Premier League clubs pillaging relegated teams for their prized assets isn’t a new phenomenon, obtaining good quality players for a discounted price – seemingly a win-win, and it’s a template that’s been frequently capitalised upon.
In recent years, Hull City’s relegation from the Premier League allowed Leicester City to sign Harry Maguire for a fraction of his value (£12.33m). The England international then became the club-record signing for Manchester United two seasons later (£78.3m). In the same year, Liverpool also signed Andrew Robertson from Hull City (£8.1m), who became an irreplaceable cog in The Reds meteoric rise to UEFA Champions League and Premier League winners.
Currently, the only club to have been confirmed as relegated from the Premier League this season is Norwich City. The Canaries attacking-style of play, that stems from playing out of the back, hasn’t acclimatised to Premier League football well enough to sustain another season in the top-flight. Despite this, Daniel Farke’s men were an entertaining watch, especially in their 3-2 victory over Manchester City in September last year.
This win propelled some of their top talents into the limelight, Emiliano Buendia’s performance was rewarded with the Man of The Match award. While the Argentine’s wide-midfield partner, Todd Cantwell, also impressed – scoring his second goal of the season. They became notorious for being the bright sparks for The Canaries, even during the darker spells of their current campaign, and I doubt either will lack Premier League suitors. First, we need to understand what they both offer and which club they’d fit best.
I want to preface this by stating, both players excel in different metrics and works as a complementary duo – partially because of Farke’s tactics to ensure both provided different abilities to his side. What Cantwell offers is drastically different from Buendia, drawing parallels between the two players because they both play as Norwich’s “wide midfielders” – inside either of their 4-1-4-1 or 4-2-3-1 – would be incorrect.
My interpretation would be, Cantwell plays as an “inside forward” whilst occupying the left-midfield slot. This means that he intentionally makes a lot of internal movements to ensure that he plays near to Finnish-striker Teemu Pukki, in essence, adopting a transitional front two. Because of Cantwell’s skillset – naturally suiting a winger, he often drifts between playing in the half-space and a more traditional wide position. An example of Cantwell’s positioning is shown below.
On the other hand, Buendia’s role is completely different. The Argentinian plays like a wide “mezzala” whilst playing as the right-midfielder. Ordinarily, a “mezzala” plays in the centre, but fluctuates between holding a central position and adopting a wide position when in possession, however, Buendia utilises this role but in reverse. They’re also tasked with being one of the main creative forces in the team, as their “free role” should net them more time in possession – a role Buendia absolutely strives in and is shown in the image below.
It’s crucial to understand and accept these differences in their roles even though they play similar positions – left-midfield and right-midfield respectively. These stylistic deviations are also highlighted in the statistics from this season, and although they don’t inherently decide which player is better, they do provide an outline of how they’d suit a specific Premier League team.
The XY scatter graph shown above highlights the shot-creating actions (SCA) of Premier League players who fit a similar profile to Buendia and Cantwell. This is split into their overall amount of SCA this season (x-axis) and how this is divided into per 90 minutes of football (y-axis).
As you can see, Buendia is an elite-shot creator – creating 135 shooting opportunities for Norwich City this season. He is only surpassed by; Jack Grealish, Willian, James Maddison, and Riyad Mahrez – not bad company to be in. However, it’s the opposite tale for Cantwell, as he finds himself in the lower percentile of the graph after managing only 72 SCA this season.
This data only tells us one thing, how many shots a player is creating for their team. It doesn’t value the quality of the chances or the likelihood that the player creating the shooting opportunity will get an assist for their contribution. If Buendia’s 135 SCA’s are predominantly facilitating shots from the edge-of-the-box, then he isn’t as valuable as someone who is setting up the majority of their chances inside the penalty area. To figure this out, I cross-referenced the SCA per 90 statistics with xA (expected assists) to gauge the quality of the shots being created by each player.
Unsurprisingly, the same five names dominate the top-right of the XY scatter graph. There’s a definite correlation between creating a lot of shots and the likelihood of getting an assist. However, some players can create a lot of low percentage chances, and those that do have been eradicated through this data.
Buendia finds himself inside the top five wingers/creative midfielders in the league for creating good-quality chances – all whilst playing for a Norwich City team that scored 26 goals in 37 matches. This level of chance creation would be greatly beneficial to a lot of teams in the Premier League – especially those who are missing a player in the upper-right percentile of this graph (Everton, Manchester United, Wolves, etc.).
Lastly, I wanted to see how Buendia’s chances are created, is it an intricate pass into the penalty area after drifting into his central “mezzala” role, or does he take advantage of his wide natural position and opt for a lot of crosses? Again, I wanted to see how he faired versus the rest of the Premier League, however, instead of going for players in a similar profile to Buendia, I chose the best players from each team in the chosen metrics.
First and foremost, Kevin De Bruyne is outrageous – 113 passes into the penalty area and 121 key passes this season, just for reference, no other player this season has hit triple digits for either metric. Buendia has completed 79 key passes, with 58 passes into the penalty area – with only four of these being crosses. The Argentian magician seems to thread his passes into advanced areas of the pitch, instead of hopeful long-balls or meaningless crosses.
