1 own goal) in the league since Pèlach took over, the stats behind those goals continue to tell a worrying story.

Of the 125 shots Stoke have conceded in that time (almost 46 more shots than they’ve taken themselves), 96 were from inside their own box, at a rate of 13.7 shots in the area per game.

Alongside that, Stoke have created (hugely caveated: according to my xG models) only just over half the xG of their opponents in that time. Over-performing their chances to the tune of almost 3 goals.

Their opponents, on the other hand, are underperforming their xG by 2 goals (excluding the missed penalty which was scored on the rebound by Kasey Palmer).

Having created only 8 ‘big chances’ compared with their opponents 18, 6 of Stoke’s 9 non-penalty goals have come from chances with a low xG (<0.1) compared with 4 of their opponents’ 11 goals.

Alongside that, their opponents have been unlucky with the quality of finishing they’ve shown, having scored 11 goals from a whopping 16.1 Post-shot xG (a measure of how likely a shot is to go in after it’s hit), compared with Stoke’s 9.1 PSxG.

All this points to a significant element of ‘luck’ in Stoke’s recent results, at least in terms of goalscoring for both themselves and the opposition.

Narcís Pèlach mentioned in his pre-Southampton press conference that stats need to be used with caution, reminding Sentinel ace reporter Pete Smith (<3 you Pete) that with conceding shots, you need to take into account the distance, position, and value of these shots. But I’m not sure that even with those caveats Stoke are in a good place.

Beyond the eye test of Stoke ‘feeling a bit weak’ defensively, this provides some strong evidence that they’re conceding too many chances, too many high-value chances, and too many chances in their own penalty area.

The number of big chances (xG > 0.2) conceded by Championship teams vs their xG conceded since Pèlach took charge of Stoke. More grim viewing.

Whilst stats in the short term can be largely down to variance, it does indicate a likelihood that, if Stoke don’t arrest their defensive collapse over the last few months, then results will start to follow.

In Pèlach’s defence, there is some evidence that Stoke are improving how they defend the box, and they are above average in the fraction of shots faced that they block. This does indicate that players are more often behind the ball when the opposition take shots, but it’s also the case that Stoke are above average in the fraction of shots saved, which brings us nicely to our glimmer of hope.

A Helping Jo-hand From Vik

Undoubtedly player of the season so far is Viktor Johansson, who has replicated his utterly insane shot-stopping form for Rotherham in recent weeks.

The number of goals below expectation per 90 minutes that goalkeepers are conceding, considering the chances they’ve faced vs. the difficulty of those shots on average. Big Vik is a high flyer.

Replace Viktor Johansson with the ‘average’ historical goalkeeper, and Stoke would be about 7 goals conceded worse off this season, (reductive and way-too-simple stat coming up) winning just 2 games, drawing 1, and losing every other match this season.

Whilst it’s fantastic to have a keeper like Johansson putting up these numbers, it is, again, worrying to be relying so heavily on him for results.

Midfield Muddle

Chief among Stoke’s struggles in recent weeks has been the ineffective nature of their defensive shape.

As Pèlach correctly summised recently, the players are learning a new defensive system, and it will take time for them to get used to that. As it stands, though, the off-the-ball shape of Stoke has only really shown signs of working against a very poor Portsmouth side, and 20-30 minute spells vs Norwich, Hull and Swansea.

And boy does it look poor when it doesn’t work.

The 442 shape out of possession allows for Stoke to challenge with 2 forwards, but the compact shape they employ deeper in the pitch is all-to-easily bypassed.

Initially we saw issues with teams playing around the shape under Schumacher, culminating in some strong criticism of the fullbacks, but now it’s all too easy for teams to play through Stoke’s shape centrally, with the 2 central midfielders consistently unable to block passing lanes and cover ground off the ball.

Entries allowed into the attacking half (left) and final 3rd (right) on the horizontal axis, with entries allowed from central areas on the vertical axis. Since Pèlach took over at Stoke.

As shown above, Stoke are above average in their last 7 games in allowing the opposition into the final 3rd and the attacking half, but more visibly, they’ve allowed the 2nd most entries into the attacking half in central areas, and the 2nd most entries into the final 3rd from central areas of any team in the league.

Tackles in the deeper 2/3 of the pitch vs defensive actions in central areas from Championship sides since Pèlach took over at Stoke.

And finally, we see just how passive Stoke are in these deeper, central areas. The compact and deep block means they are more likely to allow opponents the chance to deliver the ball into the box, and try to get bodies behind it, leading to the 2nd lowest number of tackles in the defensive 2/3 of the pitch.

And beyond that, the inability to press and block passing lanes centrally leads to their low volume of defensive actions in central areas.

But enough stats, let’s see a few examples:

(I’d like to do more, but thanks to Stoke’s highlights for showing goals and excitement instead of build up shapes for some reason.)

Telestration via Metrica Play

First off, we have a clip from the Bristol City game, in the build up to the 2nd goal.

Bristol City have the ball on the half way line with their midfielder, and Stoke are sat in their compact 4-4-2 shape. Immediately we can see the goal of Stoke’s shape, in covering the spaces rather than opposition players and maintaining the defensive shape.

But against strong opposition with intelligent attackers, especially if midfield players are reactive to opposition movement, this can lead to open passes through the lines for opponents, and we can see one of those opening up above.

As the player drives forward, there is very little pressure from the left sided forward, and a simple pass opens up to the forward through the press. He takes the ball on the half turn, plays a pass to his right, and suddenly we see the right hand image.

From a position in front of Stoke’s compact and narrow shape, Bristol City have run forward 5 yards, played 1 low-risk pass through the lines, and are now 4v4 (with wide players available too) against Stoke’s back line.

But although I don’t think this is what Pèlach wants of his players in terms of the ease with which Bristol City play through, there is one positive here, in that Stoke’s defence closes the space well and should clear the ball. An unfortunate clearance and error plays Wells through to score in the end, but the chance was largely squandered before that.

Above we see a similar situation but with a better outcome in the Swansea game.

A simple pass is played through Stoke’s 1st and 2nd pressing lines again, and the ball is played wide.

This reactive press, in which Stoke allow teams to break their lines, has again led to a 2 pass move that goes from the centre circle to inside Stoke’s box in ~8 seconds.

Although this time we do see some positives, and probably the area in which Stoke’s defending has been fairly good in recent times. As the Swansea player arrives in the area, Stoke have 3 of their midfield 4 sitting on the edge of the box to cover pullbacks, and the leftmost 3 of their defence are sat covering the danger areas of within the width of the 6 yard box.

Wilmot presses the player on the ball, forces him wide, and the ensuing cross is easily cleared by Rose.

We see a similar issue rear its head above in the game against Sheffield United.

Rak-Sakyi makes a simple movement into the space between Burger and Moran, and a relatively low-risk pass from Souza sees him able to turn and attack Stoke’s defensive line.

After a few body feints, Stoke manage to close the space and squeeze the ball out to Johansson, but again we see a situation where the opposition can run at Stoke’s defence with one or two simple passes through the lines.

Before You Get The Pitchforks Out

But as mentioned above, I don’t think Pèlach is happy with that issue. He’s mentioned, rightly, that Stoke have greatly improved in defending their own area and keeping an opponent out when they sit deep.

But what we haven’t seen is a Stoke side that can get the ball back when the onus is on them to find a more aggressive pressing shape.

Defensive improvement against Southampton was great for momentum and morale, but I don’t think that keeping Russell Martin’s horseshoe-ball at bay with a back 10 is necessarily a tactic that will be indicative of anything in the Championship.

Stoke’s overall defensive numbers show this, with a significant number of tackles in high areas, but one of the lowest numbers of tackles attempted when adjusted for opposition possession.

Stoke’s pressing unit is based heavily on occupying space and frustrating the opposition, with lots of blocks and clearances, and a very high tackle win % suggesting they only attempt to win the ball back when it’s very clearly on.

This hybrid pressing structure, with some aggression high up the pitch, dropping very quickly back into a solid (in theory) shape, had great success against Portsmouth, but I fear it’s too passive to be consistently successful at this level.

Whilst you can look at the goals Stoke have conceded recently and count them unlucky, or down to individual mistakes, I can’t escape the feeling that they’re bringing some of this luck on themselves with such a passive pressing plan.

Allowing the opposition to so easily drop you into a low block may well mean you defend the box better, but you also give them the opportunity to get lucky in very dangerous areas, and your defenders the opportunity to make mistakes in dangerous areas too.

I think immediately of examples such as that Wells goal above, Norwich’s goal, and Campbell’s goal for Sheffield United.

The hope has to be that as the players improve in the low block phase, which I do think is happening, they’ll start to find their feet in the middle and final 3rd, and especially important is that we see an improvement in what they do in possession too.

The best way to defend is to have the ball, and that hasn’t been a strength of Stoke’s either in recent weeks.

But, at 2200 words in, I can’t start an in-possession section now, even if I want to.

While Pèlach has been put under such massive pressure by the circumstances of his hiring, and a strange confidence from some that this side should be pushing for the play-offs despite being relegation candidates not 6 months ago, this article shouldn’t be take as a criticism of him.

There are issues, sure, but he’s a brand new manager at a club that has taken down far more experienced bosses than him.

Today’s game (sorry if you read this late) is massive, though, and as a side looking to improve, you’d think this would be a great opportunity to show what they’re learning.

Thanks to any and all readers, and please feel free to comment and follow on Twitter at @potterlytics. If you want to hear myself and Lucas Yeomans discussing each Stoke game alongside some exciting interviews, head over to the Cold Wet Tuesday Night Podcast at BBC Sounds.

Should you wish to donate to help with the running costs of the site, and the data subscriptions we use, please feel free to visit our donations page here or subscribe to the Patreon linked above. Any and all help is very much appreciated!

George

Excited Stress — My View On the Schumacher – Pèlach Transition

George Weaver
The Stoke City Era Continues

Well, what the hell has just happened?

It wouldn’t be a heavy week of Stoke news without everyone having a taketm, and I wouldn’t be a content creator (am I that? ew), if I didn’t do my best to add my own to the pile of dirge that has come out since 9.05am on Monday morning.

I’m writing this prior to the game against Hull, so be aware that the stats and data below don’t include that game. (I’m writing this after the Hull game, a lot of the data basically maps perfectly onto what happened in the 3-1 loss, but more on that in the coming days)

So, without further ado, here’s my measured response to the latest Stoke City hiring-and-firing saga.

St-even I Didn’t Expect That

It was one hell of a bombshell from Jon Walters, and it appeared that a large bulk of the fanbase neither expected, nor particularly agreed with, the sacking.

I have to admit, my own reaction was initially of confusion, disappointment, and more than a hint of frustration at the timing and justification for Schumacher’s removal as Head Coach.

But, aside from speculation of Walters’ and Schumacher’s relationship, which I’m absolutely not going to be a part of, is there any performance-related justification? Let’s take a brief look at the data to find out.

Rolling mean xG per game from previous 7 games since Alex Neil’s sacking in 2023. Blue shaded regions indicate Stoke are creating more than their opponents on average, and red shaded regions indicate the opposite. xG from fbref.com via Opta

Nothing too worrying to look at, on the face of it. After a poor period between the loss at home to Birmingham and the win away at Preston, performances seemed to settle down into what would probably be considered par for the course with Stoke’s squad.

Aside from an absolutely mad performance away in Swansea and a poor effort at Norwich, Stoke actually ended last season in fantastic form, with 5 wins and 3 draws from the last 10 games.

Two very positive performances this season vs Coventry and Plymouth bookended a lacklustre game away at Watford, and a tough loss at home to West Brom in which Koumas twice hit the post when 1v1 with the goalkeeper.

To my view, watching Stoke’s games this season, the key word has been ‘moments’. Setting aside Oxford for the moment, although I do think it followed a similar pattern to many of the other games until the goal, the other 4 league games have been settled largely by one or two key moments either in Stoke’s favour (Baker & Manhoef’s goals) or against them (Koumas misses vs WBA & Johansson’s poor keeping vs Watford).

“Erm, well, actually, I think you’ll find’ I hear you say in a nasally voice, pushing your glasses up the bridge of your nose. Yes, don’t worry, I’m not going to pretend everything was simply down to luck, even if I do think the performances were around on-par for what you’d expect with our squad.

Some Kind Of Pun About Schumacher Not Settling Tactically Yet This Season

I’m focusing on league fixtures from this season, but just as a word on the cup games, I think they’ve followed a similar pattern, and I think in particular the Plymouth game was a mirror of Middlesbrough away, with the halves flipped.

But returning to the league, there have been 2 noticeable issues – in my opinion – in how Stoke have performed in their 5 games so far.

As always, this is massively caveated by there only being 5 games, and particularly by huge rotation in the squad with the transfer window only having closed the day prior to the 4th league fixture. I’ll explain later in the piece whether I feel these are issues large enough to justify a sacking, but I bet you can guess my views.

Goals, Yet Again.

The obvious one to start. Stoke have only scored 3 league goals in 5 games. The benefit of Schumacher’s open style, although not quite fully let loose yet, is that freedom in the final 3rd allows your best players to solve their own problems, and generate chances with their individual quality.

But in only 2 games have generated more than 1 expected goals, the 2-1 loss to WBA and the 1-0 win at Home Park. It’s clear from the underlying numbers, and the eye test, that Stoke aren’t a top 6 side right now, but where exactly are they stacking up?

Above we see some ranking radars from their games so far in the league. Again, only 5 games, please take this with a huge bucket of salt.

