Assessing Jonathan David’s start to the season and the role he plays in Lille’s tactics – scout report

Jonathan David has enjoyed a fantastic start to life under Paulo Fonseca for Lille this season.

The Canadian international has scored nine goals in 12 games so far this campaign and is now being linked with moves to clubs such as Real Madrid, Chelsea, Manchester United, and Liverpool.

Having made the step up to Ligue 1 from the Belgian Pro League in 2018, David has hinted at being interested in moving to a stronger league again at some point. With him being a certainty for Canada’s Word Cup squad in Qatar, a good showing could speed that interest up as the tournament finishes just as the January transfer window is due to begin.

Whether the move materialises in January or teams wait until the summer, the former Gent player still has three years left on his contract at Lille, so Les Dogues won’t be selling their man cheaply.

In this scout report, we will provide a tactical analysis which focuses on different aspects of Jonathan David’s game this season. We will provide an analysis of the tactics behind his attacking game, how operates in space and how beneficial he is to Lille’s defensive strategy.

Position

David is a centre forward but occasionally, because of his pace and his work rate, he has been played out wide. He operates better playing in the centre of attack but has been used by previous managers on both the right and left side of a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-2-2 in a wide-forward role.

We have provided two heat maps below showing the area on the pitch he completed his actions from this season and last season. Last season, under Jocelyn Gourvennec, Lille played a 4-4-2 with David up front as a part two-man forward line with Burak Yılmaz. Yilmaz acted as the target man between the two with David playing off Yilmaz. With Yilmaz playing as the team’s target man, positionally he remained as central as possible and David would move with more freedom around the attacking third.

This season, Paulo Fonseca has used him as the lone forward in a 4-2-3-1 formation. Fonseca likes his teams to dominate possession and the former Roma and Shakhtar manager wants his front-forward players to rotate positionally around the attacking third.

Even though this movement and rotation enable David not to be restricted to remaining central and play as the team’s only focal point, there has been a clear emphasis from Fonseca to have David impact the play closer to the opposition’s goal. You can see in the heat map we provided how he is impacting Lille’s play more in the opponents penalty area than he was last season.

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