Should we buy: Youri Tielemans

Setting the Scene

With Arteta having reduced the bulk of the squad since his arrival and replacing it with players who can add a lot to the team, it is important to provide cover and depth to the squad so that we do not suffer from a drop in quality when some players are lacking fitness or have injury troubles.

This transfer window there have already been many signings to aid in this new squad strategy- Gabriel Jesus will be a frequent starter, Fabio Vieira can provide good cover for Martin Ødegaard or provide a rotation option for the Norwegein and in the same vein, Zinchenko can do this for Tierney. The return of Saliba from loan will [hopefully] improve the quality and depth at centre back, but Arsenal are still lacking cover in central midfield.

Currently, the 5 choices for central midfield are: Granit Xhaka, Thomas Partey, Sambi Lakonga, Mohammed Elneny and Ainsley Maitland-Niles. There is uncertainty regarding the future of Maitland-Niles and Sambi Lakonga is yet to fully find his feet at the club. Arsenal are therefore in need of another central midfielder.

As Arteta has changed the way Granit Xhaka plays, allowing him to drift further up the pitch and fill in a half-space, the choices of players he can rotate with are reduced as none of the other central midfielders are strong in attack. Arsenal need to bring someone in to provide cover or challenge for Xhaka's place in the team.

Currently, there are many rumours suggesting that Arsenal are looking into Leicester City's Belgian 25-year-old- Youri Tielemans. With 1 year left on his contract, Arsenal can be looking at securing him for a relatively cheap price as Leicester should be looking to cash in on him before he is able to leave for free at the end of the season. But just how good and how similar is he as a replacement for Xhaka?

Comparison with Xhaka

In order to understand why Arsenal are interested in Tielemans, it's necessary to understand the man he is replacing- Granit Xhaka.

Xhaka vs midfielders in Europes top-5 leagues

Last season, Xhaka started to play in a more advanced role than he previously had. This culminated in him pushing up into the central left half-space, around the edge of the penalty area, and providing an outlet for good ball rotation in and around the penalty area.

Taking a look at how he compares to other central midfielders in Europe's top-5 leagues, it is clear that Xhaka excels in two main areas- shot-creating actions and progressive passing (passes that move the ball closer to the opposition goal).

Playing in a more advanced role suggests that the two stats come hand-in-hand since playing progressive passes higher up the pitch has a greater chance of providing a shooting opportunity than progressive passes from a deeper position.

Tielemans vs midfielders in Europes top-5 leagues

Looking at Tielemans from last season we can see that he is also proficient in shot creating actions and progressive passes. He falls just outside of the top 10% of central midfielders (in Europe's top-5 leagues) for progressive passes and is in the top 15% for shot-creating actions.

Additionally, Tielemans is also a key performer in terms of goals and assists. He performed roughly in line with his expected assists (xA) and his non-penalty expected goals (npxG), providing a greater contribution in both areas for Leicester last season despite his club having 33% less shots and an npxG 9.5% lower than that of Arsenal's.

At a glance, Youri Tielemans appears to have what is needed of him if he were to play in Xhaka's role, whilst potentially offering more.

Significance of the KPI's and what it says about the player

As previously mentioned, the key stats Xhaka displays are his progressive passes and shot-creating actions. This is especially important in his position as he is not expected to be providing shooting chances through crosses as a winger or full-back might, nor is he expected to provide a high amount of shooting opportunities with a low progressive passing level as this would imply that he operates as more of an attacking midfielder. This is because attacking midfielders, like Ødegaard, are expected to provide shooting opportunities whilst in and around the penalty area, playing their passes backwards or sideways with a higher frequency than that of an advanced central midfielder like Xhaka.

Below is a scatter chart showing chance creation efficiency which should paint a better picture of this- although there are a few outliers too. It has been referred to as chance creation efficiency as it displays (per 90 minutes) how far a player has to play forward passes in order for those passes to result in a shot. The efficiency of a player's chance creation can be defined here as: Shot Creating Actions (per 90minutes) ÷ Total Progressive Passing Distance (per 90minutes).