Glaringly obvious in the right hand plot is the fact Stoke are generating chances at the level of a mid-table side, but doing so from very few shots. This leads to the 2nd highest average chance quality in the league, and the 3rd lowest average distance from goal.

This leads to our 2 major issues in Stoke’s chance creation so far: finishing, and volume.

Firstly, looking into their finishing, Stoke have been underperforming their xG by a huge 0.5xG per game, indicating that the ‘average’ side would have scored 2.5 more goals than Stoke at this point in the season. The bulk of the contributions to this are from chances like those missed against WBA, and often in 1v1 situations.

One might expect that with a young forward line, particularly in Lewis Koumas, who has missed some big opportunities in his exciting start to life at Stoke, this will improve as the season goes on, and the quality of chances Stoke have been able to create is a good sign for the potential of their new forward line.

Secondly, and more of an issue in my opinion, is the volume of chances. 60% of Stoke’s xG has come in the Plymouth and WBA matches, and they’ve created the 5th lowest number of shots in the league.

This doesn’t appear to simply be due to not finding the space to shoot in good positions, although Stoke have had more shots blocked than all but one other team this season in the Championship. The left hand radar above shows that Stoke aren’t managing to get the ball into those dangerous positions (i.e. the final 3rd and the penalty area) at the rate of other sides in the league.

Most glaringly, across all 5 games, Stoke have completed just 2 crosses into the penalty area from open play, both on the opening day of the season against Coventry.

We can see from the above shot map that while stoke have created some high-value chances, they’re pretty sparse in the most dangerous areas, i.e. centrally and ahead of the penalty spot.

The freedom for the front line, alongside their undoubted quality, has led to Stoke creating good chances from the times they do get into good areas (hence the high xG per xA, i.e creating high value chances from each average pass).

This indicates to me that the issue has been much more in getting through an opposition press when the game isn’t so open as it was against WBA and Plymouth, but also that there is one hell of a front line there in terms of chance creation when it does get the ball.

Very Mid (Am I Doing Gen-Z Words Right?)

From my view this season, another issue has been in Stoke’s ability to win the ball back outside of their main pressing/out-of-possession plan.

The main plan appeared to be a compact and narrow mid block, as shown by this (blurry, sorry) still from the West Brom game, which resulted in Maja’s goal.

Aside from Lynden Gooch deep on the left hand side of Stoke’s shape, the set-up is essentially how they’ve looked to defend off the ball in every game so far, Plymouth’s double-10/single-pivot aside.

A very narrow back 4, and a compact midfield 3 in front, with the wide players coming inside to make it difficult to play through central areas.

You might wonder why Gooch is dropping into left wing back here, and my read of this is that after a few incursions on the left hand side in the first 30 minutes, Gooch was worried enough to drop in and try to cover the space that winger Fellows was attacking

As an aside, it didn’t work…

But whilst this shape is a good way to protect the centre of the pitch, and Stoke defended their box pretty well when opponents tried to attack the wide areas (possibly Watford aside), something Stoke haven’t managed to do this season is find an out-of-possession plan that wins the ball back when they’re losing.

Particularly in that compact midfield shape of the 4-2-3-1, where the trigger is to push opponents wide and remain combative in the middle, Stoke have struggled to stop the gaps when they have to open up and try to win it back.

Often games have seen midfielders doing their Joe Allen impressions (sorry for the drive-by, Joe) and pressing the ball alone or out of shape, leaving huge spaces for opponents to exploit.

We can see this below in the defensive actions of Stoke’s midfielders from the first half and the second half of games.

Stoke’s (central) midfielders’ defensive actions in first halves (left) and second halves (right).

The obvious caveat of Stoke defending more in the second half when in the lead are alleviated by the fact Stoke have only actually been in the lead for 20 minutes this season, and in 3 of their 5 games have been behind for either the entire second half or more than 43 minutes of it, whilst they were level in 33 and 35 minutes of the other 2 games respectively.

But what we do see here is that Stoke’s midfielders tended to do two things between the first and second half:

Firstly: Their central midfielders made double the number of interceptions in the first half compared to the second, and their success rate in tackles went from 85% in the first half to 65% in the second, despite making more attempts to tackle their opponents.

Secondly: Although the number of defensive actions was fairly consistent (34 to 31), the number of those actions taking place in the opponents half dropped from 42% to 26% from the first to second half. On top of that, only 3 of those defensive actions in the opponent’s half were successful.

Combining this data with the footage (contextless data is always dangerous, remember!), you see that this is pointing towards exactly the worry above.

Stoke’s midfielders are being stretched as they search for the ball and press out of shape, so we end up with fewer defensive actions in the opposition’s half as they’re played around/through. We also end up a massive decrease in success rates in those actions as more players press on their own, and end up overloaded due to the lack of shape.

Was It Worth It? My Own Daft Conclusions

So the question becomes, after 1800 words of nonsense, was that enough to sack Schumacher, just 9 months in?

In a word, for me, no.

It’s clear this was Jon Walters’ decision, and he’s been keen to put his name to it, emphasising that these are the key decisions that he’s here to make as Sporting Director. ‘Brave’, ‘ballsy’, and many other words have been used to describe this hell of a call from the Stoke fans’ hero.

The issues I described were certainly noticeable in Stoke’s games so far, and not even the most optimistic fan can say they were entirely happy with the performances, but it felt there were signs of improvement, as Schumacher stated in his statement to the LMA: ‘It was clear that my vision of selecting young, hungry and energetic players to represent this great club was beginning to come to fruition’.

So what the hell is going on? I’ve kept you too long already, but let’s consider, briefly, the changes we’re seeing at Stoke, and what they might represent in terms of the long-term plans for the club.

Plus Ça Change

From my point of view, there’s a distinct lack of change on a larger scale with this particular week of excitement, despite constant rallying calls of ‘we’re doing things differently this time’ from the club.

We were (we being me and a set of other nerds who are too excited by ‘the likes of Brentford’) keen to see Stoke shift their manager-led structure into something which better lends itself to longevity and continuity in the modern game. But what Stoke appear to have done is misunderstand the benefits of that, instead simply shifting that power from one person to another, and still refusing to have a club-wide process.

The huge swings in playing style of the first 4 years in the Championship, from cautious controlled possession under Rowett, to blood-and-thunder verticality under Jones, to patient, wide build up under O’Neill, and finally to even more direct, tactically strict play under Neil, were joined by big swings in the backrooms too.

‘Strong and stable’

I can’t escape the feeling that it’s a club without much, if any, identity. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean the kind of identity in terms of ‘lump it long and get on the end of it’, but in terms of the processes the club wants to follow, the ethos of how it wants to move forward, and a long-term plan that involves development in all sections of the club; men, women, academy and community.

That doesn’t appear to be happening here at Stoke, or at least, those things seem to change completely at least once a season.

The transition away from a club who gave complete and emperor-like power to a manager, to a club with a Head Coach, focused on coaching and tactical work on the pitch, was something that felt like a positive move, and it certainly is an upgrade on the previous structure.

But Stoke are still a club who relies on a unicorn at the top of the club. Jon Walters may not be the manager of Stoke City, but he is taking up the vast majority of the role that previous bosses have been given, and he has already begun reshaping the club in his image.

I am a huge fan of Jon Walters, and I loved him as a Stoke player, but he is not coming into a club that has a well-defined structure that needs to evolve or tweak its running behind the scenes. He’s a brand new Sporting Director, with very little experience, being given the keys to the entire club and near-unlimited power to set the direction on his own.

This is not expanding on what was done before, this is another revolution in a club that has been ravaged by them for almost a decade now.

I hope beyond hope that this works, but I come back to an excellent article by Tim Keech on alignment within football clubs, and I worry that we still haven’t got this right.

The key focus here is that all segments of the club are aligned, and in alphabetical order. Whilst I’m keen to see Walters’ ideas about the club succeed, there is both a chance that they don’t, and he moves on, or that they do, and he moves on. Either way, he’s not here forever, barring some incredible set of circumstances à la Groundhog Day.

Most importantly, when he does move on, I don’t believe that Stoke have a consistent set of principles that bind everyone from board level downwards, and that will remain beyond his tenure.

My gut instinct, from both this week’s saga and the past 6 years of promised change, is that this is a club and board who are searching to find the ‘right’ or ‘best’ way to run the club, and expect that at some point they’ll find the ‘best’ person to do so, and this will all finally click together.

Whilst it might, particularly with Stoke’s hefty wage budget (even with P&S rules), there are long term issues in having to have a complete revolution whenever one person moves on. Not only that, but not having the commitment to a process through the club, and the obsession with being generically ‘good’, means it’s far too easy to conclude that a set of principles have now failed, and should be discarded for a complete root-and-branch reform, as we’ve seen so many times since 2018.

As Tim says, it is an easy fix. The difference between allowing one person to be emperor of the club, and developing a club-wide plan and process for everyone to get behind isn’t a million miles in reality, especially with the stability of having the owners Stoke have.

For us to have come down, melted our way through so many club structures, club philosophies, and processes, and still only have finished 14th and below, is the worst kind of achievement.

For my pessimistic side, it can feel inevitable that this may end as every other revolution has ended, first with a sacked Head Coach and a new style of play, then with a sacked Sporting Director and promises of a ‘new approach’ and ‘lessons learned’.

But just how many lessons is it possible to learn? How many individual people do we give complete control of the club’s footballing direction before we find success? What even is success for this club, because apparently mid table after 5 games isn’t good enough? If we even do find it, what happens when the right people leave? Do the dice roll again?

I hope beyond hope that Pèlach is given time, and that whoever follows him into the Head Coach role, or Walters into the Sporting Director role, are personnel who can provide a continuity to the club.

As a famous Alan once said:

“I evolve, but I don’t revolve“

Thanks to any and all readers, and please feel free to comment and follow on Twitter at @potterlytics. If you want to hear myself and Lucas Yeomans discussing each Stoke game alongside some exciting interviews, head over to the Cold Wet Tuesday Night Podcast at BBC Sounds.

Should you wish to donate to help with the running costs of the site, and the data subscriptions we use, please feel free to visit our donations page here or subscribe to the Patreon linked above. Any and all help is very much appreciated!

George

And So It Begins… What To Expect From Stoke

George Weaver

Well, here we are again, fancy seeing you here, et cetera, et cetera, ex chetera.

After a few weeks of nervous terror, Stoke’s transfers fell into place, and an explosion of signings were announced between the Benidorm camp and tomorrow’s fixture.

We’ve seen no fewer than 11 new(ish) faces into the squad at time of writing, with 7 permanent signings, 4 loanees, and even some transfer fees spent!

But how are we expecting to set up? What’s the new blueprint (new-print?) for this season in another revolution at the club? Let’s take a look into those signings, alongside some interesting clips from the Everton pre-season game, to see if there are any indicators to Alex Neil’s 2023/24 Stoke side might approach this incredibly long, exciting, depressing, hopeful, and soul-crushing Championship.

The New Boys

So what does the squad look like in a simplistic idea of the formation we expect them to play? If someone new has signed since this, please don’t shout at me.

Left: Stoke’s squad at the end of 2022/23. Right: Stoke’s current squad at time of writing.
Josh Onomah is marked (T) as he has not yet signed permanently. Campbell/Brown are marked in grey on the right wing, as they can both cover there if needed.

It’s a fairly safe assumption that Stoke will be, at least in spirit, playing in a 433 variant. Of course, during games, there will be tweaks to this in and out of possession, but this gives us a basis from which to judge the depth.

In comparison with the squad on our last viewing, shown to the left above, it’s night and day. The majority of first team spots have at least one main option, many of whom fit the mould mentioned in our last article (The Great Rebuild – What’s The Plan?).

My first plan for this article was to go through each signing and position individually, but I think that may be both overkill and boring, so let’s take a look at the big picture of what to expect from tomorrow’s game and beyond.

The Basics – Build-up

One of the exciting parts about these new signings is the quality of passing we have in the back line during build-up.

I mentioned in an article long, long ago, that a key part of Alex Neil’s style (and many managers, in fairness) is to make the pitch as wide as possible when in possession. Last season we often saw Ki-Jana Hoever stood on the right hand touchline during build-up phases, while Tyrese Campbell occupied the left-hand touchline.

Hoever sits wide right during Stoke’s build-up vs Blackburn last season, and Campbell occupied the wide left space. As the ball moves during build-up, Stoke manipulate the first line of press and slide in Campbell in space. Image: Wyscout

Not only does this create space centrally for other players to occupy, and expand the opposition defensive shape, it also allows for quality passers of the ball to use quick, long-range diagonals to get the ball to wide players in space, who are able to square up the opposing full back.

If a defence stays compact out-of-possession against Stoke, they make these diagonals easier to wide areas, and if they expand to mark the wide men, they leave space centrally for Stoke to attack into.

Rose plays a long diagonal pass (bottom of left image) to Campbell who is on the far touchline, facing up his fullback in the attacking third (top of right image).

The quality of pass in defence was only generally something Ben Wilmot could provide, but we saw vs. Everton that this role is taken up by Michael Rose, who appears just as adept at progressing the ball through the lines.

In fact, it’s shown in both Rose and his new centre half team-mate Luke McNally’s passing from last season with Coventry.

Michael Rose passing start and end location heatmaps for 2022/23.
Luke McNally passing start and end location heatmaps for 2022/23.

Both players have consistent forward passing down the near-side wing, and both complete passes (although fewer) across the field to the far wing.

