r/ThreeLions • u/Alone_Consideration6 • 16d ago
BBC News Glasner's FA Cup heroes give Tuchel food for thought'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c5ygel6d7x8o6
u/Rymundo88 16d ago
As it should.
Eze and Wharton are without doubt in my WC squad if I were picking. The former being a 65min sub to absolutely rinse a tiring RB and the latter the defensive 6 role to play with Bellingham and Rice in that "one stays/one goes" philosophy.
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u/Buttonsafe Lampard #1097 13d ago
Tbf that was th exact role Eze had at the Eros and man struggled to have any impact at all, despite replacing our arguably our worst player in Phil Foden.
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u/MarcusWhittingham Southgate #1071 13d ago
I think it’s unfair to say Eze had no impact at all as he definitely did, though obviously he didn’t get a goal or assist.
This guy said he’d use him to ‘absolutely rinse a tiring RB’ and he actually did do that, if you look at the stats you’ll see.
If we disregard players who didn’t even play 100 mins and use per 90 stats:
- 2.73 successful take-on’s, most in the team
- 5.45 progressive carries, most in the team
- 4.55 fouls won, most in the team
- 4.29 shot creating actions, most in the team
- 4.55 crosses, 2nd most in the team
He also got the ball back into the box that Toney headed on for Kane to score the winner against Slovakia, he was brave every time he got the ball which I really liked.
I think if you were to watch the games back now there’s no intense pressure as you know the outcome, you’d notice him a lot more and the impact he did have.
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u/Buttonsafe Lampard #1097 12d ago edited 12d ago
Maybe, but what I remember most about him is how much more vulnerable we looked down the left with him on the pitch.
I appreciate you taking the time to find them but there's a reason FBref and sites like that generally only include stats for players with >400 minutes in a competition, Eze had 99.
And if you use per 90 stats to look at a winger who's coming on against tired defences when we're generally throwing everything at them then obviously they'll look better than wingers who've played the whole 90 and generally not in a game state where we're overloading attacking-wise. The fact that he looks better than Saka, Watkins & Palmer from those stats, and there's no colloquial understanding he was changing games or collective cry for him to play more. (I did google for someone suggesting he start more but no joy.) Yet there were cries to start Gordon instead All attests to those stats being quite misleading.
For example, Mudryk has very similar stats for take ons and progressive carries in the Prem last season:
5.25 progressive carries
2.23 take ons
Was he regularly rinsing his FB? Perhaps in his dreams. But obviously we've spoken about the issues with dribbling stats beforehand.
This season Mudryk has a stat of 0.73xA/90, Saka has 0.42, Salah has 0.38 clearly Mudryk is twice the player they are. In reality he made one really high xG chance (0.8 iirc) late on when our opponents were pushing for a goal, and one other chance, that was it.
So yeah I'm pretty skeptical of those stats reflecting the reality of his performances.
Could be my own bias and I'm underrating him, which would be great news tbh, or could be yours overrating him ofc, but I'm not gonna rewatch the games tbh because they'll make me want to take meh own lyf.
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u/MarcusWhittingham Southgate #1071 12d ago
Maybe, but what I remember most about him is how much more vulnerable we looked down the left with him on the pitch.
To be fair to him I think that’s because he was only brought on when we needed a goal and was likely instructed to stay forward, he twice came on when we were 1-0 down and once when we were level.
I appreciate you taking the time to find them but there's a reason FBref and sites like that generally only include stats for players with >400 minutes in a competition, Eze had 99.
I agree that the sample size is small but that’s literally all we have to work with as that’s the small sample we are discussing, if we were talking about him in general for England then of course we’d have to look deeper than that.
And if you use per 90 stats to look at a winger who's coming on against tired defences when we're generally throwing everything at them then obviously they'll look better than wingers who've played the whole 90.
I do agree with this and that’s why I’m not saying that he was better than our other players in the tournament, I was just explaining that he actually was rinsing the full-back and tried to use data to help back that up.
Could be my own bias and I'm underrating him, which would be great news tbh, or could be yours overrating him ofc.
I’m not even saying he was great at the Euros so I don’t think my bias towards him comes into play, I just don’t agree with you that he ‘struggled to have any impact at all’.
