After winning the League One title, Coventry City will be playing in the Championship next season for the first time since 2011. They earned plenty of plaudits for the way they managed to balance an attractive style of play with a resolute defence: the Sky Blues conceded a league-low 30 goals last term. When the season was brought to a halt due to coronavirus, City were seven points clear of third-placed Oxford United. Therefore, they deservedly earned promotion via the points-per-game formula.
A club that were recently stuck in the abyss of League Two with crippling financial problems, the sleeping giant of Coventry seems to be reawakening. Former Manchester United striker Mark Robins is at the helm, and it’s fair to say he’s done an excellent job in Warwickshire. As they prepare to end their Championship hiatus, they’re persuading players from across Europe to join the Robins revolution.
One of those new recruits is right-back Julien Dacosta. The Frenchman joined Coventry from Chamois Niortais after his contract with the Ligue 2 club expired. This scout report will provide a tactical analysis of Dacosta’s strengths and weaknesses.
Overview
24-year-old Dacosta played 2,004 minutes in Ligue 2 last season, spanning across a total of 22 matches. Chamois Niortais predominantly played with a 4-2-3-1 system last term, with Dacosta on the right side of the back four. That will be the key difference when he plays for Coventry, as a key part of Mark Robins’ tactics are to play a back three with wing-backs. It seems likely that he’d initially be the back-up for first choice right wing-back Fankaty Dabo, who enjoyed an excellent campaign. We’ll go into more detail on that a bit later on in the analysis.
However, Dacosta’s heat map does show that he looks to get on the ball higher up the pitch. The green inside his own box shows the narrow positions that he often takes up when defending against counter-attacks. This is another interesting point for Coventry to consider: would he be able to slot in as a right-sided centre-back as well, if they suffer from injuries?
1 vs 1 defending and defensive duels
When he’s up against a winger, Dacosta is quick, athletic and he reads the game well. He likes to defend on the front foot, showing aggression to engage the opponent and win the ball back. The former Marseille defender averaged 0.76 tackles per 30 passages of opposition possession, and he got involved in 7.72 defensive duels per 90 minutes. Both figures put him in the higher echelons for this metric compared to other Ligue 2 full-backs last season.