This represents a vast improvement in the build-up passing from the back line from last season, when games often relied on Wilmot to be able to break the first line. If he couldn’t do it, it often meant there were some incredibly frustrating hoofs forward, and passes backwards.

This season, we can hopefully be more confident that we have the quality to vary the build-up passing, and start to break through those presses in ways we couldn’t reliably do last year.

The Shape In Possession

We’ve seen more than one shape trialled over the course of pre-season, which I think is indicative of the variation we’re going to see throughout the year.

Against Notts County, we saw a very attacking back 4, with the 2 centre backs sat deep and spread wide in build-up, with both full-backs (Macari and Tymon) pushed very high up the field.

The addition of Ben Pearson is likely to make this shape more viable in league games, and we did see it used last season. Pearson’s role as a ‘forward sweeper’ just in front of the back 2, cutting out transitions for the opposition and playing as a single pivot, allows Stoke to put men forward without being too terrified of the counter.

Against Everton, we saw a slightly different build-up shape, that utilised a double pivot of Thompson and Laurent.

This gave a little more solidity when dropping deep, but also gave Stoke a ‘box’ from which to build in the first phases of play. In a game where possession was less easy to come by, and the quality of opposition made forward passes into the middle more difficult, this gave Stoke more players in the centre of the pitch to play through the lines should they try to do so.

Build-up in the pre-season game vs Everton. We see that Laurent is dropping off the marker to provide a pivot, with Thompson holding his line to provide options later in the move. Note that both Hoever and Stevens are high up the pitch, level with both sitting midfielders.

It will be interesting to see whether this move to a double pivot is solely to accommodate the lack of Ben Pearson’s defensive ability in this game, or whether we will see a similar move for tough matches against high-level opposition who will dominate possession.

My instinct is that Pearson’s absence was the big factor in this, but with some big teams in the league looking to dominate with quality pressing players, we may see in-game variations to this effect if build-up is not working.

Alex Neil’s Off-Ball Terrors TM

Perhaps the most impressive area of Stoke’s game during last season’s oh-so-brief renaissance was the intensity of the press, and the traps they managed to set even against quality teams.

I don’t expect to see much of a change to what we saw then in the coming season, and despite the high quality opposition, we saw some of that against Everton too.

Gotta Go Fast: A very blurry (sorry) example of the exact same pressing structure as last season vs. Everton.

In the above still frame, we see (I’m so sorry for the picture quality, pre-season makes clipping difficult!) Jacob Brown take up the forward role of providing a curved pressing run to block off passing lanes to one centre back.

Chiquinho and the apparently light-speed Tyrese Campbell are sat between the full back and centre back on each side, ready to trigger a press once the ball is played to their side.

Finally, we see Daniel Johnson man-marking the number 6, taking Will Smallbone’s role in stopping the central ball through the press.

Behind this line, Stoke are sticking with the same, brave man-to-man marking behind that first press, and the first 20 minutes of the Everton game showed that the goal is to snap into tackles to make sure initial duels are won.

As with last season, Neil trusts his players to win 1v1 duels, and those new players fit the mould of strength, agility, and intelligence needed to time challenges and win that ball.

If you want to read more about the pressing unit of last season, check out the article on it here: Anatomy of a 10-game Revolution (Part 1) – Stoke’s New Blueprint

Creating Chaos

The last part is the most exciting, though.

Neil has said many a time that he’s looking for variation in attack, through both variation in number 9s (the dreaded target man moniker), but also through wide players who are strong on the ball and keen to take their man on 1v1.

Well, it appears this window is a bit of a ‘mission accomplished’ on that front.

Where, in previous seasons, we saw the ball moved wide only to be passed back to Morgan Fox to cross from deep, we now see players on both side squaring up the full back and finding a way past them.

The additions of Chiquinho and Vidigal have meant that Tyrese Campbell no longer has to be the only creative force against deep defences, not only taking pressure away from him, but also giving defences two wings to have to defend against.

Those diagonals and quick switches of play become much more dangerous when both wings are manned by players who excel in 1v1 dribbling and creating chances.

Stoke vs Everton width in the first 30 seconds. Campbell receives at the top of the image, with Chiquinho at the bottom.

We see in the image above that this makes a slight tweak to Stoke’s attacking shape, where in matches last season, Brown would take up his position between the full back and centre back, with Hoever charging forward to fill the wide space behind the full back.

This time, Brown keeps his space, but as a central striker, this allows Chiquinho to push into the wide space, and Johnson to press into the space between the opposite centre half and full back.

A front 5 including two wingers, two 8s, and the centre forward is much more dangerous than relying on full backs to attack opposition defences themselves, especially when you have centre forwards like Brown, Mmaee, and Wesley, with stronger movement in the box than a slightly ageing Gayle.

It also brings the additional benefit that full backs can overlap, underlap, or sit deeper for their wingers, rather than being the width-providers themselves. This versatility means Hoever and Tymon (presumably) should be able to contribute much more effectively to the attack.

A Strike Force?

But, going back to the two centre forwards Stoke have signed, we see more of that variation Neil has mentioned so often.

Ryan Mmaee in particular represents an interesting continuation of Dwight Gayle’s somewhat unexpected role as a deeper striker in 2022/23.

His decreasing pace overall, and specifically lack of quick movement within the box led to him dropping deeper and trying to affect the game more in the build-up, and this seems to be something Mmaee can excel in.

A strong, quick, technical striker who is keen to link the play and create for others alongside scoring himself, Mmaee’s quality on the ball is something Stoke have missed when breaking quickly in transitio.

Add onto that, the ability to pick out sharp final passes has been a big problem in facing the dreaded low block opposition of the Championship.

I definitely recommend this thread from @HCfootball01 on twitter for more info on Mmaee: https://twitter.com/HCfootball01/status/1684511415090937857

But what about those pesky games where we need the ball in the box but we just don’t have the presence to win it?

Step forward, Wesley.

We only have to take a look at his shot map from his opening Premier League season with Aston Villa to see where Wesley’s qualities lie.

Shot map for Wesley’s 2019/20 season with Aston Villa, prior to his injury.

The average distance being as low as 12m from goal, taking as high as 0.21 xG per shot, with only 5 of 34 shots from outside the area, and the majority being between the penalty spot and the 6 yard box show clearly that Wesley is a traditional box threat.

He’s also a strong presence outside the box, holding the ball up and bringing others to play.

I think we’re most likely to see him in games where Stoke need the ball in the box quickly, and where playing through the lines in build-up may not be possible.

Adding the clever movement and engine of Jacob Brown, and even the return of Dwight Gayle from injury to this front line makes for a big part of that variation Neil has so often asked for.

So, are we excited? Absolutely. Will hope kill us again? Maybe. Will we get swept along in it all anyway? Of course.

Thanks to any and all readers, and please feel free to comment and follow on Twitter at @potterlytics.

Should you wish to donate to help with the running costs of the site, and the data subscriptions we use, please feel free to visit our donations page here. Any and all help is very much appreciated!

George

Potterlytics Potter of the Season: Ben Wilmot

George Weaver

Hello and welcome to the inaugural Potterlytics award post!

I’ve probably slightly ruined the surprise with the title, but I’m not the type to leave my audience (both of you) on a cliffhanger.

Now a post that just says who the award is going to would be boring, and as you’re all well aware, a post under 2000 words would be a big shift from the norm for this blog.

As a result, this is not only an announcement of the award, but we’re also going to go into the trademark Potterlytics depth to show our working.

In this post we’ll be looking, both statistically and with analysis of clips, at just why I believe Ben Wilmot deserves this most coveted of awards.

So, huge congratulations go out from all one of us here at Potterlytics to Ben Wilmot, the first ever Potterlytics Potter of the Season!

Ben Wilmot smiles with delight as he takes home the first ever HippoPotterTrophy. Hippo image: Topher Knowles

Big Ben

So, why Ben? Well as always here at Potterlytics I like to dive deep into excruciating detail to explain my opinions and analysis.

Let’s start off simply by looking at a few of the metrics Wilmot ranks most highly in.

We can see that he excels at ball recovery, tackles and interceptions, and attacking 3rd tackles, alongside his ball progression through carrying, passing, switching, and shot-creating actions (the two offensive actions leading directly to a shot).

The picture this paints is one we are familiar with, and for me this passes the eye test.

Wilmot appears to be a centre back who is strong at recovering the ball and winning defensive duels, and a ball-player who is very keen to progress through the lines, and carry the ball forward.

Let’s delve a bit deeper into these two sides of our Potter of the Season.

He Wil Mot Let You Down

Now, we all know that defenders have to be able to defend. Stoke are not a side who are going to keep the ball for 90 minutes and avoid all defensive work altogether.

In fact, even Man City, as we’ve seen in recent weeks in particular, are starting to evolve into a side capable of sitting off the opposition and absorbing pressure. They’ve arguably become an even better side as a result, and are in with a chance of a treble at time of writing.

Centre back quality is notoriously difficult to measure, and there are constant arguments and debates among stats-nerds about which metrics accurately measure whether a centre back is doing their job correctly.

You might say ‘oh come off it, tackles and interceptions, easy’. Well, my dear sweet little lamb, welcome to the world of football being more complex than you ever wanted it to be.

Tackles and interceptions can be a good measure, but they can also be skewed, especially when not adjusted for possession, team style, and defensive role.

For example, John Stones is only in the 34th percentile for tackles, and in the bottom 6% of players for interceptions. He is clearly an excellent defender, but the side he plays for skews the numbers greatly.

That being said, for Wilmot, we are looking at a player in a middling side, with just over 52% possession on average. We can, therefore, use some of these metrics to build a picture.

As always, it’s never a complete explanation, but we’ll use clips and context to build up a profile. Let’s start with our trusty radial bar chart to get some basic defensive statistics in comparison with other Championship centre backs.

At first it might seem like a garbled mess of colours, but it looks nice, and we can take a closer look and gain some crucial insights into Wilmot’s defensive work here.

Firstly, we see that recoveries, interceptions, and tackles in the defensive and attacking 3rds are well above the 75th percentile. This group of metrics indicate 2 things.

1 – Wilmot’s ability to read the game defensively is a strength.

2 – Wilmot is an active defender who wins the ball back often.

Although numbers are fun, clips are even more fun, so let’s see some examples of that in game scenarios!

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

First off we have a quick clip from the recent away game at Middlesbrough. Stefan takes a lofted goal kick towards the Middlesbrough forward to bypass Stoke’s front 2 lines of press, visible in the first image.

The pass is accurate to the forward, but in comes our active defender, timing his run perfectly to arrive with the ball and intercept, leading to a Stoke attack high up the pitch in transition.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

A similar scenario happens in this clip from the Coventry away game.

Coventry, who were relying on hold-up play from Gyökeres to progress up the pitch, play the ball forward towards the halfway line.

Again the pass is accurate towards Gyökeres, but Wilmot times his run perfectly to arrive with the ball and win possession back for Stoke high up the pitch. This is brave defending, facilitated by an excellent tactical and technical understanding of when to arrive at the challenge.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

Looking at a much higher level of opposition, in the game against Brighton in the FA Cup, Wilmot is again the active defender.

The ball gets played from Van Hecke through Stoke’s midfield line, and Wilmot takes on the ‘forward sweeper’ role to again arrive at the right time to take possession.

Now Stoke have an opportunity in transition to attack Brighton’s back line directly.

But Wilmot isn’t only useful in this active role, his defensive positioning is also strong in a block, and despite his weaknesses in aerial duels, he is still able to perform well in deeper positions.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

Here we take a clip from the Swansea away game, with Piroe receiving a pass on the turn, 20 yards or so from goal.

Wilmot is the closest defender to Piroe, and so drops to pressure the ball. The main goal here is to avoid Piroe carrying or passing the ball into the shaded area in the second image.

Wilmot stands up, consistently covers the cut inside, and keeps close enough to Piroe to stop him finding space, while staying far enough away to avoid being turned. Piroe is forced wide, away from goal.

By the third image, Piroe is forced to turn around and move to the edge of the box, passing the ball backwards with Stoke’s defence well set in a block.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

This time, in the Middlesbrough away game, Stoke are set up in a compact block at the edge of their own box. Wilmot is at right centre back in the first image.

Fox, the other centre back, pushes forwards as the Middlesbrough midfielder shapes to play a pass in to the front line. As he does this, Wilmot moves slightly to the left to cover the pass into the two players on the shoulder.

The ball, sure enough, comes into that space, and Wilmot’s intelligence has led to him being able to clear the ball into safety.

It hasn’t all been rosy this season though, and a few errors and misplaced tackles/passes in earlier games did cost Stoke, but as a 23-year-old, Wilmot shows strong tactical intelligence as a defender, a good knowledge of his own ability in when to press and tackle, and a confidence that allows him to step out of defence and be an active part of the forward pressing unit.

If Ben Builds Up, Goals ‘Wil’ Come

But what about the other side of his game? Defenders have to defend, but in a side hoping to win enough games to get promoted, they also have to contribute in the build-up phase.

We’ll stick with the radar plot, and take a look at some of the in-possession work Wilmot has done this season.

Immediately we’re struck again by how active Wilmot is as a centre back. Within the top 25% for touches in the middle 3rd, passes, switches, and crucially, ball progression.

A key part of the build-up play is how a team can break through the opponent’s lines, and we’ve seen in recent weeks that possession without breaking lines doesn’t tend to lead to good performances or results.

