Salomón Rondón Scout Report At Newcastle United 2018/2019 – Tactical Analysis

Venezuelan football has grown exponentially during the last decade.

A country that was used to participating but not being competitive in World Cup qualifiers and Copa América has lately played a much more relevant role in those tournaments, recording a historic fourth place in the 2011 Copa América, which was held in Argentina.

Although the qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup held in Russia in 2018 showed poor performance, in 2017, the U-20 national team lost the World Cup final against England, which was their best historic result at the national level in any category.

A solid youth development plan, along with the discovery of very talented players, has allowed the Llaneros to be more competitive than ever before.

What started several years ago with Juan Arango or Salomón Rondón, has continued with good players showing up in European and American leagues as Rómulo Otero, Yangel Herrera or Adalberto Peñaranda.

Rondón was only 18 years old when he arrived in 2008 as a free transfer to UD Las Palmas, in Spain, and he has stayed in Europe since then.

After two good seasons at Málaga in La Liga under Manuel Pellegrini’s leadership, the club’s economic troubles took him to Russia, where he played for three seasons in Rubin Kazan and Zenit.

He was transferred to West Bromwich Albion in the 2015/2016 season and has stayed in the Premier League since then.

Last season, he was loaned to Newcastle United, where, according to Rafa Benítez, he was an “important player” and also won the club’s official Player of the Season award.

Although the club’s performance was not stellar, at St James Park, they are already doing the numbers to keep the Venezuelan permanently.

This tactical analysis will show the Venezuelan players strengths and weaknesses.

Teams like Wolves have also been reportedly interested in his services, and this should be one of the engaging histories during the transfer window.

Salomón Rondón Stats

Goals, goal chances, assists, duels, etc.

are statistics that have something in common.

They all usually show how players perform with or in relation to the ball, but they hardly evaluate how a player performs without it.

This is especially unfair to Rondon because probably his biggest strength is without the ball.

Strikers sometimes face unfair judgement; they can barely be in contact with the ball for a long time during a game, and suddenly, they may face a clear chance that, if missed, will not be easily forgotten.

With a height and weight of 186cm and 85kg, respectively, Rondón’s physical toughness is a key strength as a striker.

This physical condition also means he is less agile, and therefore, his strength is not in 1v1 duels with the ball under his control.

He averaged 2.49 dribbles last season at Newcastle with only a 62.1% success rate, compared to other strikers in the Premier League, such as Harry Kane, Sergio Agüero, or Liverpools Roberto Firmino, all of whom averaged at least 3.33 dribbles and 66.3% success in those.

Although it may sound unfair to compare Rondón to the top strikers in the Premier League, on teams that usually facilitate a strikers job, it is helpful to understand where he stands compared to what top players produce during a season.

His physical characteristics result in a player who usually plays in the final fourth of the pitch to receive goal kicks or long balls.

He is able to hold possession while receiving those passes or win aerial duels against defenders.

After that, he is usually closer to the goal area through the middle of the pitch, as a pure striker waiting for his opportunity to score or assist his teammates.

His success ratio in offensive duels is also low, 34% for last season, compared to 42% of Firmino, the lowest among the three players mentioned before, but higher than the 28.9% of Giroud at Chelsea, another strong but less agile player.

The reduced agility also results in more possession lost, with 15.62 average lost possession last season versus the 7-to-11 range of Firmino, Agüero, Kane and Giroud.

Regarding efficacy,