Data Analysis: Recruiting from the second tier – Central Midfielders

This is the second part of a three-part series that I am currently writing looking at recruitment from the second tiers of the top 5 leagues. The premise of this series is that we have just joined a club who are looking to recruit for three key positions. In the first part of the series, we covered the central defenders, here we will look for central midfielders and the final part will see us look for a goalscorer. In order to do this we are using data to identify shortlists of players for each position that we will then look into in more depth. The data is extracted from Wyscout and is filtered to show only players that are 23 years old or younger and that have played at least 1500 minutes this season.

In terms of the players that we are looking for, we have been asked to identify potential targets for two roles within the centre of the midfield. The first is a player who can play as the ‘6’ at the base of the midfield but who can progress the ball cleanly through the thirds of the pitch. The second is a player to occupy more advanced areas as an ‘8’ who can carry the ball and create in the final third. The aim is to show you how we can read the same data sets to identify players with different skill sets that can match what we are looking for.

At the end of this data analysis, we should have a shortlist of five players that we have identified and provided more in-depth insight into. Those players would then go forward to be discussed and checked by other staff within the recruitment process.

The first steps

A lot of people ask how these pieces and the graphics within them are produced so we will take you behind the curtain to an extent. The data for each of the five leagues that we are looking at is extracted from Wyscout and then collated into a single spreadsheet. That spreadsheet can then be uploaded to Tableau public and we can manipulate the data set from there. That leads to the following.

The first check that we have is looking at players progressive passes per 90 and their passes to the final third per 90. There is a clear stand out player in Maxime D’Arpino, a 23-year-old ‘6’ who plays for US Orleans in the French second tier. D’Arpino is averaging 11.32 progressive passes and 11.93 passes to the final third per 90 minutes. Achieving this in a side that is struggling in extremely impressive. Next up we have Giacomo Calo, a 23-year-old who is playing for Juve Stabia in Serie B. he is currently on loan from Genoa. Calo is averaging 9.27 progressive passes per 90 minutes and 11.18 passes to the final third per 90. The third player that I have picked out from this data set is Pape Gueye, a 21-year-old currently playing at Le Havre in the French second tier. Gueye has already been linked to a move to Arsenal. Currently, Gueye is averaging 9.15 progressive passes and 10.52 passes to the final third per 90.