Odegaard hasn’t been at his best this season like he is still having a 7/10 season but he can go up another level… Like he is not trying to be that creative this season and he is lot more controlled operating in a bit deeper role whether it’s down to change in system or something I don’t know… He still runs our press and in his general play his always good

Good point, I’m not sure. The source of the data is here. I guess you could also include aerials won. However, my guess is that recoveries also include collecting loose balls, which could be from another player’s defensive action, so being in the right place to mop up second balls.

Edit: From opta’s definition, “This is where a player recovers the ball in a situation where neither team has possession or where the ball has been played directly to him by an opponent, thus securing possession for their team.”

Good point, for Ode last season the difference is very large

His progressive stats aren’t bad, especially considering he is on the ball less and has played some of his minutes up front. There is only a small difference in key passes and progressive passes, but if you were to adjust to look on a per pass basis it’s even more favourable (for instance, he plays more key passes per pass than Xhaka last season and Odegaard this season). I think the issue is not so much that he’s always going backwards it’s that he’s not on the ball enough.

The best part about this team is you only need one of Saka, Odegaard and Martinelli to put in a 9/10 performance to win a game. It’s fine if the other two have a 6/10 game, which is pretty much the baseline for all three most of the time.

If two, or Bergkamp forbid, all three of them decide to grace us with a 9/10 performance, oh boy.

what a special reasoning process you have

Even when he was playing RB he was still having a positive influence on our xG. These numbers are for league games this season (obviously small sample)

xG/90 in games Partey started : 2.0

xG/90 in game Partey didn’t start : 1.78

So even when he was playing out of position seems like he was helping our attack a bit

Brudda that side is weak because of him, because he ghosts games in possession 💀 people were saying Xhaka was upgradeable last season, but we weren’t calling that Zinchenko, Xhaka and Martinelli side weak

How many of Havertz minutes here are as a 9 or false 9? If we’re comparing this set of players, need to compare minutes in the same/similar roles.

The whole team feels out of sync though, even Ode’s lack of progressive passing shows that. We’re creating fewer chances and shooting less. We’ve had a tricky handful of matches and a lot of new faces so it’s not a huge surprise, but would like to see us attack with more speed in transition. I feel like we settled on this concept of “we attack too fast” and now we’re just trying to break down teams and snuff the game out. It’s led to more clean sheets but we’re creating half as many chances.

So essentially more of what we already know. He’s great off the ball but he’s super safe on the ball and isn’t progressing forward the way we need yet.

would be interesting to add the stats from when Odegaard was on loan, feel progressive passing is one of those things that requires a lot of trust in teammates.

Not all of these actions result in recovering possession. You can tackle the ball from an opponent but it can result in a loose ball.

True that, Rice individually is a world class CDM and is better than partey when it comes to CDM role but if anyone asks who is better for the team now which will help them get goals I would say Partey for now. Partey was also one of the key elements last season and our lack of goals this season can also be because of his absence and him playing RB.

True. But one more question. What other way is there to recover possession except via a tackle, interception or block.

How can Xhaka have 4.56 possession recoveries per 90 but sum(tackles + interception + blocks) = 2.51