Kevin Schade is 24, unbeaten with Brentford after five league games, and now the subject of contract talks the club initiated specifically to keep Arsenal and Liverpool away from him. Sky Sports revealed the discussions on Friday 25 September, reporting that both clubs had tracked the Germany international since the closing days of the summer window, with Chelsea and Tottenham also having admired him in the past. Three goals in five matches for a side sitting fourth in the table is the kind of return that sharpens interest quickly, particularly for a club carrying the left-wing vacancy Mikel Arteta has faced since Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard departed. What follows is an assessment of whether Schade’s statistical profile and his role at Brentford translate into Arteta’s 4-3-3, built from percentile data on his attacking output, ball progression and pressing contribution.
Schade’s Attacking Profile, By The Numbers
Among Premier League wingers, Schade’s underlying numbers from last season place him in the 90th percentile for both goals per 90 and non-penalty xG per 90 – output, not just chance creation. His 91st percentile shot accuracy suggests a player who is selective about when he pulls the trigger rather than a volume shooter relying on quantity.
The progression numbers matter just as much for how he would be used in a possession-based system. Schade ranks in the 86th percentile for opposition-box touches, the 80th percentile for both dribbles per 90 and shot assists, and the 75th percentile for progressive runs, with a rate of 1.90 progressive runs per 90. Eight Premier League goals in 35 appearances last season and three in five games this term is not a hot streak built on variance – it is a player getting into the right areas repeatedly and finishing what he starts there.
Width, Direct Running and the Transition Threat
Schade is a right-footed left winger who receives the ball wide, drives at the full-back, and cuts inside onto his stronger foot – the standard template for an inverted wide forward, but delivered with more physical directness than most operating in that role. His running is the defining asset: those 80th percentile dribble numbers and 75th percentile progressive-run figures describe a player who covers ground vertically rather than shuffling sideways looking for a pass.
Brentford’s 3-0 win over Tottenham in August offered the clearest evidence of that directness, with Schade rated an 8.0 across the 90 minutes as he repeatedly attacked space behind a high defensive line. That is the profile that matters in transition football – direct, vertical, and unafraid to run with his head down the moment his side wins the ball back.
There is an aerial dimension too that is easy to overlook in a winger this quick. Schade scored 41% of last season’s shots with his head, a number that points to genuine back-post presence rather than a player who only threatens from cutbacks and low crosses.
Pressing and Wide-Overload Function at Brentford
Keith Andrews has built Brentford’s attack around wide overloads, and Schade is the release valve that makes the structure work. The 3-0 demolition of Chelsea in September showed the mechanism clearly: wing-backs pinning Chelsea’s wide centre-backs, Igor Thiago occupying the six-yard box, and Schade stretching the pitch on the left so that Mikkel Damsgaard and Thiago could operate in tighter central zones. His job is to pull defenders away from the ball, then punish the space that opens behind them.
That role has sharpened his all-round game rather than narrowed it. His shot-assist numbers sit in the 80th percentile, and his 1.90 progressive runs per 90 make him Brentford’s primary ball-progressor down the left – a player who both creates the overload and finishes the move it produces.
How the Role Would Translate to Arsenal’s 4-3-3
Arteta’s left winger has a specific brief in the 4-3-3: hold width against low blocks, attack the back post, and act as the first line of the press against opposition full-backs. Max Dowman’s emergence on the right has filled one flank convincingly, but the left has been short of a genuine wide forward since Martinelli and Trossard left, and the demands of that role – pressing triggers, curved runs that funnel play inside, then explosive breaks into the half-space when Arsenal win possession back – map closely onto what Schade already does at Brentford.
The comparison with Gabriel Martinelli’s scouting profile is instructive here: Arsenal’s left-sided forward needs to combine directness in behind with genuine goal output, rather than simply providing width. Schade’s aerial threat adds a dimension neither Martinelli nor Trossard offered in quantity, which would matter to a side that leans heavily on set-piece aerial overloads.
The Retention Problem
The caveat sits in his dribbling efficiency rather than his attempts. Schade’s successful-dribble rate is only in the 31st percentile – he attempts 2.54 per 90, an 80th-percentile volume, but loses the ball more often than the elite dribblers in his positional group.
In a possession-heavy 4-3-3 where the left winger is expected to combine in tight triangles with the left-back and the No. 8, final-third giveaways carry real cost against sides that counter through the middle. That is a coaching problem rather than a talent ceiling – teaching a naturally vertical player to recognise when to hold the ball rather than force it – but it is the one part of his profile that would need active management rather than simple deployment.
Verdict
Schade is tied to Brentford until 2028, and the club have opened talks on a new long-term deal specifically to prevent this exact scenario from playing out. Arsenal’s need reads as sharper than Liverpool’s – Andoni Iraola’s side already have left-sided depth, whereas Arteta’s vacancy is structural and immediate – but Brentford, flying high and fourth in the table, have no obvious incentive to sell a player this central to their system unless the fee reflects it.
On the tactical evidence alone, Schade is a credible fit for Arteta’s left flank: the pressing profile, the vertical running, the aerial threat and the accelerating goal output all point that way. Whether Arsenal are willing to meet Brentford’s valuation, and whether Brentford are willing to sell at all while their own project is rising, is the more uncertain half of this story.
