Is Evan Ferguson 'breaking out'?
Are we witnessing the next teen superstar?
Hello all,
Thanks so much to those of you who have subscribed to this project, especially given we’re yet to really get into a content schedule. We appreciate you all. We’ve got some really exciting updates on this project that we are looking forward to sharing with you soon. A tonne of background work is going on to work out how we best help you all as Fantrax managers to compete in your leagues and, most importantly, to have fun whilst doing it!
Until we do settle on and share all the details of what we’re going to be doing on a regular basis, we may still share some one-off content, and you can still find all of the stats that underpin our work at all the usual places.
In this deep-dive, I (Gordon) wanted to talk about one of the topics I get most interested in: breakouts. And specifically a young man on the South Coast.
What were you doing in 2004?
Mark Zuckerberg was founding a social networking site called Facebook. NBC was airing the Final Episode of Friends. Usher Feat. Lil Jon and Ludacris were topping the annual Billboard “Top 100” with “Yeah!”.
Evan Ferguson was mastering lifting his head when placed on his stomach (probably).
And yet, despite only just being legally old enough to buy himself a beer, the boy from Bohemians has had a big last fortnight. At just 18 years old, he has only started one Premier League game for Brighton. But that debut was earned with a hard-working substitute appearance and battling goal against Arsenal on New Year’s Eve. And in that full debut, he got himself a goal and an assist against Everton in 70 minutes of action.
One thing I know for sure is that if I was to start making any statistical argument as to why Evan Ferguson is breaking out, based on 90 total minutes of game time, the rest of the crew here would probably banish me. So I won’t do that. Instead what I want to talk about is Brighton as an attacking unit and what the opportunity is for a striker at Brighton.
The role and the opportunity
The first thing to say about Brighton is that they have been one of the most fluid sides in terms of player personnel and the roles that players are asked to play. So defining what the “striker” role has been for them is tough. It can change on a game by game basis. But if we look at the distribution of minutes in the first half of the season under Graham Potter and Roberto De Zerbi, we see most of the “lone striker” minutes distributed between Danny Welbeck (who started the first games of the season in the position) and Leandro Trossard who worked in a bit more in the run up to the World Cup. We did also see Pascal Gross and Adam Lallana mixing in as support strikers in two striker formations.
But the notable trend that seems to have developed since Roberto De Zerbi got his feet under the table is a more stable 4-2-3-1 formation. Whether this is a tactical preference that De Zerbi always wanted to implement or in part driven by the breakout performances of players like Kaoru Mitoma is hard to say, but it does look here to stay.
This 4-2-3-1 shape allows Mitoma and March to focus on ball progression into the box from wide (be it from dribbling or passing) and also gives a lot of freedom to the number 10 (so far this has mostly been Lallana for De Zerbi, though in recent games Sarmiento, and the recently returned Mac Allister have also played the role).
It’s not news to those lucky enough to have managed to get him in during the low ownership period in November and December, but Mitoma is doing everything you could want from a wide forward, averaging 4.57 shot creating actions (“SCA”) per 90 in the Premier League. Perhaps a little more surprisingly, Solly March is up there too with 3.63 SCA/90. Not to go too far down this rabbit hole, but Brighton have 403 SCA in the League. By comparison, shot-shy Chelsea have 340, and relentless, machine-like Manchester City have 549. But putting aside Manchester City’s outlier production, 403 is good for 8th in the League. And their xG generated from those shots is enough to put them in 7th (in a tie with Manchester United and Fulham).
So putting that in a simpler way: they create shooting opportunities at an above average level for the league, and the xG they generate from those opportunities is also at about the same level.
However their production from the striker position over the last few seasons tells a story. You have to go back to 2019/20 to find a season where a Brighton attacker finished the season in double figures for goals. That man was Neal Maupay, who finished with 10. He did this from an xG of 13.4. The next year was 8 from Maupay (from an xG of 13.2). Last season Maupay had 8 again (from 9.7) and Trossard had 8 (from 7.6). None of this is necessarily egregiously bad. That most recent season they were also 7th in SCA, but finished 10th in xG performance (1.39 xG/90). This has gone up a little this season with almost 0.1 xG more per 90.
Again, to use shorthand: they’re getting every so slightly better shots this season from an xG basis and, notably, Leandro Trossard is himself already on 7 goals (from 4.4 xG) and has been filling out Fantrax stat sheets for his managers in the first section of the season. This would potentially be the sign of something very good, if it wasn’t for the fact that De Zerbi seems to have dropped Trossard, who is seemingly suffering a post-World Cup hangover, and transfer rumours are once again swirling that he might make a move to North London. And if he does go, much as I like Danny Welbeck as a footballer, it seems very unlikely at this point in his career that he is going to turn into a plus xG striker for Brighton who can play every week.
