West Bromwich Albion’s 19-year-old defender, Nathan Ferguson, has been making his rounds through the Championship rumour mill of late. A host of Premier League clubs including Tottenham Hotspur, coupled with the Spanish and Italian giants of Atletico Madrid and Juventus, are all reportedly keeping tabs on the young Englishman.
The 19-year-old is strong and quick; with fantastic vision to boot. For a right-footed defender, he is versatile, having featured for Slaven Bilic’s tactics in both full-back positions. Ferguson broke through to the Baggies’ first-team set-up at the beginning of this season, making his debut and grabbing an assist in their opening day, 2-1 victory over Nottingham Forest.
This scout report on Ferguson will break down the key areas and strengths of the Baggies’ youngster using analysis; whilst also highlighting an area of his game which the 19-year-old could improve upon.
Commanding aerial presence
Standing at five feet and 11 inches tall, Ferguson lends himself perfectly to multiple attributes which are key to being an effective full-back – where he has played the majority of this season. One of these key attributes is the 19-year-old’s commanding aerial presence. Despite being a sub-six-foot height, Ferguson uses his strength and leaping ability to be competitive in any aerial duel.
When defending set-pieces, Slaven Bilic sets the Baggies backline up with zonal marking. In Bilic’s zonal-marking vision, four players act as clearers – whose job it is to head the ball clear if towards the six-yard box – while the remaining defenders act as blockers to block the runs of attackers. This is opposed to man marking where each defender would be allocated an attacker to follow and clear the ball if it arrives near to them. As can be seen in the above annotation, Ferguson is one of Bilic’s four clearers – as marked by the red circle.
Here, the annotation again shows West Brom defending a set-piece in a recent game against Middlesbrough deploying Bilic’s zonal marking vision. With the delivery coming from the opposite side of the penalty area, Ferguson has switched sides as he always occupies the back post when zonally marking. Such is the Croatian’s trust in the 19-year-old’s aerial abilities, Ferguson is often deployed in this position from set-pieces – an area where he will be heavily relied upon to clear the ball.