Cantwell’s numbers are again on the lower side, but as stated, this graph plots the best performers from each club in the given metrics. If he was against the wider league, Cantwell would find himself on the upper-side of the middle rankings. The 22-year-old has completed 35 key passes, with 21 passes into the penalty area – out of these 21 balls into the PA, only a single one came from a cross.
It’s evident that Buendia’s creating a lot more of Norwich City’s chances in the final third due to the added time spent on the ball when in comparison with Cantwell, but as we’ve already addressed, the variation in the two players’ roles definitely contributes to this. For example, when Buendia drops into deeper areas to gain control of the ball, Cantwell is consciously providing an option in the final third. This skews the stats instantaneously, as Buendia finding the pass into Cantwell will reward Buendia but not Cantwell in the mentioned metrics.
So, what about a metric that an “inside forward” should excel in, such as shooting or goal-scoring? To do this without limiting Cantwell to just his goal tally alone, I chose two metrics that outline which wingers can be considered “goal-scoring wingers”. Firstly, I looked at the percentage of shots on target from an individual player and cross-examined this with how many shots on target it takes for them to score a goal.
Cantwell holds up extremely well in these metrics, whereas Buendia is the league’s worst – unsurprising, given he scored his first goal of the season on matchday 34. Aside from the top three; Raheem Sterling, Sadio Mané, and Anthony Martial, who are recognised for their goal-scoring prowess from wide areas, Cantwell and Richarlison are arguably the best of the rest.
It’s safe to say that Cantwell subsidises his ball-playing ability with ruthlessness in front of goal – disclaimer, it’s only a single Premier League campaign, thus not a massive sample size. Another positive in Cantwell’s favour is that he hasn’t massively overachieved his xG (expected goals), as this is incredibly difficult to replicate over long-spells. Through the xG data, Cantwell “should” have scored 5.8 goals this season and he’s managed 6.
Now that we understand the differences in what both players provide – Cantwell being a goal-scoring, more individualistic winger and Buendia being an elite goal and shot creator, it’s time to pick clubs in the Premier League that would be interested in these styles. I’d also like to point out most clubs would “benefit” from having either player at their disposal and I actually think Buendia could improve any club in the Premier League, but the idea is to find stylistic matches.
I believe that the perfect fit for Cantwell is Brighton & Hove Albion, for a couple of reasons. I’m a massive fan of Graham Potter and what he’s building at The Amex Stadium, a young-stylish outfit that has ample room for growth. Nonetheless, one of their undoings so far this season, is not providing enough goal-support for their frontman, Neal Maupay.
The Frenchman has scored 10 goals for the Seagulls this season, with Belgian winger, Leandro Trossard, the second-best contributor with a further 5 goals. Adding a young, exciting, “goal-scoring” winger to supply additional goals seems obvious, but Cantwell also has an understanding of the philosophy Potter is trying to instill, because of the similarities to his current manager, Daniel Farke. I also think propelling Cantwell into an “elite” club at this level may stunt his growth, playing frequently from the bench is not ideal. At Brighton, Cantwell would be an assured starter and potentially available for a price tag that is reachable for the Seagulls.
As for Buendia, I think Southampton would be a perfect fit for the Argentine, or if you want to look a mere two places above, Arsenal could benefit greatly from Buendia’s signature. Firstly, I think the project at Southampton, under Ralph Hasenhüttl and the consistent scoring of Danny Ings would align with Buendia’s assets very well. Ings is massively out-doing his xG this season, scoring 21 goals from an xG of 15.2, which is difficult to replicate season-after-season.
But, with Nathan Redmond’s contributions and James Ward-Prowse’s qualities from a slightly deeper position to the wide-players, Buendia could add a lot to the Saints’ game. I also feel that Buendia could replace Stuart Armstrong – who at 28-years-old is a pragmatic equivalent, and a player I feel they need to improve if Hasenhüttl is eyeing-up either a top-half of the table finish, or a push for European football in the coming seasons.
Under Mikel Arteta, there’s a lot to like about Arsenal since Project Restart began in the Premier League. There’s no denying that the Gunners have a plethora of wide-players in their “arsenal”, but Buendia offers similarities to the out of favour, Mesut Ozil – and with his tenure at the club forever under scrutiny, maybe now is the best time to offload the German and find a suitable replacement – of which Buendia could absolutely be.
Regardless, any team that obtains Buendia will have an upgraded amount of shooting opportunities, unless Manchester City decides to sign him, but that’s not going to happen. Another, out there option would be Liverpool, who are in desperate need of players to make an impact off the bench. Xherdan Shaqiri and Divock Origi have served their purpose over the last couple of years – there’s no denying them of that, but for Liverpool to continue their domination of Europe, The Reds need to look at squad players with upgraded qualities.
Whether that’s the right decision for Buendia is another debate, there’s potential for him to perform at a high-level under Jurgen Klopp’s management and is rewarded with playing in the hole behind Brazilian forward, Roberto Firmino. However, he could turn out like Shaqiri, and that’s not in his best interest. Given that Buendia is receiving high-levels of praise and accolades – particularly from the media – I don’t think joining one of the best clubs in World football is the right direction for his career, just yet.
Dominic Wells 