A Bridge Too Far: Myron Boadu, Vincent Janssen, and the Many Perils of Purchasing Forwards from the Eredivisie
Image: Wikimedia Commons
By: Kees van Hemmen
Enter AZ Alkmaar number 9 Myron Boadu.
At 18 years old Boadu finally burst onto the scene in Holland this season after two campaigns missed due to injury. If that sentence sounds weird to you, that’s because it is: Myron was tipped, at as young as 16 years of age, to play for AZ’s senior side. Unfortunately, injury struck, not once, but twice, and his true debut campaign didn’t come until this past fall. The opportunity was not wasted. The young forward posted 33 goal contributions in 39 matches in all competitions, and finished the season one goal off the top spot for the golden boot in the league. His profile was boosted in the Netherlands in particular due to match winning goals in both of AZ’s league encounters with title winners Ajax (who won the league over AZ controversially on goal differential, with the season cut short due to COVID-19).
The first thing that stands out when looking at Boadu’s shot map in the league this term is his shot selection: Myron doesn’t take long distance punts. He’s extremely selective about where he shoots from, and this has yielded an elite npxG per Shot of 0.24. In fact, amongst strikers with at least 300 minutes played and 50 shots taken in Europe’s top 5 leagues and the Eredivisie, Boadu has the second highest npxG per Shot. This is particularly important for sides in tight races in the league, where higher shot quality has been shown to minimize variance in goalscoring and maximize results.
He generates these high quality shots through a couple of different avenues. Against high defensive lines, and in transition, he uses his top of the line pace and anticipation to run in behind the back line.
In these situations Boadu is particularly clever with how he times and positions his runs: he generally hugs the blindside of the near defender, often just inches behind them yet out of sight. As a result, when he accelerates, the only defender close enough to react to his run has their back turned. This allows him to abandon the last line of defenders and create 1v1s with the goalkeeper, some of the highest quality chances that exist in football. And, while this is an important part of Boadu’s arsenal, it isn’t even his most used avenue for generating high quality shots. Against low blocks, Boadu is aggressive in attacking the six yard box with diverse angled runs, as well as getting on the end of low driven crosses. This is particularly encouraging for well-drilled, possession based sides interested in Boadu, as AZ have sophisticated patterns of play they use to create these opportunities that Boadu is clearly comfortable executing.
Boadu isn’t just reliant on his pace and acceleration, either. When he can’t attack the six yard box at speed, he still takes up excellent positions, hovering in danger areas and waiting for service.
To the naked eye a lot of these goals may appear to be Boadu simply capitalizing on the excellent attacking work of some of his other – admittedly talented – teammates. But to say that would be to ignore the intelligence of Boadu’s positioning, and the fact that many of the assists made here would’ve been lost on a striker with lesser physical tools. Luis Suárez may have been the last elite striker produced by the Eredivisie, but this strength of Boadu’s is particularly reminiscent of a different Uruguayan striker.
Paris Saint-Germain number nine Edinson Cavani shares quite a few traits with his AZ counterpart. First and foremost, he, like Myron, loves high quality shots. El Matador has made his name in Italy and France as one of the world’s best off the ball runners, getting into dangerous areas in and around the six yard box, as well as behind the defense. This is one way he’s been able to maximize his goalscoring output while simultaneously rarely conceding possession. Another important facet of his game, which Boadu incidentally also shares, is his incredibly quick trigger when receiving the ball. Edinson practically never shoots off the dribble, nor does he take unnecessary touches. Every touch he takes is either directly setting up for a shot, or a shot itself.
Boadu, though slightly more inclined to dribbling, is the same way. Where Cavani sits in the 98th percentile for shot touch % (the percentage of a player’s touches that are shots) Boadu falls in the 91st.
While none of these finishes are easy, or necessarily replicable, what’s significant about this tendency is that it maximizes shooting opportunities. In each of these scenarios, had Cavani or Boadu taken another touch, they almost certainly would’ve been denied the chance to get a shot off. It’s important to note that Boadu isn’t nearly the acrobat Cavani is, nor does he have the same variety of finishes, so don’t expect quite the same gymnastics that you see Edinson execute. However, the tendency to streamline their actions towards generating a shot is a shared trait that helps both maximize expected goal output while minimizing turnovers.
