Marcus Thuram is a 21-year-old winger from France who joined Borussia Mönchengladbach this summer for a reported fee of £8.1 million. Last season he was among the most important players of his former club, Guingamp, who were relegated from Ligue 1 last season.
Besides Stefan Lainer and Breel Emboli, hes the third big signing of Gladbach in this transfer window and should replace Thorgan Hazard who joined Dortmund. This tactical analysis in the form of a scout report will examine the strengths and weaknesses of the young Frenchman.
Positioning and movement
Thuram usually plays on the left wing and positions wide to provide width for his team. He likes to receive the ball in the wide areas and mostly starts to dribble from this position or tries to find a teammate with a pass.
The young winger positions himself, most of the time, near the touchline to create some distance between himself and the opposing full-back. As his heatmap below shows us exactly this since the space near the touchline is red, we also see two additional things. Firstly, the Frenchman also shifts in sometimes higher up the pitch, as we will discuss later in this paragraph. Secondly, he’s not in his own half very often. This will be examined later in this analysis when we come to his defensive abilities.
The young winger often uses his acceleration and pace to make horizontal runs which are hard to defend for the opposition. These movements are not easy to defend for the oppositions defenders since they need to communicate with one and another who should follow him. Unusually, the according full-back follows him and so the centre-backs would have to mark him. However, this requires good communication and quick decision-making by the opponents. In the example below, Thuram receives a great through ball after a horizontal run and nobody really follows him due to a lack of organisation. The winger uses this chance to score.
Although, the young Frenchman doesn’t just make horizontal runs to receive through passes. He also uses this movement to create space for his full-back who pushes forward. Last season it was mostly his teammate Pedro Rebocho who was the left-back who supported him on the left wing. Thuram often shifted in to position in the half-spaces to avoid himself and Rebocho occupying the same zone on the wing.