Wilmot is particularly adept at playing these line-breaking passes to help break the lines, evidenced by his high ranking in ‘progressive passes’, defined as ‘completed passes (excluding those from the defending 40% of the pitch) that move the ball towards the opponent’s goal line at least 10 yards from its furthest point in the last six passes, or any completed pass into the penalty area’. [fbref.com]

Alongside this, Wilmot is very highly ranked among league centre backs in passes into the final third and passes into the penalty area, with just under 8.5% of his passes fulfilling the ‘progressive pass’ definition above.

He’s also among the highest ranked in carrying the ball forward too, and this quality in being able to break pressing lines through both pass and carry is crucial for top defenders.

This provides Stoke with the necessary penetration to break through pressing lines, and having centre backs who can bypass the first press with a pass is crucial to ensuring that attacks can take place against out-of-shape defensive lines, instead of trying to attack against a full 10-man block.

And even better, this explains the lower-ranked metrics in pass completion and short passes!

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

First up we see this fairly straightforward example of Wilmot picking good passes that break the lines instead of playing a simple ball.

The pass should be, as much as possible, always to the player in the most dangerous position possible, with the passing risk as a factor. The amount of risk you accept may vary from manager to manager, but the principle remains the same.

In this case, rather than pick a pass wide, to a player in a fairly non-dangerous position, with no support and a fullback looking to support, Wilmot plays a threaded pass through the midfield line into Tyrese Campbell.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

In this situation, we see a similar pass. During build-up, Wilmot receives the ball in his regular spot wide of the centre circle.

He looks up, sees two lines of pressure from West Brom, and picks an excellent threaded ball through to Brown, who flicks into Gayle, and Stoke are immediately attacking the back line of WBA.

The line-breaking passes allow Stoke to switch the tempo from low to high, and to attack those defensive lines directly.

This is a crucial part of the plan for Stoke, particularly when building against sides who are sitting in mid or low blocks. We’ve also seen similar against high presses, in games like Swansea away.

And our final example is a peach, although I apologise for the slightly blurry freeze-frames and the low contrast, blame Sky unfortunately!

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

This time we’re at the game at home to Bristol City, and Wilmot picks up the ball in front of the pressing line, which was a very solid and compact mid block.

He carries it forwards to draw the pressing player out, and wait for a space to play the ball into.

As he does so, he spots Tyrese Campbell, hugging the touchline high up the pitch (Hoever was doing similar on the other wing, too) to stretch the play and find space.

Wilmot takes a touch forwards and plays the ball straight into Tyrese.

Again, sorry for the image quality! Images: Wyscout

He plays a perfect ball over the top of two pressing lines, that provides Campbell with a great opportunity to attack the defensive line directly.

As the defence isn’t set for this pass, he can swing the ball in to Powell, who finishes into the bottom corner. The tempo switched from calm, possession play in Stoke’s half to a high tempo, line-breaking move with just that one high quality pass from Wilmot.

Get Well Soon, Please

So there it is! A full explanation and a brief profile of the first ever Potterlytics Potter of the Season.

Get well soon, Ben, we want you back in to win it again next season!

Thanks to any and all readers, and please feel free to comment and follow on Twitter at @potterlytics.

Should you wish to donate to help with the running costs of the site, and the data subscriptions we use, please feel free to visit our donations page here. Any and all help is very much appreciated!

George

Anatomy of a 10-game Revolution (Part 2) – The On-Ball Boogaloo

George Weaver

Part 2: Chance Creation and Build-up Play

Welcome back, to those of you who just read Part 1, looking at sustainability and off-the-ball work, and to those who didn’t go and check it out here (Anatomy of a 10-game Revolution (Part 1) – Stoke’s New Blueprint)!

You join us as we look into Stoke’s remarkable turnaround since February, and to reiterate the context here, let’s look at a brief table.

First 30 Games – Before Huddersfield – HLast 9 Games – Huddersfield – H – Onwards
xG For per 90 mins1.132.10
xG Against per 90 mins1.130.90
xG Difference per 90 mins+0.00+ 1.20
Data from Opta via FBRef

You might say that this could just be a lucky run of fixtures, but as we mentioned in Part 1, this run includes games against 4 of the top 10 most in-form teams in the league, and Stoke’s 10-game rolling xG difference has been above +0.5 for 8 matches now.

Last time we looked at how Stoke’s work off-the-ball work has contributed to this improvement in the underlying numbers, particularly in winning the ball high up the pitch, stopping opponents in their build-up phase.

This time, we’ll look into how Stoke have ramped up that xG for stat, through their own build-up play, and the way they look to create their chances.

If You Build It…

First up, let’s look into Stoke’s building from the back. In a very strong interview during the Sheffield United away game, Alex Neil said the following:

“I thought first half we wanted to try to play and open the pitch out, and to be honest we did that to Sheffield United’s benefit rather than ours.”

“We got a lifeline before half-time by getting a goal, changed it at half-time by not risking it at the back and getting the ball forward, on the front-foot, up against them and aggressive.” [BBCSport]

It appeared that Stoke’s building phase was over, dead and buried, Rest in Peace (2022-2023).

Sure enough, in the following league game, a 4-0 victory over Reading, Stoke did exactly as said in the previous game. They had only 38.1% possession, and the trend continued against Luton in the next game.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

In this clip, Stoke have a free kick just inside their own half. Baker plays the ball short to Wilmot, and we see the plan for Stoke.

Immediately Sterling and Gayle start to bomb forward, and Wilmot clears the ball long into the channel.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

This clip tells a similar tale. Fox receives the ball 20 yards into the Stoke half. As Tymon drops deep to support, Laurent runs forward in the midfield to get into an area of space.

Fox immediately throws a long pass into the left hand channel, unfortunately this time it ends up in Luton’s possession.

So how has this changed over the past couple of months?

Well, let’s look at the two major build-up plans that I think I’ve been able to pull from Stoke’s recent matches.

…Wins Will Come

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

This time we look at a Stoke goal kick in their home game against Blackburn. The two centre backs, Fox and Tuanzebe, set up within the penalty box to provide a pass for Bonham. Pearson is in a deeper role centrally to provide an option during the next phase.

The ball goes to Tuanzebe, who plays it across to Fox. This draws the first line of Blackburn’s press, and two forwards close down the centre backs.

Fox turns and puts the ball wide to Sterling, and Ben Pearson moves deeper and wider to provide support. At this point, Blackburn’s first line of press has been beaten, but they have forced the ball wide, and would probably feel like it’s going okay for them.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

As Pearson drops to support, Sterling plays it across to him, and this is where it gets interesting.

Up to this point, the tempo has been relatively low, Stoke have been playing the ball across calmly and baiting the press forwards.

But Pearson immediately shifts the tempo and puts the ball forward with a high pass towards the halfway line. Note: High pass, aimed towards a specific forward/area where forwards should be, not a hoof like some of the passes we saw vs. Luton.

The switch of tempo and pass beat the press, and Gayle nods the ball back into the path of Tyrese Campbell, into a large space in the centre of the pitch.

The slow tempo passing in the previous two images created this space, by drawing those Blackburn midfielders forward. This is a controlled line-breaking move, known by some as an artificial transition. This allows Stoke to attack a defence that isn’t set, and has spaces available to attack.

At this point, Campbell bombs forward to the opposition box, and plays in Will Smallbone for a high-value chance.

Note how the 2nd image here shows Campbell, Laurent and Smallbone immediately bombing forward as Gayle wins the header. This was a crucial part of Stoke’s build-up in this game.

Interestingly, though, this specific routine isn’t necessarily something Stoke do every match, but as with the press we spoke about in Part 1, the principles remain the same throughout.

Let’s take a look at this build-up from the 0-0 draw at home to Norwich.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

In this game, Norwich dropped into a fairly flat mid block, to prevent Stoke from finding space in between the lines. This is intended to stop the artificial transition mentioned in the last clips, by denying space and forcing Stoke to try to play into areas where Norwich have numerical superiority.

Stoke again play the ball calmly and at a low tempo, with extra space to move into towards the halfway line. Wilmot plays it across to Tuanzebe, who moves wider while Pearson drops into the centre of defence.

This allows Tuanzebe, a very press-resistant centre back, to move forward into space on the right hand side. He exchanges passes with Pearson and moves into that space.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

Tuanzebe moves into that space, and we see the compact mid-block shape of Norwich in the first frame.

He waits until the attacker presses the ball, and then plays a pass forwards into makeshift-winger Hoever. Note the movement of Brown, ready to get into position for the next pass in the move. This forward thinking is crucial to breaking down a tough block of compact players.

We also see that Stoke are very wide in possession. Pearson dropping into the quarterback role allows other players to spread out, and we see that despite the ball being on the near touchline, Fox and Campbell are still very wide on the opposite side of the pitch.

Hoever receives the ball and plays it down the line into Brown’s path. Again, We see Smallbone and Campbell running into positions again to receive the next pass or cross.

Again, we follow the same principles as before, drawing the first line of pressure as much as possible with lower-tempo play, then switching quickly to higher-tempo passing, forwards into the midfield or frontline, followed by runners consistently supporting the ball, thinking one or two passes ahead to get into position to receive.

Now in the Coventry game we saw more evidence of another build-up plan, in which Stoke get the ball forward much more quickly into areas of the pitch where they can win first and second duels. This takes advantage of the combative nature of Stoke’s starting XI.

We can see in the plot below that all of Stoke’s forward players are above average in at least one of ‘offensive duels per 90’ or ‘aerial duels per 90’.

Reminder that this is just one indicator, check out our player radars to find out other stats such as success rates! (Player Stats)

In this case, Stoke are looking to a much more simple plan, but still sticking by the same philosophy.

Getting the ball forward into aerially-strong players like Brown and Powell allows Stoke to crowd an area of the ball, where strong, combative players like Smallbone, Hoever and Laurent can win the second ball, again forcing a transition-like phase of play.

This again means Stoke can attack a defence that isn’t set, and aided by quality, high tempo passing alongside quick attackers, they can exploit the extra space available.

We come to the 3 main principles of Stoke’s build-up:

  • Lower the tempo to tempt the opponent to press if possible.
  • Quickly change the tempo to expose spaces in the opponent’s lines, either with line-breaking passes or balls to strong aerial threats.
  • Get bodies into good positions to receive the next passes.

And while build-up is great, there’s no reason to do any of it unless you can create chances! So how do Stoke go about doing the hardest thing in football – scoring goals?

Now For The Fun Bit

We see these principles merge into Stoke’s chance creation, particularly in the specific (if vague) philosophy of exposing spaces.

But, when Stoke do manage to generate either a true transition, by winning the ball high up the pitch, or an artificial transition through build-up as above, we do see some specific areas that the team look to exploit more often.

Most interestingly in my view, I want to speak a little (a lot) about the xG-geek’s favourite – the cut back.

You may have seen Arsenal and Man City utilise this type of chance a lot over the cause of this season, and there is a specific reason teams target this kind of chance.

Most important of these is that shots from this area are very high-value, in terms of xG. Cut-backs are also ground passes, and tend to be taken first time, both of which are factors which increase the historical likelihood of scoring.

An xG model based entirely on location of the shot, we see that central, close shots are of the highest values. Credit: https://www.datofutbol.cl/xg-model/

It was incredibly surprising watching footage back of recent Stoke games, just how many of Stoke’s recent flurry of opportunities have come either from traditional cut-backs, or similar ground-crosses to the area around the penalty spot. For the rest of this piece, I will refer to both types of chances as ‘cut-backs’ for ease.

Using the 1v1 skill and quality in creation of left-winger Tyrese Campbell, Stoke look to expose the right hand side of opposition defences. The ability of Campbell to go either inside or outside a defender means that 2 chances can be created by getting him on the ball wide of the box.

First off, we see the specialism of Campbell, the cut in and shoot to the far post (see the work on the Ty-phone Zone here). But more recently we’ve seen that he has been focused on moving outside, down the line, and cutting the ball back towards the penalty spot.

But there are issues. Cut-backs move the ball into areas that teams work very hard to defend, so there are likely to be lots of defensive bodies pressuring the shooter, decreasing the likelihood of scoring.

Stoke have a very interesting way of helping increase their chances despite this, and it involves the impressive rise of Will Smallbone and Josh Laurent.

Let’s look into the second goal away at Swansea, a clip also analysed in our Josh Laurent Profile.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

Campbell has the ball at the top of the screen, on the corner of the Swansea box.

He stands up the right back, and we see movement from Smallbone, Brown and Gayle, the 3 forwards, into the 6 yard box. These runs are crucial as the Swansea players are forced to track deeper towards their own goal to mark.

As Campbell beats his man on the outside, these runs into the 6 yard box open up space behind the front line, where Josh Laurent is waiting. The cut back comes, and Laurent powers the ball into the net.

The forward players drag the defenders deeper, opening up space. This is one reason we’ve seen an increase in the number of shots (and goals) from Smallbone and Laurent in recent weeks.

The same happened for Laurent’s finish against Sunderland, as below.

Image: Wyscout

Stoke break forward down the right hand side quickly after a drop ball in their own box.

As Smallbone gets the ball, Gayle has moved onto the edge of the six yard box, taking the defender with him. The quick break forward means Sunderland’s back line is out of shape, leaving space for Laurent to arrive late and finish the move with a goal.

Finally, we can see the move for the 2nd goal at home to Huddersfield, at the start of the run of form.

Click on each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

Campbell again has the ball on the corner of the box, but this time Stoke are facing a very set defence, having just taken a corner. In the box there is a 6v4 in Huddersfield’s favour.

