La Liga 2019/20: Analysing Barcelona midfield’s attacking potential – data analysis

At the very moment, Barcelona find themselves in a rather tricky situation that just might take all of Quique Setien’s ingenuity to solve. Luis Suárez, the team’s certified first-choice no.9, has undergone surgery and will likely sit out the remainder of the season or, at the very best, make a glorious return at the very end of La Liga.

This was a huge blow for the Catalans but when it rains, it pours, and for the Blaugrana, it’s definitely pouring because Ousmane Dembélé has also been ruled out for the remainder of the campaign and has undergone surgery himself following a relapse during his recovery period.

The young Frenchman can’t catch a break and now with two of the big pieces up front sidelined by fitness issues and with the club selling both Carles Pérez and Abel Ruiz in the January transfer market, Barcelona find themselves rather thin in that compartment.

As things currently stand, their only choices are Lionel Messi, Antoine Griezmann and the 17-year-old Ansu Fati and while they might form a formidable trio in the forward line, with no rotations or substitutes available, it could become a tall task even for players of their quality and pedigree.

Needless to say, Setién will have to work out how to work around this huge discrepancy up front and somehow make up for it through other sources if he is to compete with Real Madrid and co. The next best choice he has is mobilising the midfield and giving them more attacking and aggressive tasks on the pitch.

We’ve seen the first result with the likes of Frenkie de Jong being pushed higher up the pitch and Arturo Vidal getting a much bigger role in the team altogether. But which of his midfielders have the tools to mitigate the loss of Suárez and contribute most to the attack?

This data analysis will use statistics to highlight Barcelona’s midfielders’ attacking properties and use analysis to recognise ideal candidates for such a task.

The initial data check

It’s difficult for midfielders to successfully replicate a striker’s numbers or even come reasonably close to them. And this is especially true for Barcelona since their midfielders have to be keen build-up machines and usually, their style and skillsets will match entirely different needs of the team.

But times are tough over at the Catalan capital and highly technical players and creators from the deep will have to adjust to a different role if Barcelona are to survive this tough period. With that in mind, we’ve consulted Wyscout’s database to see which of the players suit the more aggressive and attacking-minded role Setién might have to enforce for the remainder of the season.

Some of the main metrics we’ve used are as follows: expected goals (xG), expected assists (xA), successful attacking actions, shots per 90 minutes, dribble success in %, touches in the box and progressive runs made per game.

One thing has to be noted before we delve into the numbers: Sergio Busquets has been discarded from the equation since he is unlikely to get an attacking role in the team and his numbers in that department are not relevant to the data analysis.

With that being said, here’s the initial data analysis of the remainder of the midfield crop Setién has at his disposal: De Jong, Vidal, Sergi Roberto, Arthur Melo, Ivan Rakitić and Riqui Puig.

At first glance, every player stands out for different metrics and this will undoubtedly make Setién’s job that much more difficult. It should also be noted that the data is somewhat skewed by the actual game time of the players.

Some of them, like De Jong, have practically played all the available minutes while Puig, for example, is on a relatively small sample that also draws stats from Barcelona B. But nonetheless, the results do give us a fairly accurate depiction of their player profiles and whether they suit the needs of Setién’s current tactics.