Arsenal In Partey Mood, But For How Long? Cherki's Crisis & More...
In this edition of 'Revamp The Game': Jack presents a worrying issue for Arsenal. Kieran previews the Women's UCL Draw. A Belgian Pro-League midfield watch & Alex returns for a 'one to watch'.
#004
Edition 4 is here! With club football back there’s no place better to get your weekly football fix. Jack will focus on Arsenal’s midfield depth and their reliance on Thomas Partey. The Euro Expert will comment on Rayan Cherki’s struggles. Kieran previews the much anticipated 2022/23 Uefa Women’s Champions League. Finally, Ben takes a statistical look at the Belgian Pro League Central Midfielders.
Rayan Cherki. Has He Still Got It?
Alex Barker (Euro Expert)
On Sunday evening, I tuned into watch Lens vs Lyon in Ligue 1.
It ended up being Lyon's fourth straight defeat under Peter Bosz, in his second season in charge at the Groupama stadium. He's under serious pressure to get a team featuring Malo Gusto, Moussa Dembele, Houssam Aouar and more firing.
But, more notably, what the hell is happening to Rayan Cherki?
Still just 19 years old (he only hit that age in August!), Cherki has long been earmarked as a Messi-level talent. He made his debut for Lyon aged 16, and every year since has looked beyond exciting, and has been someone I keep telling people to watch French football for.
A phenomenal dribbler, Cherki glides past players like its nothing. His little minutes skew the statistics, but the site FBREF suggests Cherki is completely more dribbles p90 87% of big-five league attackers, and more progressive carries (moving the ball 10 yards to goal) than 99%.
So when the Frenchman was given a rare starting spot under Bosz at attacking midfield, I brought myself to shut off Fifa 23 and pay attention. He had just come off a great break with the French U21s, and already has three assists this season.
On Sunday night though, he was worryingly absent from the game. Now I still think Cherki is going to be a UCL level attacker, and quite possibly one of the best around. What we thought he was though, a potential Mbappe, a Messi level talent, seems more like a dream than reality.
Even last season, Cherki hit just one assist in 16 (small) appearances. He hasn't scored a league goal for Lyon since the 20/21 season.
Is it an overreaction to say the youngster is failing? Yes. However, he isn't where we thought he would be, even with a promising start to the season. Hopefully, Cherki makes Sunday night against Lens a distant memory in an extraordinary career, because the talent is most certainly there.
(Above is a compilation of Rayan Cherki and his easy on the eye footballing ability.)
Alex Barker (Euro Expert)
Arsenal Triumph Over Spurs But Will The Party Stop When Partey Stops Playing?
Jack Abela
Arsenal's blistering start to the season continued with a fanatic win over their North London rivals, beating Tottenham Hotspur 3-1 at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
The Gunners have won seven out of their opening eight games and are sitting on top of the Premier League table but beware, they have Manchester City and Erling Braut Haaland breathing fire down their neck.
Arsenal's only loss this season came away at Old Trafford against a fairly poor Manchester United side. The difference? Thomas Partey. They have looked a different team with the Ghanaian in midfield, controlling the game and allowing Martin Ødegaard and Granit Xhaka to push high up the pitch. No point typifies this more than Xhaka's sublime form this season. The Swiss international has netted a somewhat surprising two goals and three assists in 8 games this season.
This new role for Xhaka is only exercised when Partey is fit and available. The African maestro was unavailable against United and with his injury record of late, Arsenal are at risk of slipping if he was to suffer another setback.
So, What Can The Gunners Do?
With the January window fast approaching, earlier than normal due to the World Cup in Qatar, Edu must surely be seeking more depth in that position.
The Gunners attempted a late swoop for Aston Villa's number six, Douglas Luiz, but their bids of around 20-25m were all rejected on deadline day.
Now the North London side have just Lokonga, a talented but inexperienced and less imposing figure to cover for Partey. Mohomed Elneny has also suffered a hamstring injury, leaving him unavailable to step in as well.