Notice that as Campbell starts his run down the line, to create the cutback opportunity, Dwight Gayle and Jacob Brown immediately sprint to get into position in the six yard back to drag those defenders back and make space.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

As Campbell gets into position to play the pass into the box we again see the space created by Gayle and Brown pushing the defenders into the six yard box. This time the pullback comes to Brown, who cleverly drops off the defenders.

After a short scramble and a good save, Brown finishes the move to put Stoke 2-0 up.

We see, looking at the last 5 games of Stoke’s crosses, a big clump of left-sides ground crosses. Most of these are from Tyrese Campbell.

Data from Wyscout

In the last 5 games, Stoke have amassed over 2.1 xG just from crossing, according to Wyscout.

In the most recent game, away at Coventry, we saw yet another chance from the same type of cutback.

I won’t explain each bit frame-by-frame again, but here’s Smallbone’s 0.4 xG (Infogol) chance in the first half. Created by winning the ball just inside the opposition half, Laurent plays the ball to Campbell, and the magic commences.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

Now I’m not joking when I say I can find at least another dozen examples of this exact move in the last 5 games. There is a really specific drive to create this type of chance from Stoke.

But that’s not all Stoke do! This specific tactic is one among many, but all follow those basic principles we spoke about earlier. Trying to unsettle and attack a disorganised defence is paramount, and we can see some examples of this in other big chances Stoke have created recently.

Central Perks

We’ve focused on Stoke’s attacking through wide areas, but the propensity to create transitional attacks against disorganised defences, alongside excellent passing quality in the midfield and forward lines, can also lead to Stoke playing large numbers of line-breaking passes through or from the middle of the pitch.

Let’s take a look at a few examples.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

Stealing again from the excellent, informative Josh Laurent profile posted here last week, we go back to the Middlesbrough away game, where Stoke pick up the ball in Middlesbrough’s half, and Hoever bombs forward into space.

Laurent’s quick thinking and quality in pass allow him to deliver a raking ball over the top of the Boro defender, and Hoever goes on to score.

Again we see the same principles that I’ve exhaustively told you about. Quick transition, bodies forward, play the dangerous ball at high tempo to expose uncertain defences.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

This time we join the Sunderland match towards the end (as you can tell from the stands).

Tymon wins a loose ball back after some nice play from Stoke, and twists past one player to come inside.

He plays a reverse ball through for Gayle who now has a good chance. The keeper makes a save but this is a positive attacking move from Stoke, even late in the game.

Finally, let’s see the whole process of building through artificial transition, surpassing a press, and scoring a goal, come together in this clip of the first goal vs Coventry.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

Initially we see a similar start to the examples above in the blog. Stoke calmly pass the ball about in the back line, drawing the two Coventry strikers forward. As the space opens up, the ball moves wide to Hoever, who plays a powerful ground pass down the line to Brown.

Image: Wyscout

Brown pins the defender behind him, and lays off a pass into the path of the oncoming Smallbone. Now Stoke have exposed some of the space we spoke about above, and are in a position to attack a disorganised defence.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

The ball moves wide to Campbell, a little later in the move, and here we see another pillar of the Stoke philosophy, clever movement from lots of bodies into the box. Brown points out where he wants the ball, makes an exceptional run in between the disorganised full back and centre back, and Campbell curls the ball perfectly into his path.

Again, the speed and quality of the move, abruptly coming from the slow, low tempo start, catches Coventry unawares, and Stoke take the lead.

So we can make our final conclusions about the major philosophies behind Stoke’s on-the-ball plan:

1 – When building from the back, use rapid changes from low to high-tempo play to bait the press.

2 – Play progressive passes with quality at high tempo through the pressing lines to exploit the space created by baiting the press.

3 – If necessary, or when building more quickly through longer passes, crowd 50/50 duels with combative players in order to win the second ball.

4 – Attack the space in front of the disorganised defence with large numbers.

5 – Work the ball wide, use dummy runners to drag the defence into the six yard box, and cut the ball back to late midfield runners near the penalty spot.

Of course, there are more specifics than this, and we saw in the second goal against Coventry that sometimes the plan is just to run fast and kick it long!

But, what I see here is evidence of Stoke targeting clear, data-backed tactical principles, and a few very specific moves that have led to fantastic results on the pitch.

The next few games will be a great benchmark for Stoke, facing teams who are far more likely to sit back in a low block and deny Stoke the chance to create those transitional moments.

It’s been something Stoke have struggled with all season, and despite improvements, they are still underperforming their xG. Given the number of games Stoke have lost while having a strongly positive xGD, we all want to see this issue dispelled in the next weeks.

But there is some really good evidence that Stoke may well have the most impressive side since relegation, possibly even since early 2016.

Thanks to any and all readers, and please feel free to comment and follow on Twitter at @potterlytics.

Should you wish to donate to help with the running costs of the site, and the data subscriptions we use, please feel free to visit our donations page here. Any and all help is very much appreciated!

George

Anatomy of a 10-game Revolution (Part 1) – Stoke’s New Blueprint

George Weaver

Part 1 – Sustainability and off-the-ball principles

‘Oh great, another tactics piece that goes on way too long’ I hear them cry.

‘Here he goes, getting carried away again’ the haters say.

Well they’re damn right, strap yourselves in for another lengthy profile of the new-look Potters of February 2023 to March 2023 (and beyond?).

Edit – This piece has turned out to be a lot longer than I imagined, so it’s now split into two parts! This is part 1, looking at sustainability and off-the-ball work. Part 2, looking at build-up and chance creation, is available at this like when you’re finished with Part 1! Anatomy of a 10-game Revolution (Part 2) – The On-Ball Boogaloo

An Unexpected Turnaround

It’s a month and 2 days (providing I release this when I intend to) since Stoke fans serenaded the team with chants of ‘you’re not fit to wear the shirt’ after a last minute loss at home to Preston.

Just 2 league games later, Stoke were thrashing Reading 4-0, and despite a few lulls, there have been increasingly positive signs ever since. This has culminated in a run of form that has seen Stoke take 11 points from a very difficult 5 games, scoring 13 and conceding just 4.

Now on these small timescales, many teams can go on these runs of form due to variance (in effect, luck), in finishing outcomes, goalkeeping outcomes, refereeing decisions, or other unsustainable factors.

Interestingly (and excitingly) for Stoke, though, the recent form actually seems to be reflected in the underlying numbers. Let’s take a look at the 10 game rolling average xG per game (taking the average of the last 10 games expected goals, see our explainer article: xG – A Stoke City Explainer!).

We see that Stoke have been consistently improving their rolling xG since the Hull City home game, and have had an average expected goal difference p90 of above +0.5 since the Blackpool away game.

Whilst the quality of these performances may not last forever, it’s heartening to see that the results are backed up by the underlying numbers. This is a big tick next to the sustainability box, and although there are some factors that could shift the balance, such as shifting opposition attitudes towards Stoke, transfers and the return of loan players, and injuries, here at Potterlytics I like to take the positive slant on things.

So what exactly is this newly-revolutionised Stoke side doing differently? What is the blueprint?

Well, let’s combine all we’ve seen over the past 10 or so games together to build a tactical profile.

A Brave New World – Off The Ball

The first big shift we’ve seen is the way Stoke work off the ball. They’ve been relatively high-pressing all season, but in recent weeks this has been taken into overdrive, and the well-oiled pressing machine has even managed to stifle high-flying Middlesbrough in their own back yard.

Indeed, looking at the Passes per Defensive Action or PPDA (the average number of passes a team makes before Stoke perform a defensive action, e.g. a tackle or interception), Stoke are one of the most intense pressers in the league.

Remember, a lower PPDA indicates a more intense press.

I’ve waxed lyrical already about the quality and efficiency of Stoke’s new pressing unit since the 3-1 victory away at Swansea, but it wouldn’t be a real profile without explaining again how the main press has been working.

So what is the quintessential Stoke City high press? Take a look at the animation below, and let’s go through the plan step-by-step.

A hypothetical realisation of Stoke City’s main pressing plan of the past 10 games.
Click the lines with dots on in the bottom right to slow the footage.

There are 4 main steps in the most basic realisation of the plan.

In our theoretical scenario, the opponent is playing a relatively simple 433, with one full back pushing high, and the other dropping inside to help with build-up. This is similar to what we saw from Sunderland. The opposition keeper has the ball, and from here, we see our 4 steps as follows:

1 – The central striker (number 11, usually Gayle, although in his absence this role has gone to Jacob Brown and Nick Powell) makes a curved pressing run towards the ball. The curving of the run cuts off one passing lane for the player in possession, forcing the ball into a specific area, starting the trap. The pass can only go one way, as behind the front 3 all players are closely man-marking.

2 – As the ball gets passed out to the wide to the right, Stoke’s wide left player (in our case, Tyrese Campbell, number 10) triggers his press and closes down the ball aggressively. This forces the opposition centre back (5) to either try to carry the ball past Campbell, or play long. The central striker (11) drops to cover the passing lanes across the box and back to the keeper.

3 – The centre back (5) plays the ball long to the front line, where Stoke’s aggressive man-to-man press is waiting. Josh Laurent (28) steps in front of the waiting opponent and nicks the ball back.

4 – Laurent (28) pushes forward and plays the ball wide to Campbell (10) and Stoke’s midfield and forward line bomb forward to take advantage of the transition.

This shift has made great use of the athleticism and combative nature of the players Stoke have available. The additions of Ben Pearson, Axel Tuanzebe, and Ki-Jana Hoever, and the return to the side of Dijon Sterling and Josh Laurent have given Stoke a side that loves to be active in forcing the opposition to give up the ball.

Even in games where the opposition have clear strengths in attack, such as the game vs Coventry, we saw Stoke trust 40-year-old Phil Jagielka and Ben Wilmot to mark Gyökeres and Godden man-to-man, two strikers who are by no means easy to pocket. Again, bravery is the word of the day!

It’s all well and good looking at it on a tactics board, but how does this work in reality? Players aren’t always going to lump it long straight away, and they may be able to bypass one of those pressing moves if they’re good enough.

Let’s see some examples of how the press evolves in real games. First up, about 10 minutes into the Coventry away game, and Coventry have a goal kick. As the ball comes back to the keeper we see the press in action.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

In the first frame we see our familiar setup. Powell, playing as the central striker in this game, is blocking the passing lane to the central player, Smallbone is marking the deeper midfielder, and the wide players are sat off the back line, ready for their press to be triggered when the ball comes to their side.

Sure enough, the keeper plays it to the right hand centre back, and Campbell presses the Coventry player as soon as the ball moves out.

Under significant pressure, the opponent plays the ball down the line to the right back, who has dropped deep to provide support.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

As the ball comes out to the right back, Stoke’s left back, Dijon Sterling, bombs forward to continue the press and forces the Coventry player to play the ball inside to a supporting midfielder.

The trap has worked. As the ball comes into the centre of midfield, we see both Josh Laurent and Ben Pearson man-marking the Coventry players. Laurent snaps into the tackle and wins the ball back.

This isn’t necessarily the same in all games, however, and we see a slightly different setup in this shorter clip from the Norwich home game.

A reminder that in this game, Stoke started with a front 3 of Campbell, Brown and Hoever.

Click each image to zoom in.

Images: Wyscout

In this first clip, we see Stoke set up relatively similarly to previous games, but this time Smallbone presses the ball, leaving his man-marking position. As he does this, Brown moves across to cover and pass back across.

As Smallbone curves his pressing run, there is no pass available back across.

Norwich in this game were tactically very interesting, and were in fact told by the manager to go long much more often than they usually do. As evidence, in this game Norwich attempted only 242 passes at a completion rate of 64%, compared with their average this season of 456 passes per game (82.9% completion). They had only 37% possession compared with their average of 57%, and played 18.2% of their passes long, compared with a season average of 10.9%.

As such, we see the Norwich centre back attempt to bypass Stoke’s press by launching it long into the wide player on the left. Again, Stoke’s man-to-man press is waiting for exactly this, and right-back Sterling launches in aggressively to intercept the ball.

So we see that there can be a slight change in specifics of the press, in this case Will Smallbone pressing forward alongside Brown in more of a 4-4-2 high block. We’ve also seen specific responses to opposition styles, such as Campbell dropping off and marking man-to-man to stop Blackburn’s inverted right back from overloading the centre of the pitch.

But even in these changes, the philosophy of Stoke’s press is the same:

  • Allow the opponent to play the ball into an area with curved pressing runs.
  • Press aggressively to force the opponent to make riskier passes through the press, towards their forward line.
  • Where strong, combative players are marking man-to-man, ready to win what might usually be 50/50 duels, but are now in their favour due to their skillsets.

It’s Only the Championship

Most impressive though, is the quality of opposition Stoke have been managing to successfully implement these brave principles against.

Looking at Championship form over the last 10 games, Stoke have beaten the 3rd and 6th most in-form teams (Coventry and Blackburn), and produced excellent performances, arguably deserving to beat the 1st and 9th most in-form teams in Middlesbrough and Norwich.

Most impressive, as those of you with Freeview may know, is possibly Stoke’s performance at home to high-flying Brighton in the FA Cup.

A 1-0 loss marred what was an exceptionally brave pressing performance against one of the most press resistant sides in the country, with Stoke following the principles outlined above.

Let’s take a look at a couple of examples.

Click each image to zoom in.

Images: Wyscout

From a goal kick, Brighton play the ball short to a centre back, and we see that Stoke are set in a similar 4-4-2 high press to the Norwich game.

