Pape Matar Sarr Scout Report At Tottenham Hotspur 2021/2022 – The Versatile 18 Year-Old Who ‘Will Go Very Far’ For Spurs

France’s Ligue 1 is the self-styled ‘League of Talents’.

The French top-flight lives up to this moniker by constantly producing and showcasing some of the best young talents in world football.

On the summer deadline day, 18-year-old Eduardo Camavinga, one of the most high-profile and exciting talents to come through French football’s youth system in recent years, departed from Rennes to join La Liga giants Real Madrid for €31m.

Another one of the premier talents currently on display in Ligue 1 is Pape Matar Sarr (184cm/6’0”, 70kg/154lbs) of Metz.

Tottenham Hotspur signed the 18-year-old midfielder for €16.9m/£15.21m in the last week of the transfer window, with Sarr being sent back to Metz on loan for the 2021/22 campaign.

The Senegalese teenager joined Metz last September from renowned Senegal-based academy Génération Foot.

While discussing Sarr earlier this year, Metz’s current academy manager and former manager of Génération Foot, Olivier Perrin, declared that Sarr “will go very far” in football based on what the teenager has shown during his time working with Perrin thus far.

As Perrin also explained, and as is evident from Sarr’s time at Metz, he has got a versatile skill set.

It’s normal for a young player to ply his trade in several roles before settling in a particular position.

Still, in this same interview from earlier this year, Perrin highlighted the midfielder’s versatility as one of his games biggest positives.

While in Génération Foot, Sarr was primarily a ‘number 10’, he has mainly played in deeper midfield roles with Metz  either as a ‘6’ or an ‘8’.

More recently, Sarr was even deployed as a left-winger for Metz.

In this tactical analysis and scout report, we provide some insight into what Spurs can expect from their new signing who is set to arrive at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for the 2022/23 season.

Our scout report analyses the key strengths and weaknesses in Sarr’s game using data and video analysis of his role in Metzs tactics.

We look at some notable traits within the teenager’s game and also explain where we believe the versatile midfielder may ultimately be best suited to playing as he progresses in his career.

Pape Matar Sarr Passing, movement, and dribbling abilities

Sarr has significant strengths and weaknesses on the ball.

Firstly, the 18-year-old doesn’t stand out a lot in terms of his passing.

Sarr performed pretty average across the board for passing metrics relative to other midfielders in Europe’s top five leagues for the last calendar year, including passes attempted, passes completed, passing distance, and progressive passes.

Per Wyscout, he didn’t play a lot of passes (48.32 per 90) on average last season, nor did he have a very impressive pass success percentage (86.7%).

However, both of these numbers depend on the team in which he plays and how possession-dominant they are—Metz is not very possession-dominant—as well as his particular role within that team.

For the most part, Sarr is a relatively safe passer.

He doesn’t break lines with his passing a lot, and tends to play a relatively large number of backwards and lateral passes, with a relatively low number of forward passes by comparison.

However, Sarr does switch play quite a lot.

He loves to attract pressure via his dribbling before switching play to a player who’s enjoying plenty of space partly because of his dribbling.

Per FBRef, Sarr ranks in the 80th percentile for switches relative to midfielders in Europe’s top five leagues in the last calendar year, playing 2.4 per 90 in that time.

Sarr will also play through balls to free up players closer to him when the opportunity presents itself after he attracts pressure and creates space for others via a dribble, though he does this relatively rarely compared to how often he switches play.

Again, Sarr isn’t a big risk-taker in general in terms of his passing, with the vast majority of his passes being safer.

Still, you can expect him to play riskier passes like these after attracting pressure on occasion, which is largely why his pass success rate isn’t stellar despite playing a large number of fairly safe passes.

The Metz midfielder played 6.05 progressive passes per 90 last season with 69.03% progressive pass accuracy.

Neither of these numbers ranks particularly highly amongst Ligue 1’s central midfielders, highlighting that Sarr, at present, isn’t one to contribute much in breaking the first/second line of pressure during build-up via his passing.

He also ranks in the 54th percentile among midfielders from the top five leagues for progressive passing over the last calendar year, which is fairly average.

His passing ability isn’t really at the level required right now for him to play the role of a deep passer in build-up, breaking lines with his passing and accurately finding teammates in more dangerous spaces ahead of him.

However, Sarr performs very well as a progressive ball carrier, which may be a more suitable role for him in terms of ball progression.

The Senegal international made an impressive 2.52 progressive runs per 90 in Ligue 1 last season, which ranks highly in this particular metric.

Additionally, Sarr ranks in the 89th percentile for progressive carries and the 93rd percentile for progressive carrying distance.

The midfielder loves to receive the ball and drive upfield with it on his own, taking on opposition players and trying to beat them 1v1.

He is a strong dribbler with a fairly unique technique, which we’ll examine later in this tactical analysis piece.

If Sarr receives the ball deep, expect him to try to dribble it past opposition players and upfield on his own rather than look to make a progressive pass.

In the ball progression phase, his carrying ability exceeds his passing ability, and he tends to be more successful when trying to progress play like this.

In figure 1, we see an example of Sarr occupying the left central midfield position during the build-up as Metz play the ball past the first line of pressure from the centre-backs into central midfield.

Just before this image, Sarr dropped and shifted slightly wider to find space and make himself available to the centre-back for this pass.

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