Who could Arsenal look to sign in the January window?
Douglas Luiz - Arsenal could go back in for the Villa player. Edu has made his preference quite clear when it comes to Brazilian players, signing seven of them already since his reign began.
Another Brazilian on the radar is Palmeiras youngster Danilo. The player was not available this summer but could well be in January for a decent fee. The player also fits the age profile of the Gunners' young squad and could be the perfect fit to step in during Partey's inevitable injury this campaign.
Do let us know where or if you feel Arsenal need to strengthen and who may be of interest.
Jack Abela
Ben’s Belgian Pro League Profiling…
Ben Griffis
Profiling Belgian Pro League Central Midfielders’ Styles After 10 Matches…
The 2022/23 season of Belgian Pro League is now well and truly underway. After 10 rounds, Royal Antwerp lead the league with 27 points (they won 9 straight before losing to Kotrijk this weekend).
10 matches, 900 minutes of football, is a good point to start checking in on some player performance metrics. So, in this week’s piece, I’ll be using several key central midfielder metrics to show the rough playing styles for all CMs with at least 450 minutes played—half the season.
Ternary plots, which are triangles with one stat at each corner, are useful to see how balanced a player’s performance is across three areas. Ternaries are best used for seeing styles rather than “better” or “worse” performances. The location of a player, i.e., how close they are to the centre of the triangle, one of the lines, or one of the corners, tells us their rough playing profile.
For a midfielder, I’ll combine several individual metrics to create three areas, Defence, Progression and Attack. Defence includes tackles, interceptions, and shot blocks (all adjusted for possession). Progression includes progressive carries and progressive passes per 90’, and Attack includes non-penalty expected goals (xG) and expected assists (xA) per 90’.
These metrics are combined and then percentile-ranked against all other players who appear in the chart. The level and balance of their three percentile rankings in defence, progression, and attack determine their placement on the chart. For example, a player who ranked 100th percentile in defence but 0 in attack and progression would be perfectly in the defence corner. A player with 80th percentile attack and progression but 0 percentile defence would be in the middle of the line between attack and progression.
Finally, if all three of a player’s percentile rankings are equal (doesn’t matter if they are all 0 percentile or 100th percentile), that player would be perfectly in the middle, as they perform all three duties similarly.
The colours in this plot denote the players’ total score, between 0 and 300, which is the sum of all three percentiles for defence, progression, and attack.
Rob Schoofs of Mechelen appears to be the most balanced CM at this time. He also records the 7th-highest total score (200), giving us further insight into him as a relatively balanced and relatively high-performing CM this season compared to the rest of the league.
Standard Liège’s William Balikwisha (brother of Antwerp’s Michel-Ange) records the highest total score (234.5) and has a very similar profile to Schoofs—he can do it all.
Charleroi’s Adem Zorgane and Antwerp’s Koji Miyoshi record the second-highest total scores (227.8), but we can see their different styles as well. Zorgane is a little more progression-minded than Miyoshi, while Miyoshi is a bit more attack-minded.
We see players all over this chart, but we also especially notice the glob of players that are incredibly attack- and progression-minded, like Radja Nainggolan, Mike Trésor, and Hans Vanaken.
Overall, ternary charts can be very useful for using data to see what players are performing what roles for their clubs. While they are not the best tool for finding the “best” performing players, they can also give us some insight into that as well. We see here that players like Balikwisha, Zorgane, and Miyoshi are some of the best midfielders in the league while also being fairly well-balanced. All three of these players are 25 or younger as well, so they might be ones to keep an eye out for in the future.
