TFA’s 2025 Breakout XI: Laura Hughes At Melbourne City – Scouting Report

With her first-ever call-up to the Australian women’s national team occurring following the injury of Chloe Logarzo, Laura Hughes has finally earned the opportunity to represent her national team.

She also got picked for our Team of 2025, as we believe that Hughes will make her breakthrough in the coming period and shine further as a midfielder.

Knowing that she has the ability to perform excellently, whether with Melbourne City Women or another team, Hughes is also expected to move to a “bigger” club soon to gain more experience and challenge the best players in the world.

Hughes is a 23-year-old international Australian midfielder who has been putting on convincing performances lately and who is destined to become a top player in the years to come as she has all the abilities needed to succeed as a midfielder and perform at the highest level, especially if she gets the chance to join a team that helps her further in her development process.

Hughes started her footballing career in 2016 at Canberra United, where she stayed until 2023 and learned a lot at the Australian club, knowing that she also had a brief experience in Iceland with Þróttur in 2020 before returning to the A-League with Canberra United.

In 2023, Hughes joined Melbourne City and started impressing a lot of followers of the game thanks to her simple yet charismatic and efficient style of play, significantly impacting Melbourne City’s midfield and overall tactics.

She is a player who can be useful in defence and attack, as she has the ability to help in both phases with excellent defensive traits and reliable playmaking talent that allows her to dictate the game for her team and be central in starting most of their attacks.

In addition, Hughes is also a player who usually finishes actions with accuracy and can become an even more dangerous finisher, whether shooting from distance, coming from behind to collect second balls or finishing with headers.

In this tactical analysis and scout report on the Australian international, we will explore her main traits and abilities regarding playmaking, goalscoring and defending.

Moreover, the analysis will focus on Hughes’ possible positions and the roles that she can execute on the pitch. 

It will rely on data, statistics, and footage to be as objective as possible.

Laura Hughes’ Positions & Roles

Hughes is a midfielder who can occupy various midfield roles, whether as a ‘6’, ‘8’, or a ‘10’ since she has the needed traits for the three positions.

In other words, Hughes has the vision, the passing intelligence and the versatility needed to give her best, whether by playing in front of the defensive line or by playing behind the strikers.

Additionally, she has been accustomed to resisting opponents high pressing, providing passes under pressure while protecting the ball and knowing how to escape from the disturbance of her direct markers. 

Therefore, playing defensive midfielder in front of the defensive line might be her most suitable position for now, given that she is experienced in dealing with all the situations this position requires.

Nevertheless, as a non-aggressive and very defensive player, getting her out of her comfort zone and playing her up front behind the strikers is beneficial, especially if the team has a reliable replacement for the defensive midfielder. 

Playing as an advanced playmaker would suit Hughes well in the coming period. 

It would expose her playmaking and key passing abilities more consistently and allow her to aim at shooting more regularly.

Hughes is useful in any midfield role, with an average passing accuracy of 83.5%. 

However, it will be very important for her to work on improving her shooting accuracy and shooting on target rates since that would make the difference for her as it would be the “deciding point” for head coaches to know whether it would be worth it to opt for her as an attacking midfielder or as a defensive one.

That being said, Hughes has been winning 61% defensive duels and 40.9% aerial ones. 

She’s proven on numerous occasions that she could cover well and be useful in the defensive phase, which confirmed her as a central midfielder with mixed (attacking and defensive) roles.

In the following heatmap, we can clearly see Hughes’ movements on the pitch as she retreats frequently to help in the build-up phase and use short passes and sometimes long ones when needed to serve her attacking teammates.

Moreover, she positions herself inside the opponent’s first third most of the time, and that’s exactly where she can be very dangerous with key passes towards the box or the wings.

Laura Hughes Heatmap

With more movement towards the box, however, Hughes can become a much more dangerous player as she would be able to be at the receiving end of crosses and use her finishing abilities in favour of her team.

Laura Hughes Finishing Abilities

With 0.93 shots attempted per game and an average of 0.07 goals scored, Hughes still has a lot to prove regarding goalscoring and quality finishing.

At the same time, ap