In this game, Ben Pearson, Will Smallbone, and Dwight Gayle were replaced by Thompson, Baker and Tymon respectively. You might expect Stoke to therefore change tact to alleviate the possible lack of cohesion, especially against an incredibly press-resistant team. But no, Stoke stick to the principles outlined above.

Brown presses the keeper with a curved run to block the passing lane back to the centre back. Baker pushes out to the player who then gets the ball off the keeper, aggressively pushing to force Brighton into riskier, line-breaking passes.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

Trying to play out quickly and break the press, the Brighton centre back scuffs his pass, into the feet of the waiting Tyrese Campbell.

Now, as the ball turns over to Stoke’s hands, you can see one major benefit of the high press. Suddenly, Stoke have a 4v4 in the opposition box, against a disorganised defence.

Even more fun, in the last frame as Campbell gets the ball, we see centre back Axel Tuanzebe pushed 20 yards into the opposition half to track a player man-to-man who was dropping off to receive the ball.

You Can’t High Press All of The People All of The Time

But, sometimes good teams get through! So what do Stoke do when the pressure is on and they have to sit a bit deeper? Let’s take a look at an example or two to garner the back-up plan if the press doesn’t work, or if Stoke are holding onto a late lead and under pressure.

We start off in the 1-1 against Middlesbrough, as the opposition have the ball 35 yards from goal.

Image: Wyscout

Se see that in this game, Stoke set into a pseudo-4-4-1-1 low block, with Brown dropping into a wide right role deep, as Gayle and Campbell stay forward on the break. Note that the ball is always under some pressure from a player.

But, most importantly, we see a principle that we’re very familiar with at Stoke off the ball. The area covered by Stoke defensive players is compact, narrow, and defending the centre of the pitch first and foremost.

When the ball pushes wide, thanks to Stoke’s narrow block, they can then contract space by pressing the ball more aggressively, using the touchline as a blocker and keeping the ball away from goal.

In this position, the right or left hand side of Stoke’s team can double up on the wingers to stifle the attack.

Similar positions are seen in this image from the 5-1 victory at Sunderland.

Image: Wyscout

This time, the ball is wide left of the Sunderland attack. We notice that Ki-Jana Hoever has pressed the ball aggressively, and as such, Ben Pearson has dropped into the right back position, Smallbone has dropped into defensive midfield, and Brown has dropped centrally into Smallbone’s initial role.

This cohesion is an incredibly important factor in Stoke’s consistency in defensive work.

The narrow, compact pseudo-4-4-1-1 remains, and the ball is still always under pressure by at least one defending player.

Stoke block out the central areas just on the edge of the box, and again force the ball wide into areas easier to defend, and away from high-value chance areas centrally. This is an expansion of the work Sean Dyche described in his fantastic Coaches Voice interview (see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3YY7PY-IH0&t=399s) in protecting the zone of maximum opportunity, a v-shape from the goal to the corners of the box, and then lines parallel to the touchlines extending out from the corners of the box towards the half-way line.

In this (crude, sorry) scenario, Stoke’s opponent has the ball outside the box, and while Smallbone presses the ball aggressively, the unit behind him sits protecting the area between the dotted lines. These lines show the zone of maximum opportunity, in the most dangerous areas for chances to occur.

So, there we have it! The basic principles of Stoke’s off the ball work, and hopefully some signs that the current performances could continue for quite a while yet.

Next up on Potterlytics, I’ll be delving into the work on the ball in build-up and chance creation. Follow this link to take a look. https://potterlytics.blog/2023/04/07/anatomy-of-a-10-game-revolution-part-2-the-on-ball-boogaloo/

Thanks to any and all readers, and please feel free to comment and follow on Twitter at @potterlytics.

Should you wish to donate to help with the running costs of the site, and the data subscriptions we use, please feel free to visit our donations page here. Any and all help is very much appreciated!

George

A Torrent of Laurent – Profiling Josh Laurent

George Weaver1 Comment

It’s very difficult to pick out just one player who has been a top performer in Stoke City’s last couple of months.

Wilmot, Tuanzebe, Campbell, Hoever, Sterling, Smallbone, and Pearson have all excelled, but unfortunately, with Potterlytics being somewhat of a one-man-band, I’m just looking to profile one player this week.

Whilst the above players have all been very positive in obvious ways, it struck me that there is a little less clarity around recent revelation, Josh Laurent.

It’s clear to all that he’s had some excellent performances in recent months, as part of a midfield that seems to be clicking together better than any other since the days of Whelan, N’Zonzi and Bojan.

So let’s take a dive into the murky waters of something new even to me: the profile of a “Number 8”.

Winning Ways

First off, before quantifying the specifics of a player’s skill, we can look into how a team performs with and without a player.

As a warning, this is an incredibly dodgy statistic to take as gospel, as team performance can rely heavily on other aspects, such as fixture difficulty, tactical shifts, other injuries/suspensions, among other things.

For example, a player who comes on mostly as a substitute for a team that loses a lot of games will likely have a much higher xG difference improvement.

This is because the team is losing when the player comes on, is more likely to attack, and therefore the xG difference is not necessarily correlated with the player themselves.

That said, we can still get a measure of the effect Laurent has had on the team by comparing both the goal difference and the xG difference for Stoke when he’s on and off the pitch.

(for an explanation of Expected Goals (xG), check out our previous post here)

This plot compares the improvement in expected goal difference and the improvement in goal difference when a player is on the pitch. Again, please take this with a *huge* pinch of salt, as many factors can skew this data!

Because Josh Laurent has played a similar number of games during Stoke’s good and bad runs (15 games prior to the 4-0 Reading victory and 13 after) and about half of the team’s total minutes, we can take a bit more confidence from the plot above for his datapoint, but only when put in context with the stats in the rest of this post.

We can see in the plot that in games where Laurent plays, Stoke’s goal difference per 90 minutes improves by 0.14, and their xG difference per 90 minutes is 0.64 higher.

So in basic terms, when Josh Laurent has been playing, Stoke’s expected goal difference per 90 has been 0.64xG higher than when he hasn’t been playing.

Let’s can take a look into games he’s started to make sure that we’re not just selectively picking stats!

xG difference in the 21 league games Josh Laurent has started in 2022/23.

Here we get a picture that helps decrease the dodgy-ness of the stats above. The majority of games Laurent starts in see Stoke’s xG for exceeding their xG against.

Among these, we find some of Stoke’s most positive performances this season. The recent run of form, the Sheffield Utd, Blackpool, Rotherham games at home, and the Preston away match.

Looking into those games where xG against is higher than xG for, we find the opening day fixture against Millwall, the battering at home to Watford, tight games against Middlesbrough, Coventry, Luton and Hull, and losses to quality sides in Norwich and Sheffield United away.

But all this is academic unless we can figure out how, or even whether, Laurent’s skillset is improving the side. So just what is he good at?

The rest are real stats, I promise…

Well first off, as usual, we’ll take a look at the trusty radar plot to see if there are any stand-out stats among other Championship midfielders.

Josh Laurent’s radar in the 2022/23 Championship season compared with other league central midfielders.

First off, I see 3 major areas where Laurent is particularly strong; his progression while carrying the ball (and passing, although this is less pronounced), his activeness in duels and interceptions, and his willingness to get forward and shoot.

Let’s go through each of these and see what more we can find out.

Keep Calm and Carry, Laurent

The most exciting of the skills we see Laurent show is his quality and willingness to carry the ball forward.

In our radar (and in games) we see evidence that Laurent regularly drives forward with the ball at his feet, as he’s in the top 10% of progressive runners in his position.

We also see evidence that these runs are attempts to break the opposition lines, with Laurent also in the top 15% of dribble attempts, and the top 10% of accelerations.

Delving a bit deeper and comparing him with other midfielders in the league, we can find that according to Opta, Laurent is one of only 7 players (of midfielders with >450mins) who progresses the ball more than 3m per carry on average.

Laurent carries the ball almost 1m per carry further than any other Stoke midfielder on average. The crazy guy off way in the top right is Swansea’s Matt Grimes.

Here we see that while Laurent has a similar number of touches to other Stoke midfielders, he tends to progress the ball much further towards the opposition goal than his teammates.

In fact only 3 league midfielders progress the ball more per carry than Laurent; Juninho Bacuna (Birmingham), James McAtee (Sheffield Utd), and Ismaël Koné (Watford).

This role as a progressive carrier is something not shared by other Stoke midfielders, and as such, Stoke add another string to their progression bow when Laurent plays. As we see below, Stoke have players who are progressive in their passing in the midfield, but no other real ball carriers.

Baker and Thompson are keen progressers of the ball in passing, but Laurent stands out as a progressive ball carrier.

It’s all well and good showing graphs, but where do we see this in action for Stoke during games?

Well, let’s have a look at 3 different examples of Laurent’s carrying and dribbling ability.

First off, let’s look at a moment about 60 minutes into the Stoke vs Blackburn game a few weeks ago.

Click each image to zoom in.

Images: WyScout

Bonham rolls the ball out after a Blackburn attack into Laurent’s feet, about halfway in his own half. He immediately powers forwards into the space available to him.

The run continues and at the halfway line, Laurent is pressured by a Blackburn player. He accelerates again to push past his opponent and drive down the line into more space.

As his teammates push forward with him into the space created by the quick transition, Laurent plays a through ball into Tyrese Campbell, who can now cut it back into space for Brown or Smallbone to attack.

On this occasion, Smallbone blasts a golden chance over the bar, but a 0.46xG chance (Infogol.com) was created here thanks to Laurent carrying the ball from halfway in his own half, through one line of press, and playing an incisive pass into the box.

Whilst you may see this and sarcastically say ‘wow, he’s run into masses of space, great’, I’d argue that a player with the speed and skill to complete this move is something Stoke have not had in their ranks for many seasons.

This exact move is something Alex Neil’s Stoke team have been specifically targeting in the past 2 or 3 months, Laurent drags the team up the pitch and takes maximum advantage of a transition, where the opposition’s defensive structure is more loose and the lines are easier to break.

This is despite the transition taking place inside Stoke’s penalty area.

Looking at another move in the same game, we see a clearer view of both Laurent’s power and his quality in possession in the following move.

Click each image to zoom in.

Images: Wyscout

Laurent recovers the ball on the edge of the area with his back to goal and under pressure. There is a possible pass back to Pearson if he can hold the ball, but nothing much on.

Laurent takes on look over his shoulder to check for the space, and trusts his ability to move the ball into the marked area wide of the box, despite close attention from the Blackburn player.

Again, he switches tempo and accelerates away into the space.

Click each image to zoom in.

Images: Wyscout

He ends up in where Blackburn might want him, pressured by Gallagher and facing the corner.

But again, he doesn’t hold up the ball and try to wait for a backwards pass, he trusts his ability and accelerates to the right, putting the ball through Gallagher’s legs and towards the box.

As another Blackburn players comes in for the ball, Laurent accelerates forward and wins the duel (something we will be talking about later), and ends up facing up the left hand edge of the box with the ball at his feet.

Click each image to zoom in.

Images: Wyscout

A third Blackburn player pressures Laurent, but again he trusts himself to beat the defender, does so, and continues moving into the box.

In this position, he’s now broken the midfield line of the low block, gone from facing away from the goal on the edge of the box to facing the goal near the corner of the 6 yard box, and he has runners moving into the box to pass to.

The ball is played across to Smallbone and drops back for Campbell to finish.

Finally, we have a very brief moment against Sunderland away, which perfectly encapsulates the improvement in Stoke’s midfield 3 in the recent spell of games on the ball.

Image: Wyscout

A fairly innocuous situation for Sunderland. Jagielka has played the ball forwards to Laurent, who is pressured by the middle player in the Sunderland mid-line.

Previous iterations of this midfield might have taken a touch and played back to a centre back, or possibly the goalkeeper, but Laurent does something that has been noticeably missing from many games in the past 5 or 6 years.

Click each image to zoom in.

Images: Wyscout

As the ball comes into Laurent, from one frame to the next, he moves his body side-on to the ball as he sees the pressing Sunderland player over his left shoulder.

This simple move opens up the space behind the midfield line, shown by the yellow arc, and with this one touch Stoke are immediately through the second line of Sunderland press and able to attack the back line.

He turns into space and plays a simple pass off to Smallbone, who is now directly able to attack the Sunderland defence, thanks to this one piece of quality.

This is another weapon in Stoke’s arsenal as they play in this new style, forcing ‘artificial transitions’ by breaking lines with quick changes of tempo.

Just Joshing

Alongside this, we’ve seen a vast improvement in Stoke’s pressing unit going forward, and the midfield duo of Pearson and Laurent play crucial roles in this, as combative midfielders with the athleticism and quality to win a 1 v 1 duel.

Stoke have moved away from a side who focus on low-tempo build-up to force the ball wide and progress calmly up the pitch under Michael O’Neill, to a side who are trying to force transitions and utilise pace and athleticism to break onto a disjointed defence.

The first of these types of transition, directly from winning the ball back, has been due to the new pressing unit, so let’s look into how Laurent helps this along.

I have previously focused on the work of the front 3 (and often Will Smallbone as a pseudo-10) in forcing the opposition’s defence to play longer into forward players from wide areas in their own 3rd. This is important work, but only half the story.

The second half of the story comes from the players behind the front 3 or 4 players, who mark man-to-man in order to step in and win 50/50 duels when the opposition try to play past, over, or through Stoke’s initial press.

Let’s go back to an early game in our current run, with some analysis previously done on this site, in the away win to Swansea.

Click each image to zoom in.

Images: Wyscout

In the first image, Stoke’s front 4 have forced Swansea into a position whereby all passing lanes are cut off, and they therefore play it long.

