Notts County 2023/24: How Dan Crowley’s signing has been incredibly impactful – scout report

On 20^th June 2023, Dan Crowley signed for the newly promoted Notts County in League Two.

A product of Arsenals academy, Crowley spent several seasons across the English Football League, including spells at Morecambe, Cheltenham, Hull City, Birmingham City, Oxford United and Barnsley, as well as spells in the Eredivisie with Go Ahead Eagles, SC Cambuur and two spells at Willem II.

Notts County has made a fantastic start to life this season in League Two, and the addition of Crowley is a big part of that. In this tactical analysis and scout report, we take a deeper dive into some of the tactical reasons??to provide an analysis of how Crowley is having this sort of effect on Notts within their tactics this season.

Attacking

Crowley is an attacking midfielder who has been playing regularly on the right of a front 3 in the 1-3-4-3 formation that Notts County have most commonly deployed this season. As you can see by this Pizza Plot below, he has been one of the leagues leading players in possession-based data.

Crowley is in the top 20% of players for progressive passes per 90 and dangerous passes per 90. He is also in the top 10% of attacking midfielders for pass accuracy percentage. Most significantly, Crowley is in the top 2% of attacking midfielders for passes received and made per 90.

Now, what sort of an impact might this have on Notts County? Well, I think its important to understand the style of play that Notts County deploy. Notts have the most average passes per sequence in League Two at 4.43 passes per sequence; they also have the longest average possession time at 13.42 seconds.

Combine this with the fact that the average ball progression speed is 1.13m/s(The slowest in the division), and you can get a real feel for what they are trying to do on the ball, with the team looking to play a patient possession-based system.

Now that we kn