Midfielders are next up. If you are looking for another of the other positions or the overall team stat reports, please follow the below links:
Attacking Midfielders and Strikers
It seems to be a running theme that Forest have used 6 players per main type of position, and midfield is no different (in order of game time): Mangala, Yates, Dominguez, Sangare, Danilo and Kouyate. Kouyate has clocked up 2.3 games worth of minutes, and Danilo 7.3, so we can really look at stats more representatively for this group of players than defenders.
If I am being honest, I really had no idea what to expect from this group, but before running the stats, my fan perception was:
- Mangala has done well this season, Mr dependable in an all-round capacity
- Yates has stepped up his level and his defensive mettle has helped this season
- Dominquez hit the ground running as the top wall-winning and pressing terror, but recently confidence has been hit
- Sangare has taken longer to bed in than Dominguez, and he is not at his levels yet, especially with his dangerous passing, but stats-wise are his average stats better than the others' top stats?
- Danilo has not hit the attacking heights of the end of last season when he was leading from the front and defensive duties are now also expected
- Kouyate I never write off and expect his defensive stats still to be comparable with the others, although I am not expecting him to offer much going forward
So let's see how much my perception matches cold, hard stats!
Defending
As traditional, we are going to start with the defensive side of the game and that starts with the frequency of winning tackles. My perceptions pretty much hold here with Dominquez being that terror and winning tackles the most frequently and is 8th among Premier League midfielders with at least 1 game played. Kouyate does what Kouyate does, followed closely by Yates. Sangare is only a little behind but Mangala and Danilo are a way back.
When it comes to tackling dribblers successfully, Dominguez is still out front and this time by a healthy 12% over next best Mangala, with Yates and Sangare very close behind Mangala. This puts Dominguez 7th among Premier League midfielders. Surprisingly Kouyate is bringing up the rear.
Now we get onto the stats that require a quick brain and speed of movement. Starting with interception frequency, Danilo jumps to the front of the pack and Dominguez moves to the back. Danilo is 6th=, level with Palhinha, among Premier League midfielders. Mangala is showing his all-round ability in second and Sangare follows.
Moving to recovery frequency, you would think it would follow interceptions as it takes the same types of skills. All 6 midfielders are very close on this stat, which then makes the comparison to other Premier League midfielders very telling. Is the Forest unit all up there, or do they all need to work on sharpness? Sangare leads here and he is 55th for Premier League midfielders with at least 1 game, so they do need to all sharpen up. This is an area to cheaply win possession and Forest need to do better.
Moving onto the final defensive stat (although it is not just used in a defensive capacity) is winning aerial battles. Oddly, given his very tall stature, Sangare comes in last by a distance. Winning 1 in 3 headers is not good enough for him and this is something he really needs to work on. It is Mangala who leads in this category and finds himself 17th= for Premier League midfielders with at least 1 game played. What may surprise many is that Danilo is second of the Forest midfielders.
So overall for defensive skills, we can use the 1-6 scoring system used for the defenders (top in a category gets 6 points, bottom gets 1):
1st Dominguez (22 points)
2nd Mangala (19 points)
3rd Sangare (17 points)
4th= Yates, Danilo and Kouyate (16 points)
At this stage, it is surprising to see Kouyate equal bottom along with Yates, but interesting Danilo is not cut adrift. Dominguez is where he is expected in my eyes and when Sangare kicks into gear, he will be floating up further. It is pleasing to see Mangala, as the perceived all-rounder, in second for defence.
Possession
Next up is looking at working with the ball at feet. Being progressive via dribbling gets the team moving (along with progressive passing). Mangala, closely followed by Sangare, leads progressive carrying distance per game, but overall the numbers are low and nowhere near the upper levels on Premier League charts. This might not be surprising when transitioning quickly through the lines via passing and this seems to be a strong Forest trait (win the ball back and get it forward to MGW as quickly as possible!). But Forest need to learn how to use possession vs other counter-attacking sides, so these stats are all important. As expected, Kouyate gets the ball and offloads it.
As Forest's play matures, these stats need to improve.
As well as total progressive yards per game, the number of times someone makes a progressive run (10 yards or more towards the opposition goal) injects urgency into play. Yates, as we might expect, leads injecting urgency, but again all these numbers are low for Premier League midfielders. Mangala and Danilo follow, but all have less than 1 of these types of carries per game.
One of the other ways of being positive is taking on defenders, and Mangala clearly leads the charge when it comes to attempts per game, with nearly double the other midfielders, with Danilo being the only other midfielder attempting at least 1 defender take-on per game.
When it comes to being successful with take-ons, Danilo and Kouyate lead with a 50% success rate, and Mangala, Sangare and Yates follow all at just under 45%. Danilo and Kouyate are 30th= among Premier League midfielders with over 1 game played.
Keeping possession is very important, and more so for Forest than for some other teams given their usually low levels of possession.
Looking first at being dispossessed, we are looking for the LOWEST numbers per game below, and this is Yates, being dispossessed once every 2.5 games, which is 10th= among Premier League midfielders with over 1 game played. Dominquez is the next best at protecting the ball. Very Surprisingly, Kouyate is at the bottom, losing the ball 1.3 times on average per game. Mangala also is over once per game, so this is one area of his game he should sharpen up on.
We do need to temper some of these stats as Forest do have the ball less than most teams, so less time to miscontrol / lose it!