At which point, Ben Pearson is waiting to collect the loose ball, or challenge the Swansea player, and as the camera pans out, we see that both Laurent and centre back Wilmot had also been closely marking 1 v 1 to do exactly the same should the ball come to the player they’re marking.

This is a very brave way of pressing, and Stoke’s confidence in their ability to win these man-to-man duels appears to have coincided with the return of Laurent from injury, and the signing of Ben Pearson.

This sparked the move to 4-3-3 and the new pressing shape, alongside the new build-up phase that I touched on in our recent article after the Blackburn win (The Revolution Was Televised – Alex Neil’s 4-3-3 vs Blackburn).

All of this is only possible with (particularly in midfield) players who are combative, strong off the ball, and comfortable in possession. The perfect Laurent descriptor.

Let’s heading back to Sunderland away for an example of Laurent himself doing this work.

Click each image to zoom in.

Images: Wyscout

The left-most image shows the initial line of press. Gayle curves his pressing run to mark out the passing lane across the back, and Brown, Campbell and Smallbone sit on other players 1 to 1.

The defender is forced to play a pass through the initial press, where guess who is waiting?

That’s right, it’s Laurent and Pearson, marking tightly man-to-man and waiting to nip in.

As the ball comes in, Laurent accelerates past the Sunderland midfielder and intercepts the ball, laying it off to Gayle and starting an attack.

This willingness to tempt and force players into pressing traps relies not only on Laurent’s athleticism, but also his ability to spot when to step in and when to commit to the ball. High risk, but high reward.

Bosh, Laurent

I mentioned above that one area Stoke have been targeting is enforcing transitions in the front 2/3 of the pitch, in order to attack disjointed and unset defences, both through turnovers of play, and through rapid changes in tempo to break lines.

One key part of this is that Stoke manage to get players into the forward areas when they do move the ball forward, and in recent games Laurent has excelled at this.

We see this shift in style below in the plot of cumulative xG and cumulative goals. (For info about what xG is, check out our Stoke City xG Explainer here: xG – A Stoke City Explainer!)

This chart only includes games Laurent started.

Since the Blackpool game at home, and the start of Stoke’s improvement in results, we can see that Laurent’s xG has been shifting significantly upwards, with an increase in cumulative xG in every game since Huddersfield at Home.

The same is true of his shooting, as below.

This chart only includes games Laurent started.

This time the increase is similarly obvious, up until Blackpool away, Laurent had taken 10 shots in 14 games, with 0 goals and 0.3 xG. In the subsequent 7 games, he’s taken 17 shots, and scored 3 goals from 1.9 xG.

This quality has been linking in perfectly with the other areas we’ve delved into, so let’s look at 2 examples of the new style working together to create chances for Stoke.

First off, in the recent away draw to Middlesbrough, we join with the opposition building up from the left back position.

Click each image to zoom in.

Images: Wyscout

As Stoke press up the pitch, we again see the man-to-man marking behind Gayle, and Middlesbrough play well through the line. The midfielder pushes forwards, but runs into a good challenge from Pearson, who moves across.

Click each image to zoom in.

Images: Wyscout

At this point, Brown can now break forward, and he lays the ball to Smallbone on the right hand side of the box.

As Brown and Gayle move into the box to push the defensive line back, Laurent sits on the edge in the yellow space. His shot is blocked, but the space comes from that second aspect of transition play we’ve talked about these past few weeks.

1- Man to man behind the first line of press

2- Win your 1-to-1 duels when the opponent is forced to move/pass into risky areas.

3- Break forward quickly with pace, 1 on 1 skill, and lots of bodies.

Laurent’s increased tactical emphasis on supporting the attack has meant he can be involved in all 3 of these phases, and on top of that he’s now turned into a goal threat after step 3.

Finally, we can see the ‘perfect’ combination of this play in Laurent’s first goal against Swansea. Let’s take a bit more time to go in depth in this one.

Click each image to zoom in.

Images: Wyscout

Swansea have the ball just in front of their box. Stoke are as usual playing their man-to-man pressing line, with Campbell and Brown ready to press should the ball go to the wider centre backs, and Gayle watching the passing line backwards.

The ball goes back to the central centre back, who is faced with no real passing options. The goalkeeper is very close by, the wide right centre back is marked by Campbell, the midfielders are man-marked by Laurent and Smallbone, and Gayle cleverly bends his pressing run to block the lane to the left.

He plays a pass through the lines towards the Swansea forwards, who are around the halfway line.

Click each image to zoom in.

Images: Wyscout

Unfortunately for Swansea, Morgan Fox is waiting on the man the pass is aimed for, and nips in front to grab the ball. He plays it wide to Potterlytics favourite, Tyrese Campbell, and Stoke players pile into the box. Steps 1, 2 and 3 are working perfectly.

Except for one. Josh Laurent sees the area marked in yellow that is unoccupied, and again sits on the edge of the box while Campbell works the defender to get the cross in.

Images: Wyscout

As Campbell moves towards the byline, Laurent hangs in this space waiting for the ball. As Stoke piled so many others (Brown, Smallbone, Gayle) into the box, and Campbell’s quality means that 3 players try to stop the cross, Laurent is left completely free.

When he gets the ball, well, we all remember what that grey dotted line looked like in video form, don’t we.

I’ve Run Out of Subtitle Wordplay But He’s Good at Creating Too

The final area I want to look at is something that wasn’t actually so prevalent on his radar, but I believe is something we’re starting to see a lot more in Laurent’s game since this recent run of form begun.

We can see evidence of this improvement again in cumulative graphs of both his Key Passes (A pass that immediately creates a clear goal scoring opportunity for a teammate), and Expected Assists (xA, the probability of a pass becoming an assist based on historical data).

Click each image to zoom in.

Again, since that fateful Blackpool game, Laurent has become a much more important creative force, with quality passing and clear ability to pick out teammates in good positions.

Two such examples of this are for two of right-back-turned-poacher Ki-Jana Hoever’s goals a few weeks ago.

Click each image to zoom in.

Images: Wyscout

First, at home to Blackburn, Laurent picks the ball up on the wide life, about 25 yards from the byline, and whips a powerful, dipping cross to the far post for Hoever to head home.

Click each image to zoom in.

Images: Wyscout

Secondly, away to Middlesbrough, Laurent clips a first time pass over the head of the outside centre back, into the path of Hoever, who has a clear run on goal to finish.

Although it’s been a bit of an injury-hit season, it really does seem like Laurent is turning into a very well-rounded midfielder, and certainly one that fits perfectly into the style of play Alex Neil has been implementing in the past few months.

So there we have it. Summarised in just over 3500 words. A light morning read*.

*I’m so sorry.

Josh Laurent has been a huge boost to Stoke since his return from injury in January, and we can see above just how his strengths in carrying the ball, being active in winning duels and anticipating interceptions, getting into shooting positions to support the attack, and even his passing and crossing help Stoke to implement this aggressive transitional system of Alex Neil’s.

Long live this lovely Laurent revoLution.

Thanks to any and all readers, and please feel free to comment and follow on Twitter at @potterlytics.

Should you wish to donate to help with the running costs of the site, and the data subscriptions we use, please feel free to visit our donations page here. Any and all help is very much appreciated!

George

Unleashed Tyrese? A Profile of Tyrese Campbell

George Weaver

So, Tyrese Campbell, eh? A divisive figure among many Stoke fans, so lets get the the bottom of it once and for all.

Is he actually any good? Well, long story short, yes.

But let’s look into the long story a little bit deeper. What is he good at? Where is he best used? Will he be my best friend? All this and more (maybe) answered below.

Who?

Let’s start off with an overall picture of the type of attacker Campbell is. Using the radar plot from our Player Stats Hub, we can build an insight into what style we’re looking for in the player.

From this, I draw three major conclusions.

Firstly, Campbell is an excellent creative force, in the top 10% of expected assists (xA – a measure of how likely a pass is to result in a goal) per 90, the top 10% for crosses per 90, alongside being in the top 25% for key passes (passes putting a player in a clear goalscoring situation), passes into the area, and deep completions (passes to the zone <20m from the opponent’s goal).

Secondly, he’s on an incredible finishing run, despite getting lower-value chances than almost 3/4 of forwards in the league, he scores above his xG by 0.07 per 90, in the top 25%. More on this later.

Finally, it’s clear he’s a very strong ball carrier, above 75th percentile in progressive runs (definition here), dribbles, dribble success rate, touches in the box, and offensive duels. Campbell is a strong forward who wins his duels and carries the ball incredibly well, taking on defenders and progressing play towards goal.

Surprisingly for many, he’s actually about average at winning aerial duels too. Take that, sarcastic cheer-ers.

He’s clearly a very well-rounded forward, but let’s dig a bit into each of these aspects, starting with his finishing.

The Boy’s On Fire

It’s actually incredibly rare for players to overperform their xG over long periods of time, so the stats above for Tyrese’s finishing are a little suspicious at first glance. Is he just on a hot streak? Well, weirdly, no.

Campbell has outperformed his xG in every season as a footballer besides his first 5 games at Stoke, played exclusively as a substitute in Paul Lambert’s doomed side.

Below we have a plot of Campbell’s cumulative goals and xG over his whole league career on the left, and a plot of his cumulative xG overperformance (i.e. his goals minus xG) over the same period of games. It’s clear he’s an oddly consistent performer.

Why though? If this is such an oddity, why is he such a consistent finisher? Well it could be that this is only a sample of just over 7000 minutes – just over 80 full games, but I think there’s some more to this that we can use to explain Campbell’s quality.

If You Have To Ask, You’re Streets Behind

One thing that shows up clearly in Campbell’s goalscoring is his preference for two zones either side of the D, just within the box.

Looking at his last 75 shots we can see a clear penchant for scoring from these two areas.

Image: WyScout

Due to this area obviously looking like a phone (right?), and definitely not due to me forcibly trying to hammer in the word ‘Ty’ to something, I’ve decided to coin this the ‘Ty-phone‘ zone. It sounds kind of like Typhoon too, which is a cool word. It’s verbal wildfire. I’m so sorry.

The ‘Ty-phone‘ zone

Campbell’s quality turns these lower-value, lower-xG chances into goals at a disproportionate rate because of his specific skill in curling the ball to the far post.

We can delve into a few examples to see this in action.

First off, let’s look at his 2nd, and Stoke’s 3rd, away at Sunderland.

Click each image to zoom in.

Images: Wyscout

Campbell gets the ball on the edge of the area to the left, drives at the back line, and attempts a shot.

It comes back on his right foot, and he curls it to the far corner through a crowd of defenders. This had 0.06 xG according to Infogol.

We saw a similar goal from the other side last season at home to Birmingham.

Click each image to zoom in.

Images: Wyscout

Campbell takes it on the right outside the box and immediately drives at the defenders.

From there he cuts inside past a Birmingham defender and and whips it into the far corner.

Again, Infogol has this as a 0.06 xG chance for the average player.

Finally, we go back to the lockdown season vs. eventual promotion-winners Brentford.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

Tyrese picks the ball up wide left. comes inside on his right foot, beating two defenders, and whips it again into the far corner.

Infogol has this chance at a tiny 0.04 xG.

So we have 3 very similar finishes here, and Campbell has done this on several more occasions, also adding his skill of driving the ball across the keeper, and powering it home at the near post as vs Peterborough in 2021.

But Hold Your Horses

Goals can be very deceiving, particularly when there are only 31 of them, so is there a different way we can quantify Campbell’s finishing skill? The answer, predictably, is ‘kind of but not entirely’.

Whereas normal expected goals (xG) refers to the probability of a player scoring a given chance at the point of a shot being taken, Post-Shot xG (PSxG), refers to the probability of a shot being scored after it has been taken.

This includes features such as the power of the shot, where it is headed in the goal, swerve and trajectory, and players unsighting the goalkeeper.

As such, one way to infer the quality of a player’s shooting is to compare the PSxG with the xG, to see how much a player’s shots improve the quality of chances they get.

Now, as a point of order, this is by no means a definitive measure of finishing quality. As with all statistics, this is just one, very imperfect measure by which we can gain some insight into what might be happening.

As an example, a shot near the top corner that just goes wide will receive 0 PSxG, whereas a slow dribbling scuff that goes straight into the keeper’s arms will receive a PSxG of above 0.

But, as an indicator, we can still use it to gain some insight, and as such we have the two plots below, showing Stoke players’ PSxG overperformance (i.e. the PSxG minus xG) vs the average quality of their chances (xG/shot).

Click each plot to zoom in

What we see here is another insight into Campbell’s quality of shot.

In the left hand plot, including all shots, we see that he’s added around 0.25xG to his chances.

In the right hand plot, we have discounted blocked shots, as these are typically ascribed a value of 0PSxG, whether struck into good areas or not.

In this case Campbell stands out alongside long-shot expert Lewis Baker. He has added over 1.1xG to his chances via his shooting skill this season, another indication that he has quality in striking the ball.

Tyrese, The Creator

Well, I think we’ve built up a solid idea of his finishing, so what about that glorious vat of creativity we saw in the radar? Well, let’s expand it a little and take a closer look.

Well, you’ll be glad to hear that Campbell is one of the most creative players in the league in his position.

Particularly impressive are the deep completions, xA and key passes, all signs of a quality creative player.

He progresses the ball exceptionally well, and the number of shot assists that are key passes is a good measure of this quality.

Let’s take a look at how Tyrese likes to get his assists, and I promise I won’t make up a new name thing for it this time.

