Anderson Niangbo 2019/20 – scout report

With 31 points out of the opening 18 games, Wolfsberger AC sit in comfortable fourth position in the Austrian Bundesliga. They were in the exact same position last season at this stage of the year and so they continue to prove that they are among the best teams in country. In the UEFA Europa League they just got five points out of their six games against Borussia Mönchengladbach, AS Roma and Basaksehir, but in truth showed better performances than the results tell.

However, one of the breakout stars of this season is clearly the 20-years-old Anderson Niangbo. He played in 17 out of the 18 games in the Austrian Bundesliga and scored seven goals as well as assisted five. These are quite good stats for a 20-years-old who plays his first season in the highest league in Austria. He joined FC Liefering (RB Salzburg’s second team) in the January of 2018 and made 33 appearances for them in the second league of Austria since then. This season, he’s on loan at Wolfsberger AC and has tallied some outstanding performances.

In this tactical analysis in the form of a scout report, we’ll look at Niangbo’s movement on the pitch and his goalscoring ability as well as what differentiates him from a classic striker.

Positioning and movement

Gerhard Struber took over Wofsberg at the start of this season and introduced the 4-3-1-2 formation with Niangbo and Shon Weissman as the two strikers and the creative Michael Liendl behind them. Niangbo and Weissmann combined scored incredible 24 goals in the opening 18 games of this season.

The only attacking duo which has a better value in the Austrian Bundesliga is the one of RB Salzburg which was made of Patson Daka and Erling Braut Haaland. In the picture below we can see that Wolfsberg continue to use the 4-3-1-2 system even after Struber’s move to Barnsley.

We can see that the three midfielders behind Liendl are positioned quite narrow when the opposition is in possession during the build-up. Even though they try to be positioned a bit wider when Wolsfberg is in possession of the ball, there is still nobody who occupies the wide areas in the higher lines as the full-backs can’t rush permanently forward due to their defensive duties.

At this point, Niangbo comes into play as he is a very agile and fast player as you expect a winger to be. As Weissmann has more physical strength and is taller, the Israeli stays more centrally while we can often see Niangbo drifting to the left side. This also gets visible when we look at his heatmap for the games in the Austrian Bundesliga and the UEFA Europa League of this season.