When it comes to the other part of protecting the ball, miscontrolling the ball is also problematic. This does show us something interesting, which is although Yates is dispossessed the least frequently, he miscontrols the ball the most frequently! Given he miscontrols 1.4 times a game, but hardly ever loses possession, queue the image of Yates throwing himself between the loose ball and the opposition and then tactically falling over, winning a freekick and keeping possession!
This is one stat where Sangare's quality is starting to shine through, with the least miscontrols per game. This puts him 28th among Premier League midfielders.
So overall, although this genre of skills is not highly used by the Forest midfield, with Nuno looking to be more attacking, the possession is relevant and the pecking order is:
1st Mangala (28 points)
2nd Danilo (25 points)
3rd Sangare (23 points)
4th Yates (20 points)
5th Dominquez (17 points)
6th Kouyate (14 points)
Mangala is again showing his talent, and now we are looking at more attacking stats, Danilo has started to float up the rankings. Kouyate, as expected, is at the bottom. Sangare is once again sitting in 3rd.
Passing
Moving to the other side of what to do with the ball when received in the middle of the park: if you are not running with it, then you are passing it.
We can keep this pretty simple for positive play. How far is it passed forward, how often, with how much success and how often creating a shooting chance?
For progressive yards in a game, the top three are quite tight. Dominquez leads, followed by Sangare and then Mangala. Dominquez's 152.2 yards per game is not in the top 50 Premier League midfielders (Rhodri is just shy of 500 progressive yards per game), which is likely a combination of not having much ball, but also much of the progressive passing being funnelled through MGW. But these stats are still helpful to see. As Nuno hopefully expands Forest's attacking play, this should indicate who is best suited.
Progressive passes, much like progressive dribbles, are also a sign of injecting urgency. At this stage, if you have already read the defenders section, you might be surprised to know Aurier has the most progressive passes in the Forest team (5.05). But Dominquez again leads the midfielders, only a fraction behind Aurier, with 5 progressive passes per game (40th= for Premier League midfielders with at least 1 game played. Rohdri leads with 10.7 per game), again followed by Sangare, but this time by a margin. Danilo is in third this time.
Pass completion was one of the areas that I have been talking about for over a season that needs to be improved. Mangala has an excellent record with his pass completion rate of 88.3%, which is 10th for all Premier League midfielders (Rhodri of course leads with 92.8%!). Dominquez and then Sangare follow. You can see a pattern emerging here.
Key passes, a pass that leads to a shot, are of course led by MGW, but the hopefully expanding attacking play under Nuno will take some pressure off MGW and spread around the responsibility. Kouyate does randomly crop up in 2nd here, and Dominquez is in last, but it is Sangare in the lead again and by a large margin, but these stats don't trouble the top 50 Premier League midfielders. Hopefully, this is a sign to come of what we saw of Sangare at PSV routinely.
So there is a running theme of Dominquez and Sangare leading the passing out of midfield, which is a large part of why they were brought in over the summer. The scoring, per the commentary above, shows that these 2 and Mangala are the passing engine of the midfielders:
1st Sangare (20 points)
2nd Dominquez (18 points, last in key passes dropped him down 1)
3rd Mangala (16 points)
4th= Danilo and Yates (11 points)
6th Kouyate (8 points)
What is surprising is that Danilo is so far down the list, but I hope that he starts flourishing again under Nuno-ball.
Before we sum it all up, it should be noted that Dominquez has scored two goals (although sometimes playing higher up the pitch) and Mangala has 1. Surprisingly not a single one of them has an assist. I have already talked about play funnelling through MGW, but this does need to improve to be a more rounded source of goal chances and keep the opposition guessing and not just double-marking MGW.
Overall, we have looked at 4 defensive stats, 4 possession stats, 4 passing stats and then also recovering the ball, miscontrolling the ball and being dispossessed.
If we add together all the stats together, the leaderboard looks like this:
1st Mangala (63 points)
2nd Sangare (60 points)
3rd Dominguez (57 points)
4th Danilo (52 points)
5th Yates (47 points)
6th Kouyate (38 points)
So it seems that Mangala has been excelling in the midfield unit as I thought and has that all-round performance.
Interestingly Sangare is not too far off him, although we know he is not anywhere near his PSV performances yet, so this is encouraging as to what hopefully is coming.
Dominguez is potentially finding himself starting further up the pitch and if so the defensive side of his game should yield turnover ball closer to the opposition goal. But in his first season without a preseason, he like Sangare is showing why he was bought.
Danilo, also not at his levels yet this season, is scoring higher than Yates, which might surprise some fans. But we know Yates will always be striving to improve. But for Yates, he can't just operate on his leadership drive. There are now a number of leaders in the starting XI, so he needs to keep lifting the more tangible sides of his game if he wants a starting place. But as a player off the bench, he is still of value as he is now to Forest.
It is time for Kouyate to be moved on, especially as Nuno seems to want to play 2 in midfield. His defensive side is good, but being dispossessed the most is surprising and he does not have the more rounded game of the others. His flexibility to switch back into defence is no longer needed.
With the fact Murillo could be very capable of playing in midfield, Williams has been played in midfield and any of the attacking midfielders could drop back in for a 3 in midfield, the 5 midfielders should be all that is needed.
For the other positions or the overall team stat reports, please follow the below links:
Attacking Midfielders and Strikers
What do you think about the above stats and insights? Please leave your comments below!