So the story, as I see it, is that there is a vacancy for a striker in an above average attacking team. The competition is mostly solid but not spectacular role-players. And the highest upside option for the Amex crew might just be the new Irish hope.
So is Evan the one to breakout?
This is the multi-million pound question for Brighton. And it’s one that we can only really speculate on at this point. With any 18 year old with so few senior matches under his belt, it is likely that he’s going to see ups and downs as he looks to acclimatise to Premier League football. As Opta reminded us on Twitter, the last player to score in consecutive games at 18 years old was Federico Macheda.
However there are a few factors that have me leaning towards having more faith in Evan. One, which is arguably more subjective (and prone to a fair bit of confirmation bias), is that his coaches love him. He was handed a Bohemians debut at 15. Previous coaches are lining up to praise him as the best they’ve worked with.
He’s also physically well developed for an 18 year old. Often when you see a player breaking through in their teen years, you’re expecting to see a frame that could stand to bulk up a little. The conventional wisdom of sending a player on loan to the lower leagues to “toughen up” is probably overly simplistic, but players often do develop more physically into their early 20s.
Another thing that is common for very young strikers is to have a game that is honed around a specific skill (often striking a football and poaching goals). A player, that I won’t name given his legal problems, in Manchester broke through entirely based on an ability to strike a ball impressively, but was in need of further development in lots of other aspects of his game. Evan’s top level game tape is limited, but in it we see an awareness of others in the attack and an ability to bring them in to the play that suggests a more rounded front man skillset.
His passing in the FA Cup against Middlesborough for the saved shot that led to the first goal (in the first 15 seconds of the video below) showed a fantastic awareness of space and an ability to exploit the gap that had appeared in Boro’s defence.
And his movement in his limited Premier League game time also looks very intelligent. My favourite example he’s put on tape so far comes in the game against Everton. Even before he scored he shows off this aspect to his game. Brighton get a fast break down the left with Mitoma. Ferguson can be seen in a position right-of-centre moving towards the box as the widest player on the opposite wing.
The Everton defender makes up the ground well to recover from the initial starting position and actually gets himself into a good defensive starting position to protect the threat of Ferguson in the box.
At this point a ball played across to the back post would be a foot race between the Everton defender and Ferguson. And Ferguson might not be favoured, based on positioning. So instead, he hesitates a half step and opens a small pocket of separation from the full back who is still focusing his attention on Mitoma and the threat of the back-post cross.
This is enough for him to steal a step as Mitoma looks to cross and the end result is a chance from around the penalty spot that sees the defender scrambling across and not managing to get a block in.
The finish hits the post, so the move comes to nothing. But it’s a nice example of what the young man can create in terms of space within the box. It’s also something we see again for his goal, where he once again is in the box as a Brighton attacker (this time Sarmiento) bursts in threateningly. And once again, the Everton defender is shoulder to shoulder with him as the threat is developing.
And yet, seconds later, Ferguson is on his own in acres of space about to receive the ball to score his second Premier League goal.
This is mature movement and appreciation of space for a young player. And just another example of why I will not be at all surprised if Ferguson has a bright Premier League future ahead of him. His movement is creating him good, high-value opportunities that his Brighton attacking team-mates are very capable of providing.
So should you pick him up for Fantrax?
As ever, this is going to depend on your team. If you’re in a deep league in need of a forward, I imagine you could do a lot worse than betting on him. But it is important to recognise that he could be in and out of the team a little and that his production so far has been entirely goal and assist related. But that’s not a huge problem if you’re getting yourself a lot of goals and assists. So if you believe in Brighton, I would say he’s at worst a good spot-streamer in favourable matchups.
We’re yet to really see him play a full 90 against a strong defensive team and that’s the thing I’m looking to see before I declare him a “must grab”. But if he starts and performs against Liverpool at the weekend, you would imagine that he’ll be a FAAB war on the following Tuesday. So if you’ve got the stash spot, and you don’t need it for anything else this week, you might find it beneficial to jump that queue by putting him onto your bench this week!
As ever, thanks for reading. Please feel free to reach out to myself or the rest of the OverthinkingFootball team on Twitter if you’ve got thoughts, questions or just to say hello. And we will be in touch soon to reveal more about what we’ve got in the pipeline for Fantrax managers in the near future!