The players in this chart fit the following criteria:

1. Player is between 21-30 years old.

2. The player must be predominantly a central midfielder and not a winger or defender who has played in central midfield.

3. Player is in the Premier League

4. Player must have played at least nineteen 90 minutes as this means they have played over half of the available playing time for their club in the 21/22 Premier League season.

The units used for the distance on the x-axis is yards. The thin grey lines represent the average values for the players represented for both KPI's.

Key findings:

1. The highest efficiency players in this chart are, in order: Joe Willock, Martin Ødegaard and Kevin De Bruyne. However, Joe Willock does not provide a lot of shooting opportunities and is likely to be the most efficient in this measurement as he plays a very low total progressive passing distance per 90 minutes.

2. Kevin De Bruyne is a phenomenally efficient player and the only central midfielder represented to achieve more than 5 shooting chances per 90. Even including players not represented, he is the best at creating shooting chances in the league with Jack Grealish trailing him by almost 10%.

3. Looking at the 3 Arsenal players represented gives you an idea of where certain positions or play-styles fit on the chart. More attacking focussed midfielders fall into the upper-left quadrant, with Martin Ødegaard and Conor Gallagher, however, players like Gündoğan and Dewsbury-Hall are more left shifted potentially due to the quality of forwards in their teams, such as Jamie Vardy for Leicester.

4. Additionally, the bottom left quadrant represents players who aren't necessarily creative players but are players who keep their teams ticking with more sideways or backwards passes.

5. In the bottom right quadrant are the more defensive or deep-lying midfielders who are not as responsible for creating shooting opportunities but play a lot of forward passes as they aid their team with transitions and are frequently relied upon for beginning attacking phases of play with forward passes, such as Rodri and Neves.

6. In the upper-right quadrant, we see where the more advanced central midfielder such as Xhaka, Tielemans and De Bruyne lie. In the way measured here, it becomes apparent how similar Xhaka and Tielemans are as central midfielders in their passing style, both creating around 3 shooting opportunities. per 90 minutes and with a total progressive passing distance of around 250 yards. Taking their average number of completed passes per 90 minutes into account too, both players have an average completed passing distance (towards goal) of around 5 yards. For comparison, De Bruyne falls somewhere in the middle of Xhaka and Tielemans for this statistic, whilst Ødegaard and Partey have an average complete passing distance (towards goal) of 4 yards and 4.6 yards respectively.

Is he worth it?

The two criteria needed to answer this question are the player's quality and the player's cost. Tieleman's signed for Leicester in 2019 for £40.5m and has since been a regular first-team player for the club, making at least 30 appearances each season since he signed for the club permanently. With Arsenal reportedly being able to sign him for a fee of £25m, it is very difficult to argue that he is not worth that price-tag, especially for a 25-year-old in the Premier League. With one year left on his contract, the buying club would hold most of the cards in a transfer fee negotiation.

In terms of his quality and likeness to Granit Xhaka, Tielemans fits the bill very well, performing to a very similar standard to the Swiss international in the same important criteria. Not only is he an advanced midfielder capable of creating shooting opportunities, but said opportunities could be perceived as higher xG chances given his higher xA and assists compared to Xhaka. He also offers another capability that Xhaka is missing- a goalscoring threat; He has more than double the non-penalty expected goals per 90 minutes than Xhaka (0.04 compared to 0.1) and has a tendency to take more shots than not just Xhaka, but 95% of all central midfielders in Europe's top-5 leagues.

Overall, I would say that Tielemans represents excellent value for money and would offer a fantastic rotation option and cover for Granit Xhaka who was instrumental for Arsenal in the 21/22 season. Arsenal should definitely not waste the opportunity to sign him as he would be a valuable asset to every club in the Premier League and could end up being the preferred choice over Xhaka.