At the moment, Barcelona are still a wounded giant struggling to keep up with the competitiveness of La Liga. Ronald Koeman has a difficult job of getting them back to winning ways but that task is easier said than done.
However, despite the new coach restoring some of that faith in the youth, as seen from the resurgence of both Ansu Fati and Pedri, some other young talents haven’t been as lucky. Riqui Puig, for example, has been cast away by the Dutchman and has been unable to regain a spot in the team so far.
For a talent that Cesc Fabregas said could ‘become like Iniesta’ if given enough trust in the interview with RAC1 (via Tribuna), this is quite surprising, to say the least. But does the youngster deserve more than he’s currently getting by the new coach and could he be the solution to Koeman’s crisis?
This tactical analysis will aim to answer that question by looking at Puig’s traits and through analysis in a scout report, see how they could aid Barcelona’s tactics in their battle against Real Madrid and co.
Identifying the problem & the solution
At the moment of writing, Barcelona are sitting fifth in La Liga table with league leaders Atlético Madrid 10 points ahead of them and with a game in hand. For a team of the Blaugrana’s stature, this is a weird position to be in. However, when it comes to the very core of their problems, that lies in poor finishing.
Barcelona lead the Spanish top-flight in terms of expected goals with 33.8 after 16 games but have only managed to score 27. This means they are heavily underperforming and are lacking lethality in front of goal. Similarly, they lead the line in shot-creating actions (28.53 per 90) and are second in goal-creating actions (2.67 per 90). According to the data, creation is not as big of a problem, finishing is.
Having lost Luis Suárez to Atlético Madrid, never replacing him properly, and Antoine Griezmann not filling in his shoes adequately, Barcelona are suffering in front of goal. But the issue is that apart from the obvious, albeit at times diminished, presence of Lionel Messi, the Catalans lack any real goal threats in the team. So how does Puig solve this issue?
The young midfielder is not a big goal threat by his sheer presence but does seem to have a unique player profile that could further boost Barcelona’s chances. Below is a graph that involves the whole squad with their stats for the last calendar year. The reasons we’ve gone with the calendar year as opposed to 2020/21 is because it gives us a much bigger sample to analyse.
Above is a graph that depicts Barcelona’s best passers into the danger area (final third + penalty area) as well as players who deploy the most second and third assists per 90 minutes. We can see that alongside Messi and Philippe Coutinho, Puig, and intriguingly Carles Aleñá, are the only players to feature in the top right quadrant, meaning they excel in both categories.
We can instantly see that Barcelona lack that type of a player, especially in midfield, who is heavily involved in the creation but also assists the build-up as much as Puig does, for example. This is then further cemented by the following graph you can see down below.
