TFA Daily: The next Moises Caicedo and more...
Good morning, analysis fans!
A slightly different newsletter for you today.
Of course, I’ll still point you in the direction of the excellent content that ran on the site yesterday - but alongside that, I’ve got some exclusive content for you that you can only get by being a member of our LinkedIn newsletter.
One of the tools we have developed behind the scenes is something we call xGOLD. The story of why we call it xGOLD is a play on words around the expected goals metric, xG. xGOLD is about finding expected gold in the numbers - hence xGOLD.
From a scouting point of view, the way xGOLD works is that if we know who the absolute ideal player in any given position is, we can run xGOLD to find players who match the data profile of the player in question. Our data wizard Sathish has done some clever stuff with the data and weightings to take into account a whole myriad of things and boom, a list of players magically appears.
Sounds familiar, right? Sure, there’s lots of tools on the market that can do that - we think the edge we have internally with xGOLD is that we are talking about finding players at any level of football where there is data. You want to uncover the new Haaland playing in the South Korean 2nd tier? I mean, doesn’t everyone? xGOLD can do that for you - it’s Gue-sung Cho of Gimcheon Sangmu, by the way.
We’ve used it successfully for several club clients now and it always brings up interesting results.
It’s also good fun from the content point of view - so today, I’ve used xGOLD to find me similar players to two who have already caught my eye in the Premier League this season.
Dejan Kulusevski was, for me, the best signing of the January transfer window. Yes, better than Luis Diaz at Liverpool. Don’t judge me.
I wondered if there might be any other Kulusevski’s hiding at what we consider the Tier 2 level (Championship, Eredivisie, Portugal Liga Nos, Turkey Super Lig, Argentina Superliga, Brazilian Serie A, Belgian First Division A).
The caveat and disclaimer here is that all these are 100% based on data only - there has been no video scouting. If these players were going into an actual pipeline for us with a club, we’d head off and watch them in detail to discover whether xGOLD is lying to us. It’s not perfect, it does sometimes.
xGOLD throws up these five players as the closest left-footed right wing matches playing in Tier 2 leagues.
I suspect most people already know who Antony is. He’s the Ajax player that Manchester United would like to buy. Wait, that doesn’t narrow it down. He’s the Ajax player that United haven’t bought yet. As you can see, he outperforms Kulusevski in many attacking areas - but as we know, doing well for Ajax doesn’t necessarily mean doing well in the Premier League, eh Lisandro? Donny, do you agree?
Johan Bakayoko was a new name for me - he’s a 19-year-old Belgian/Ivory Coast player who started in the academies of Leuven, Club Brugge, Anderlecht, Mechelen and then back to Anderlecht before moving into the PSV Jong set-up in 2019.
He started 28 times in the Dutch second tier last season and got a handful of minutes in PSV’s first team. This season, he has started both their Eredivisie matches and scored against Emmen.
Interesting data, that’s for sure. Probably one to watch grow over the next season or two.
Luiz Henrique must be able to play a bit given that Real Betis have splashed out €8m to take him from Fluminese this season. Of course he can, Caio did a scout report on him here.
Where Kulusevski has the edge on a few attacking areas, it will be interesting to see if Luiz Henrique can keep up those defensive levels in La Liga.
I will admit, Julian von Moos was not a player I was aware before xGOLD threw him out there. He joined Basel for just over €1m back in 2018 and had loans at FC Wil and Vitesse before Basel sold him to St Gallen in January 2022.
He started 13 times for them at the backend of last season and has started all 5 so far this season - and given he is still only 21, there could be a lot of growth here.
Yunus Akgun is a 22-year-old right winger at Galatasaray in Turkey - he spent last season on loan at Demispor. He started 31 times for them last season and has started both Gala games so far this season.
Again, the data suggests there is something interesting to follow here.
Let’s move on to our next player - someone tearing up the midfield for Brighton currently…
Moises Caicedo wasn’t signed by Manchester United as they felt the deal was a little too complicated for their tastes - much better to wait a year for Jadon Sancho and then not have a plan for him or chase Frenkie de Jong for a summer before flipping to any other available midfielder who might be better than Fred or McTominay.
United, of course, will regret that they didn’t persist - Brighton did and Caicedo dominated at Old Trafford and will, without doubt, go on to be their next Yves Bissoumo type that they will be able to move on for a big profit if they choose to.
But are there any others playing in a Tier 2 league that could be interesting signings?
xGOLD came up with this list - some new names to me on there.
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Middlesbrough nabbed Riley McGree from under the noses of Celtic and he’s gone on to be one of the best midfielders in the English Championship.?
A strong first half to the season and you could see him moving in January to an intelligent Premier League side - you could even see him as a Brighton type of signing.
If McGree can up those defensive outputs this season, he’ll be a great signing for someone.
Joao Gomes is a 21-year-old Brazilian who plays for Flamengo. 21-year-old Brazilians playing for teams in the Copa Libertadores are probably on many recruitment shortlists throughout England following Brexit and it is no surprise that Gomes is already being linked to Europe.
Rumours suggest he has turned down a new deal with Flamengo and stated his desire to play for Liverpool in the Premier League.
You can imagine their recruitment team is quite impressed with the defensive numbers, but he’s clearly very smart on the ball as well.
No, not that Ederson - though he’d probably like us to believe he could do a good job in the middle of the park for many Premier League sides.
This is the Ederson who moved from Corinthians in Brazil to Serie A’s Atalanta this summer.
His numbers don’t wow at this point, but Atalanta rarely make too many mistakes in the market so will be interesting to see how he develops.
I’ll hold my hands up and say I’d never heard of this Pepe. He joined Cuitaba in Brazil’s Serie A for under €500k in April 2021 and has played 70% of their minutes since.
He is GBE eligible (which means Premier League and Championship sides should be having a look).
Pepe is a little more attacking in nature than Caicedo which makes some of his numbers even more interesting, in my opinion.
Quentin Timber is a Dutch U21 midfielder who has just been snapped up by Feyenoord from Utrecht - around €7m, apparently.
He’s started both Eredivise matches and scored once - loves a progressive run and rarely loses a defensive duel. Another one to keep an eye on over the next few windows.
Come back tomorrow for two more players - one had a brief debut cameo in the Premier League at the weekend so it’ll be interesting to see who might be like him. The other, well I haven’t decided yet…
And what might you have missed on TFA already today?
Marcel Seifeddine headed over to Serie A for the opening weekend to check out reigning champs FC Internazionale Milano in their game against U.S. Lecce
Lee Scott was also focused on Italy, looking at how Jose Mourinho incorporated Paulo Dybala into his new-look AS Roma side in their 1-0 win
Underneath all the drama at Stamford Bridge, there was also some tactical stuff to unpack - Karim Shahine does that for you on Chelsea Football Club vs Tottenham Hotspur Football Club
FC Barcelona pulled more levers than a crazy monkey in a control room to register almost all of the players they signed this summer - and Jack Manship explains how it all came together, or didn't, in their 0-0 draw with Rayo Vallecano de Madrid, S.A.D
Then we have so much data viz and insight for you from some of the key games over the weekend.
Thanks for reading - back tomorrow!
Chris