Barring a last-minute change of heart from either club or player, it looks as though Newcastle United are set to complete the marquee signing of the Swedish international striker Alexander Isak from Real Sociedad. This is a move from Newcastle to finally flex their financial muscle in the market with the price thought to be in the region of £60M.
There is no doubt that, in Isak, we see Newcastle getting a modern and effective striker who is capable of adding value to Eddie Howes side in all phases of the game.
There are though, of course, two sides to this transfer and Real Sociedad are now faced with the prospect of losing their main striker and goal threat with just days left in the summer transfer window. They will have to assess the options around their squad and quickly make a decision as to whether they have to enter the market themselves to find a replacement.
Smart teams will have already built up succession plans for their players, especially for players that they perceive to be a threat in terms of being targeted by other clubs. However, the reality is that not all clubs are smart in this sense. We should point out at this point, however, that we have no idea if Real Sociedad are smart or not, they just represent an interesting and current case study.
When it comes to making quick decisions in the market in terms of recruitment, the use of data is crucial. Data allows us to cut through a lot of the noise around football and to build bespoke profiles that allow us to target the right players at the right time. Here at Total Football Analysis, we use a tool that is custom-built for use with our clients called xGold to achieve this. This tool allows us to quickly filter through data to find players who are similar to others from a data perspective. This means that we can run a search on Alexander Isak with certain criteria in place and be presented in a matter of seconds with a list of players who profile in a similar way to the Swedish international. We would then, of course, always use a combination of video and live scouting in order to ensure the data is giving us the right players. The data is the starting point though.
In order to visualise the data of our players for this data analysis, we use statistics from Wyscout which will be run through Python in order to create pizza charts that then show a set of metrics we use to assess strikers. The data will also be converted into percentile rankings, with each player compared to strikers in their own leagues.
Firstly though, we should look at what Real Sociedad are losing in Alexander Isak based on data from the 2021/22 season.
Here is Alexander Isaks data from the 2021/22 La Liga season where he played 3,661 minutes for Real Sociedad in the league.
Isak is a striker who is very modern in his approach to the game in that he has the ability to come deep and receive the ball either centrally or in the half-spaces. He has an excellent touch with the ability to receive and then hold up play or spin to release teammates into space. He can also, however, lead the line and play on the shoulder of the defender in order to threaten the space in behind the defensive line.
His data from the 20
