Jimmy Cabot 2022/23: How Clauss’ coveted replacement will modify Lens’ right wing-back position – scout report

Jonathan Clauss (178cm/5’10”, 67kg/147lbs) was Lens most prolific assist-provider in Ligue 1 last season, with 10 of his team’s 62 goals (16.13%) being assisted by the right wing-back.

Clauss had been the subject of a great deal of summer transfer speculation in recent weeks, with the likes of EPL sides Chelsea and Manchester United getting linked with respective transfer moves for the 29-year-old (who’ll be 30 in September). However, Clauss will remain in Ligue 1, with Marseille having now completed the Frenchman’s signing for a reported €7.5m fee.

This could be a big loss for Lens. However, there is hope for Les Sang et Or, who secured the signature of a Clauss replacement earlier this summer in the form of 28-year-old Jimmy Cabot (164cm/5’4”, 64kg/141lbs), who joins from fellow Ligue 1 competitors Angers for a reported €2m.

Cabot also primarily played at right wing-back for his club last season and, similar to Clauss, he ended 2021/22 as his team’s top Ligue 1 assist provider from that position, with five league assists to his name (11.36% of his team’s 44 goals — not bad considering Cabot missed his team’s last 13 league games through injury).

Clauss impressively managed 0.28 assists per 90 in the league last term but Cabot’s 0.21 assists per 90 are nothing to scoff at and highlight his significant level of threat from the right-wing in a three-centre-back system at Angers, similar to the system of Lens.

With all of this in mind, today’s tactical analysis and scout report aims to look at how Lens intend to replace Clauss with Cabot in their starting eleven. We’ll recap what exactly Clauss’ role within the team’s tactics was and what qualities the 29-year-old brought to the table before moving on to provide an analysis of Cabot and what he has to offer his new team from right wing-back.

The wing-back role at Lens / Clauss’ qualities

Lens’ wing-backs carry a lot of responsibility within their tactical system, which varied a lot last season from their usual 3-4-1-2 system to 3-4-2-1, 3-4-3 and 3-5-2 at times. We’ve written extensively about Lens and Clauss in the past here at Total Football Analysis, so I won’t go into too much detail on the wing-back role or Clauss himself in this tactical analysis piece.

I wrote about the important role of Lens’ wing-backs in this article from last October: Ligue 1 2021/22: The essential attacking role of Lens’ wing-backs allowing new star Frankowski to flourish – tactical analysis. Meanwhile, Lorihanna Shushkova wrote about Clauss, specifically, here in this analysis article from December.

I’d recommend either if not both of those articles as prior reading before getting stuck into this article. To briefly touch on what’s expected of Lens’ wing-backs and what specific qualities Cabot has to replace in this squad, though, Lens’ wing-backs are required to get relatively high and wide in all possession phases of play.

When their team is building out from the back, expect to see the wing-backs on the touchline on either side of the midfield, aiming to stretch the opposition to create space for teammates centrally or provide a good, wide passing option for their teammates.

Moving on into the final third, the wing-backs are required to provide the offensive width for their side, typically forming the widest parts of a front five. They play a crucial role from a creative standpoint by crossing vfom a particularly notable area in which they are active. Clauss played an average of 5.39 crosses per 90 in the league last season — the most of any Ligue 1 right-back/right wing-back and 37.275% of his team’s average crosses per 90.

Defensively, Lens tend to defend quite high up the pitch and quite aggressively, often looking to capitalise on transitions to score. The wing-backs need to be technically good defensively to avoid being easily bypassed and must be aggressive to get out to attackers, mark them and stifle their attack, regardless of whether they’re in the final third or if they’re in their own third.

So, why did Lens sign Jimmy Cabot, then? Not just because of familiarity with the position and familiarity with the league, though those will both have surely been ticks in his box for Les Sang et Or’s recruitment. The biggest reason, rather, is that the 28-year-old has demonstrated plenty of the required qualities for this specific role in Lens’ system, as we’ll now move onto.

Progression

When placing themselves high and wide in the build-up/ball progression phases, Lens’ wing-backs either want to attract attention from opposition defenders, thus opening up space for teammates elsewhere or exploit space themselves to become a viable passing option to get their team moving forward.

This is a role that Cabot is more than familiar with, having performed a similar role in terms of ball progression during his time at Angers. However, the ways in which Cabot and Clauss typically progress the play is different. So, while they’re both wing-backs that are capable of driving their team into more advanced positions, they achieve this through different means.

For Clauss, while he played 8.59% (38.59) of his team’s average passes per 90 last season, he played 13.6% (8.72) of his team’s average progressive passes per 90 — a relatively high number of progressive passes when compared with other right-backs/right wing-backs in Ligue 1 last term.

Clauss made 2.15 progressive runs per 90 last season which is equal to 12.86% of his team’s average progressive runs per 90.

Meanwhile, last season, Cabot played 48.68 passes per 90 (11.76% of his team’s average passes per 90) and 7.45 progressive passes per 90 (11.75% of his team’s average progressive passes per 90).

So, Cabot’s involvement in passing is greater than that of Clauss while his involvement in progressive passes is lower than that of Clauss. Cabot’s involvement in passes and progressive passes are proportionate to one another, while Clauss plays relatively more of his team’s progressive passes than just passes.

There isn’t a major difference between the two there though. The big difference is clear when we look at Cabot’s progressive runs to see he made 3.64 progressive runs per 90 last season — 24.38% of his team’s average progressive runs per 90.

This is a far higher portion of his team’s progressive runs completed than Clauss, which highlights how much Cabot likes to progress the ball via carries rather than passes, which Clauss evidently prefers. So, from a Lens perspective, I’d be expecting to see more marauding runs on the ball from the right wing-back spot next season as Cabot will look to drive his team forward on the ball more frequently than Clauss.

We see an example of Cabot’s progressive carrying in figures 1-2. Firstly, in figure 1, the right wing-back has just received the ball deep in his area of the pitch with his team in the build-up phase, just about to enter the progression phase.

After dropping into this position to receive the pass, Cabot had a lot of space ahead of him to drive into; the 28-year-old loves this kind of situation. We’ve marked the path that Cabot will go on to take with his carry on the image here. Initially moving wider, Cabot will draw the nearest opposition defender out before cutting inside to drive through the opposition’s midfield from a more central area.

It