Campbell is in the top 15% of crossers even compared with AM/Wingers, and carries the ball into the area more than 89% of forwards in the league (FBref).

He also attempts in the top 11% of take-ons among forwards, so we can tell that he likes to take players on, alongside getting lots of crosses in.

It’s also obvious from his heatmap below (for Campbell’s whole senior career) that he has a preference for running wide, with lots of touches wide of the box. Alongside that, we see those touches inside the corners of the box, in that Ty-Phone area again.

Image: Wyscout

We can see lots of this in action in his last assist, vs Swansea.

Tyrese gets the ball in a similar position to the goals explained above, where he scores in the Ty-phone.

Again, he drives at the defence, but this time he runs on the outside, beating a defender to cut the ball back to Laurent, who fires it into the top corner.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

The same happened in the game against Huddersfield in January.

Campbell gets the ball on the edge of the box, again beats a defender and cuts it back into a dangerous area.

Brown gets two bites at it and then scores.

Images: Wyscout

The cut-back from a take-on into wide areas is something Campbell is really bringing into his game this season.

Most importantly, many of these passes, cutbacks and crosses are not just high-volume, but also of a high-quality, leading to Campbell’s high expected assist numbers.

The skill Campbell has when attacking the box with the ball is rare at this level, and his output reflects that.

Spreading His Wings?

Now what about positioning? Campbell is a player who is often touted as ‘better from the wing’ by fans, and there’s no doubt that his skill-set in carrying the ball from deeper, and attacking the box from the half-spaces is fantastic.

That being said, does he have to play wide to play well? The answer is probably no.

Positions in modern football are a difficult concept to easily tie down. As a brief example, playing Gayle as a central striker and Brown as a central striker gives you two very different things. One will push higher on the back line and one will drop deeper.

What we do see is that no matter which ‘set position’ across the front line Campbell starts in, he still tends to get touches of the ball in deeper and wider positions, where he’s clearly dangerous.

We can see that in his heat maps below, each showing Campbell’s senior career touches when starting wide left, centrally, and wide right.

Click each image to zoom in

Simple ‘formations’ as we know them are not completely useless, but this is a good example where they are not fully describing the game in front of us.

As a central striker in Michael O’Neill’s 352, Campbell would still drop into many of the same positions he would occupy as a wide man in Alex Neil’s 433.

In terms of numbers, his output is still good in all positions too, although there is an increase when he starts wide, which I will explain further.

The table below shows his output per 90 minutes in each position in his league career so far.

Metric\PositionWide LeftCentralWide Right
Minutes91141802013
Goals0.490.340.45
Assists0.300.110.22
xG0.280.290.23
xA0.180.090.13
Dribbles/success rate %6.72 / 61.8%3.57 / 51.8%6.08 / 55.9%
Crosses/accuracy %5.73 / 29.3%1.79 / 25.3%3.00 / 34.3%
Passes to penalty area/accuracy %3.75 / 44.7%1.53 / 47.9%2.86 / 54.7%
Data: Wyscout

You may look at that and immediately conclude that Campbell is better playing wide, but remember many of these numbers will be due to the change in play style and not necessarily indicative of a player who is ‘better’ in one position than another.

As a striker, Campbell will be much more focused on running in behind and creating space for others, for example, which does not show up in his own numbers.

What we can say is that Campbell is great at dropping deep and driving at defences.

BUT….

As alluded to above, there’s another side to his play too. Let’s look at one of his goals from last season, away at QPR.

Click each image to zoom in

Images: Wyscout

As Vrancic gets the ball, Tyrese immediately sprints forwards.

He breaks quickly through the dropping defence, into a huge open space to slot home from the edge of the box 1v1.

We saw a similar goal from Campbell against Preston this season too.

Click each image to zoom in

Image: Wyscout

Baker receives the ball on the edge of Stoke’s box, and immediately plays it high and long for Campbell.

With a 10 yard deficit to make up, Campbell gets the ball before the Preston defender, cuts into his Ty-phone Zone and finishes in his trademark style.

So although Campbell’s skill running at defences & progressing the ball is clear, he’s also a huge threat in behind with his pace and particularly his 1vs1 finishing skill.

Conclusions?

So, what have we learned? Well, we’ve learned that I have some kind of obsession with Tyrese Campbell and/or numbers.

We’ve also learned that the numbers are very promising for his career, he’s a quality finisher of chances and has a skill level for progressing the ball that is rare among peers in this league.

He can play wide or central, but whichever you choose, you’d be silly not to try to get him involved in play as much as possible.

Thanks to any and all readers, and please feel free to comment and follow on Twitter at @potterlytics.

Should you wish to donate to help with the running costs of the site, and the data subscriptions we use, please feel free to visit our donations page here. Any and all help is very much appreciated!

George

Oh How We’ll Miss You, Josh Tymon

George Weaver

As Josh Tymon was stretchered off and taken to hospital just before half time in Stoke’s away game against Luton, it felt like the marauding wing back’s season may be at an end.

Luckily, it now appears that he will be off the pitch for ‘weeks rather than months’, according to Alex Neil.

We wanted to ask just how much will Stoke miss him in this important few weeks, with games against relegation rivals Blackpool and Huddersfield coming up.

So, let’s take a look just how integral Tymon is to Stoke’s play, and just how impressive he’s been as an attacking wing back.

The Humberside Hakimi

Okay, that title is mostly about the alliteration, but the key point here is that Tymon is statistically one of the most dangerous wide players in the Championship.

Mostly utilised as a wing back in a 352 for the last 2 seasons, alongside a portion of games at left back in a 433/4231, we can see from Tymon’s heatmap from 2022/23 that he takes a lot of touches in the opposition half.

Pulis would be fuming: Josh Tymon’s heatmap for the 22/23 season so far is incredibly attacking, especially given he’s played several games as a fullback in a 433. – Image: WyScout

We see that in the 2022/2023 season, as a portion of the entire Stoke City side, a whopping 20.9% of the Expected Assists (xA) – meaning the number of assists you would expect a player to get from their play in possession, taking into account historical data – came from Tymon, the most in the squad.

The same is true for 21/22, where Tymon makes up 19.4% of the side’s xA.

Expected Assist distribution through the Stoke City squad for 2021/22 (left) and 2022/23 (right). Data from WyScout.

We can see fairly obviously from these metrics that Tymon is a huge part of Stoke’s attacking threat, despite playing style differences under both Michael O’Neill and Alex Neil.

Now for those relatively new to statistics, it’s always good practice to normalise your data to ensure a level playing field, and one way to make sure we’re not skewing stats too much is to measure these xA values on a ‘per 90 minutes’ basis.

As we can see below, this drops Tymon below Vrančić, Maja and Baker in 2021/22, but elevates him even higher above the competition in 2022/23.

We’re just normal(ised) plots: Josh Tymon marked with a star on plots of Expected Assists per 90. Besides a striker in Maja, and two set piece taking creative midfielders in Baker and Vrančić, Tymon provides the strongest creative output numbers for Stoke City. Data from WyScout

In 2021/22, only the mercurial Vrančić, the much-debated striker Maja, and a set-piece-dominated Lewis Baker created more xA than Tymon, and in 2022/23 no-one is even close.

So we’ve established that Tymon is important to Stoke’s chance creation, or at least is the player who generates lots of xA, but how exactly does he come about such a high xA? Do we need the eye test to confirm this?

Get It In The Box

One thing that jumps out when digging into clips and replays is that Tymon excels at generating exceptionally high value chances from his crosses.

Taking a look at the xG per 90 from shots he has assisted, Tymon is in the 98th percentile of all Championship fullbacks in 22/23, and it’s easy to see why when you look at the way he puts the ball into dangerous areas.

Let’s take a look at a few of his shot assists this season, starting with the assist for Jacob Brown against Reading.

Tymon receives the ball in the left half space, about 25 yards out, with Reading set in a flat 4, and only 2 Stoke players on the back line.

Tymon’s receiving position, he opens his body up immediately to aim for the area marked. Image: WyScout.

Immediately he opens up his body and aims for the dark area in the above figure. You’d instinctively say this is hopeful, given the number of players Reading have back, and the fact Gayle and Brown are marked tightly, but Tymon does something really special with the ball.

I couldn’t think of a good alliterative comparison but this is the kind of ball Alexander-Arnold is great at. (The ex-Tigers Trent?). Image: WyScout

He perfectly picks out that back post area, just far enough from the keeper for him to hesitate, and at an awkward height for the defender to clear.

It’s curved around the defensive line perfectly into the path of an oncoming Jacob Brown, who only has to bundle it into an empty net. Turning a relatively strong position into a high value chance (between 0.5 and 0.7xG depending on which model you look at).

We saw a similar ball, albeit to the near post this time, for his assist to Brown vs Blackpool at home this season. Perfectly weighted and curled around the defensive line into place for Brown to fire home. This is in contrast to the first goal of the game, a whipped, powerful ball to the back post for Clarke to freely head home.

Rinse and repeat: Tymon plays a weighted curling ball around the defensive line into Jacob Brown’s path, again. Image: WyScout.

Away at Rotherham this season, we saw another combination of Tymon and Brown that gives us evidence of Tymon’s range of crossing ability. Laid to him wide inside the box, he drills the ball along the floor perfectly into the path of Brown, who unfortunately mistimes his shot.

Oh, Jacob, you’re only helping people who don’t believe in xG

Now 3 clips of crosses does not a Cafu make, but this is something Tymon has repeated again and again from a range of positions and with a range of crossing techniques. Let’s dig into some of the underlying numbers behind his quality and compare him to the rest of the Championship, rather than just among Stoke players.

I Don’t Even Think He Has A Chant Does He?

Chief among the roles of a wing back is the need to progress the ball in possession, and to create when in the final third. The plots we’re about to look at will help us to quantify just how good Tymon is at these two overarching areas of play.

One important thing to mention here is that in gathering this data, Josh Tymon is a difficult player to correctly categorise.

Player position (i.e. are they a number 10 or a striker, are they a number 6 or a number 8, etc.) is a difficult thing to precisely measure, and as such, in the following comparisons, Tymon is being compared with all full backs, wing backs, and wingers. Left out of the comparison are wide forwards, for obvious reasons, and although this is an imperfect comparison group, the results are still viable as you will see.

Having The Tymon My Life

First off, we’ll look at Tymon’s work in possession of the ball. As a wing back with a bit of pace, you’d expect him to be progressing the ball a lot, playing it into dangerous areas, and doing a lot of running in general.

The plots below show us the percentile rank of Tymon among the categories mentioned above, in the Championship in the last 365 days (i.e. from the 2-2 draw away at Nottingham Forest in 21/22 to the 1-0 loss away at Luton in 22/23). The colour (red to green) and length of the bar showing how highly Tymon is ranked in each metric among peers

Within the bars are the raw values per 90 minutes, and all this data is taken from WyScout.

For exact definitions of the metrics, please do take a look at WyScout’s glossary.

Tymon in possession, lots of lovely green here. Data from WyScout

We see in possession exactly what we expect from a positive wing back who is central to his team’s build-up work.

He ranks highly in accelerating, progressive runs (running with the ball towards the opponent’s goal line), and success rate in dribbling. He’s also above average in the number of dribbles he attempts, which is excellent given this data includes several wingers.

Another interesting feature of this graph is just how positive Tymon is with his passing. He’s ranked almost top in the number and accuracy of his progressive passes (a pass that moves significantly closer to the opponent’s goal), and is well above average in passing forward and into the final third.

This willingness to play the ball forward could provide an explanation for the only metric that isn’t above average on our chart – the overall accuracy of his passing. Tymon prefers more risky passing that improves the team’s position and progresses the ball towards the opponent’s goal.

It’s clear to see that he provides an incredibly positive output in moving the ball from back to front within Stoke’s build-up, but what about when we’re looking to create? Well, unsurprisingly, this is another area Tymon excels.

Let’s take a look at a similar chart for his creative metrics.

Please come back soon, Josh.

This is where we really see the level of Tymon’s quality. He may progress the ball really well, but in the final third, he is an exceptional creative force. We’ve already spoken about the high level of expected assists, but we see a more in-depth breakdown here in this plot.

Tymon is very highly ranked for key passes (a pass that creates a high value chance), passes into the area, and shot assists. Alongside that, he’s above average for through passes, a key metric to distinguish quality in creative players.

He is incredibly positive in pushing the ball into the area, with very high crossing numbers, and a large number of deep completions. In terms of creating chances for Stoke, he has been the main outlet this season by some distance.

His accuracy in penalty area passes and crosses is just below average, however. This could be due to poor play, or to lack of bodies in the box, but in my opinion this is likely to be due to the volume of high-quality crossing he attempts.

To explain this further, Tymon isn’t lofting back post balls for a 6 foot 7 Crouch to try to knock down, which would lead to a high percentage of completions.

He’s fizzing balls into corridors between the defensive line and the goalkeeper, for players like Brown and Campbell to get a touch on. This is a strategy that leads to much higher value chances when it gets to the striker, but also results in a lower accuracy.

And again, as a reminder, these charts include wingers and wide midfielders in the comparison.

All in all we see that Tymon really is one of the most positive progressive influences on Stoke City’s build up, and one of the most dangerous creative wide players in the final third in the league.

Let’s hope he’s back soon.

Thanks to any and all readers, and please feel free to comment and follow on Twitter at @potterlytics.

Should you wish to donate to help with the running costs of the site, and the data subscriptions we use, please feel free to visit our donations page here. Any and all help is very much appreciated!

George