OLA LIDMARK ERIKSSON:
The recruitment of mediocre players from the Eliteserien continues!
I have to keep stressing that I don’t want to cut the players per se but this has become a bit of a series during this transfer window. Players who can be considered “ok” in the Eliteserien are recruited to Allsvenskan big teams. Since when did Allsvenskan become a farm league to Eliteserien? Since when did you recruit players from Norway for big money with the ambition of reaching the European Games? A bigger question may be, but a further example of this trend comes here: Eskil Edh.
Let’s start by looking at a heatmap of defensive actions to establish where he played:
Then a picture to illustrate his offensive. Where has he hit passes and where?
The arrows with the most intense color are the most dangerous and here it can be said that a lot of cross balls were hit from the right which generated dangers. We’ll get to this more in a moment when we look at how he compares to other full-backs in the passing game, but it’s clear in any case that he’s played more on the right and made more dangerous passes there.
Can you guess that the right foot makes it easier for him to get to the posts when he plays on the right? So is he really going to go left?
Lace then? Yes, few. But we are still talking about an “ok” player in the Eliteserien. But an honorable 10th place among full backs when we talk about successful dribbling is well worth a 🏆 emoji!
A spider then – and here I have really taken in when we talk KPIs to try to look at everything relevant for a wingback. Strengths?
– Ball safe: Get the ball dropped.
– VBOH: Many won balls in the attacking half and this is something that really suits AIK’s way of playing. Win the ball and quickly go on the attack (in the Swedish Cup you have an extremely high xG from 15 seconds after winning the ball)
– Tackles and breaks
– Dribbles: Both number and percentage.
But to link back to the image of the passes and put it in relation to other fullbacks in the Eliteserien, he is below average in most things, not least PIB 90 which is passes into the penalty area per match. In fact, you can easily count them in the picture – I get it somewhere around 25 – in a whole season.
Then I guess I’ll have to keep nagging. Did I say that Djurgården’s signing of (Peter) Therkildsen was not something you do if you are going for Allsvenskan gold, it is the same with Edh. I developed that reasoning here:
And to continue with the same reasoning, I want to argue again that it was Brice Wembangomo that AIK should have signed two years ago. Remember this:
What does he look like today?
Jo:
According to the Norwegian media, AIK paid around five million kroner for Edh.