Ben Griffis
UEFA Women’s Champions League group stage breakdown
Kieran Roy
After a fantastic summer of women’s football in Europe, their respective club campaigns are beginning to fly into full swing. The draw for the Champions League groups comes much later than the men’s game nonetheless it promises some fantastic matches and stellar competition. Here is a breakdown of the games to come:
GROUP A
Chelsea
PSG
Real Madrid
Vllaznia
The proverbial group of death. English Champions Chelsea square up against French and Spanish Giants, PSG, and Real Madrid. Chelsea struggled in Europe last season, not even making it out of the group stages, and Emma Hayes’ side face a difficult challenge again this year. PSG have started the year well, unbeaten in four and sitting in 2nd place of the French league. Madrid too, have sprung out of the starting gates, winning both of their opening two league games. Be careful not to underestimate underdogs Vllaznia, the Albanian side went unbeaten in their league campaign last year, scoring 162 goals and conceding only two.
Predicted winners: PSG
One to watch: Vllaznia
GROUP B
Wolfsburg
Slavia Praha
St. Pölten
Roma
German Women footballing giants Wolfsburg will be licking their lips as they were drawn in what can only be seen as a favourable group. The German champions, who finished as semi-finalists last year, have won three out of three so far this season and will fancy themselves against seemingly inferior opponents. Slavia Praha and St Pölten sit top of their respective Czech and Austrian leagues this year after five games played and will be sure to put up a fight for 2nd place and qualification. Italian runners up last season, Roma, meanwhile, will be hoping they can battle through the group stages behind Wolfsburg.
Predicted winners: Wolfsburg
One to watch: Roma
GROUP C
Lyon
Arsenal
Juventus
Zürich
England’s only Women’s team to have won a Champions League will have it all to do, as they face eight-time winners, holding champions, and footballing giants, Olympique Lyonnais. The French side have won the competition eight times out of the last thirteen years and beat Barcelona 3-1 last season to become Champions once again. Arsenal, who won the trophy in 2007, will likely face a battle for 2nd place against last year’s Italian and Swiss champions, Juventus and Zürich. The Italian side are unbeaten so far this season, scoring 14 and conceding four in five games.
Predicted winners: Lyon
One to watch: Juventus
GROUP D
Barcelona
Bayern Munich
Rosengård
Benfica
Last season’s losing finalists Barcelona, will be hoping the signings they have made over the summer will propel them to reclaim the Champions League trophy as they did for the first time in 2021. A double swoop for Manchester City and England’s Lucy Bronze and Keira Walsh has bolstered the squad, and the Spanish giants sit top of their league, scoring 13 and conceding only one in three games. Last year’s German runners up, Bayern Munich, will face stiff competition in their battle to qualify from the group. 12-time Swedish champions, Rosengård qualified for the competition after beating Norwegian side, Brann, 4-2 on aggregate in a play-off for the Champions League spot. Making up the group is Portuguese champions, Benfica, who last year won the league after going unbeaten in their 14 games, winning 13 of them.
Predicted winners: Barcelona
One to watch: Benfica
Kieran Roy (No Link Sadly, Twitter got him.)
Ömer’s Outro:
Ömer Çayir
A big thank you to our creators today, especially Kieran for producing our first ever piece focused solely on women’s football. I’m sure I can speak on behalf of the many people who were charmed by the success of the England Women’s Football Team at Euro 2022 and are keen to learn more about women’s football. As someone with a family connection to the women’s game, I feel a great sense of hope and pride at the continued exposure of it to the larger and more global footballing eye. I encourage you all to take real notice of the club season this year and attend any women’s fixtures you possibly can. For far too long there has been a stigma and negative exposure to the women’s game, with viral ‘fail’ clips increasing the disgustingly toxic approach to the women’s game by many men. So, after a summer of English footballing triumph, we at Revamp The Game want to push our own exposure and attention to women’s football.
Furthermore, I would like to update you all on future endeavours for Revamp The Game. After 3 successful newsletters, we will be adding to our highly talented stable of writers in order to pump out more regular content. Stay tuned by following us on Twitter: @RevampTheGame
Hope you enjoyed this week’s read :)