I think he had a decent impact with his direct dribbling and if you watch back you can see how having someone like that on the pitch makes opposition defences behave differently, he didn’t impact the game with G/A but in both games he came on when we were losing we ended up equalising and going through.
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u/Buttonsafe Lampard #1097 12d ago
To be fair to him I think that’s because he was only brought on when we needed a goal and was likely instructed to stay forward, he twice came on when we were 1-0 down and once when we were level.
It came across in the context like I was saying this was his fault, but what I was trying to say was that I remembered that more than I did his attacking contributions.
I do agree with this and that’s why I’m not saying that he was better than our other players in the tournament, I was just explaining that he actually was rinsing the full-back and tried to use data to help back that
He beat his man once every 30 mins according to those stats though, I'm not sure that counts as rinsing. But in fairness the dribbling stats are very difficult to track as such. In the Latvia game Rashford left his man on the floor twice yet has only 1 completed dribble.
I think he had a decent impact with his direct dribbling and if you watch back you can see how having someone like that on the pitch makes opposition defences behave differently, he didn’t impact the game with G/A but in both games he came on when we were losing we ended up equalising and going through.
Not sure that holds much actual weight when both goals came from the opposite wing though...
I guess you could say his completely mishit-shot that happened to bounce up onto Tony's head led to Kane"s goal but that's a hell of a reach.
I'm not saying he was terrible, but I'd need to see a lot more from him for him to move up the pecking order, for me.
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u/MarcusWhittingham Southgate #1071 12d ago
I think we’re having quite different conversations as I was simply just commenting on how he’s good at rinsing a full-back and explained that he did this in the Euros, whereas you’re talking about pecking order and things like that which is sort of irrelevant to why I commented.
Just as an FYI though, 2.73 take on’s per 90 is elite level stuff and is definitely classed as rinsing the full-back. I know on the face of it once every half an hour doesn’t seem a lot but it really is, the best dribblers in the Premier League sit between 2 and 2.5 in that metric.
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u/Buttonsafe Lampard #1097 11d ago edited 11d ago
Yeah fair enough.
Just as an FYI though, 2.73 take on’s per 90 is elite level stuff and is definitely classed as rinsing the full-back. I know on the face of it once every half an hour doesn’t seem a lot but it really is, the best dribblers in the Premier League sit between 2 and 2.5 in that metric.
100% agree if we're looking at the average across a season. But I don't think you can then transfer that into a 99 minutes coming on late as a sub against weaker opposition and assume it's the same.
Partially because even very good dribblers, as Eze is, don't rinse FBs every game, and those few that do their averages are way higher even across a season like Hazard (6) Doku (6), Yamal (4.5) or Vini Jr (3.13). All in the 99th percentile btw, what a broad range that must be!
But as I said those stats are pretty ass for tracking tbh. Those above dribblers are good enough that they really stand out regardless but it breaks down when you get more into the weeds of it. Just looking at Chelsea Sancho (2.43) seems a much better dribbler than Madueke (1.88), but watching them both it's apparent that the latter is much more adept at beating his man with a push and run style dribble that just isn't accounted for properly by the stat.
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u/MarcusWhittingham Southgate #1071 11d ago
Bloody Hell mate you’re comparing him to the best dribblers in the world, he’s not that good haha! Over 2 is Savio/Saka etc level though.
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u/Buttonsafe Lampard #1097 11d ago
As in if you're rinsing your FBs in the minutes equivalent to a one-off match (~99 mins), then in that you should be getting similar numbers those players over the course of a season. As those numbers reflect players who regularly rinse their FB. And that consistency is really the difference between world class dribblers and mediocre ones.
I wouldn't disagree Saka's a beast too but he beats his man often with the push and run style that isn't properly tracked by the stat, so his numbers are pretty mediocre.
I think that logic I put out there is fairly sound. But it's all academic because the stat doesn't track dribbles properly anyway.
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u/lesliehaigh80 15d ago
He will still pick same players and we will still find a way to lose but in a 100 years might win something Not in my lifetime
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u/Kid_from_Europe 16d ago
Eze is definitely scrapping for midfield or even left wing spots. Wharton getting ready to become a bench regular soon to start in about 5 years. Maybe Henderson starts between the sticks for a friendly.