Where Boadu and Cavani differ slightly is in terms of their all around game. Cavani is in the 31st percentile for forwards in shot assists this term, while Boadu is in the 67th. They both generate their shot assists (which are generally for shots of very high quality) through their movement, as opposed to creative passing. Both run in behind with great frequency, especially when running into the halfspaces, and this often means they find themselves with the ball near the byline at a tight angle. While Cavani is far more inclined to shoot from these tight angles, Myron is more likely to cut it back or across goal for a teammate, underlined by his 13 assists in all competitions this term.
Boadu’s tendency to keep his head up and look for the pass in these situations means AZ produce higher quality chances on a game to game basis than they would if he shot from tight angles. Through intelligent movement, Boadu is not only unlocking the defense for himself, but for his teammates as well, and creating goal scoring opportunities without having to beat a man off the dribble or execute a low probability pass. This is an invaluable skill for a striker to have.
This is all well and great, you might say, but how does it prove to us that Boadu can produce in a bigger league? Well, to get a better idea of just that, let’s take a look at how Myron compares to another AZ striker that tore up the Eredivisie a few years ago, earning a move to the Premier League in the process: Vincent Janssen.
Mr. Janssen, by the raw numbers, was actually far more dominant in the Eredivisie than Boadu has been. In his final season in the Netherlands, the Noord-Brabant born striker scored 27 goals in the league, 22 of which from open play. Given how disappointing his performance ultimately was in England, one might expect that Janssen was simply over performing his expected goals tally in Holland, on a finishing hot streak that was bound to end. That, after all, is the stereotypical explanation for a striker failing to live up to expectations after a big transfer move (at least in the analytics community). That wasn’t the case either, though: Vincent actually underperformed his expected goals, racking up 23.26 npxG in 2,740 minutes played. That works out to just over 0.76 npxG per 90 minutes, an elite total, one that makes Myron Boadu’s previously robust 0.61 npxG per 90 this year look pedestrian in comparison. How did Vincent manage this?
Well, for starters, he shot. A lot. For every ninety minutes played, Vincent was taking 4.75 shots, almost twice as many as Myron’s 2.5. These shots weren’t quite as good as those Boadu has taken this term (0.24 xG per Shot), but they were still fairly robust, with an average xG per Shot of 0.16. In short: Janssen appeared to be doing everything you’d want from a striker. There’s actually a strong argument, from the standpoint of expected goal output, that he was a stronger prospect coming out of the Eredivisie than Boadu is at this stage. How does this prove Boadu is a reliable prospect, then?
For that insight, we have to look more closely. Let’s take a look at Janssen’s shot map again, this time side by side with Boadu’s:
[Boadu’s shot map is a visualization kindly made for this piece by Statified Football (@StatifiedF on twitter) who runs an excellent account with many more visualizations like this. The visualization on the right is from an Opta presentation from 2016. Both were cropped so they could be viewed side by side.]
What immediately meets the eye: Janssen was far more interested in shots from outside the box than Boadu is. More than that, he was just generally more interested in testing the goalkeeper from basically anywhere in the box than Boadu is. That’s not to say he didn’t also take high quality shots, but he liked the low probability punts just as much. This is curious because, despite the higher volume of shots, Janssen actually had far less of a ‘quick trigger’ (as we discussed earlier as a trait Boadu shares with Edinson Cavani) than Boadu.
Looking at just Janssen’s goal map, you can see just how different a striker he was in comparison to Boadu. Janssen scored only two goals from through balls, a trademark of Boadu’s game, one partially responsible for his sky high shot quality. Though Janssen did run in behind, he wasn't particularly effective in doing it, even in the Eredivisie where high defensive lines are popular. Even more important, Janssen scored five goals off the dribble. This isn’t a problem by any means, but it’s indicative of a trend in his game: he was more inclined to getting pulled out of the penalty box to pick up the ball than Boadu.
In both of these clips, Janssen scores goals. Nothing to complain about there. But in this case, it’s not about the outcome, it’s about the method. Janssen was never actually a particularly talented dribbler (1.1 successful dribbles per 90 minutes in 2015/16), so the fact that he liked to carry the ball into the box isn’t really a positive. It pulled him away from what he was otherwise good at – hovering near the six yard box and finishing chances – in favor of something far less efficient. To whatever extent Vincent had a style in ground duels, it had nothing to do with his quickness, or some immense technical ability. When moving with the ball, he overwhelmingly used his good – but not great – size and strength to fend opponents off. Even in these two clips, he actually generates very little separation. That’s not to mention the fact that Eredivisie defenders are of significantly lower quality in 1v1 duels than those that Janssen encountered in England. This confluence of factors – a non-replicable dribbling style, overwhelmingly used on poorer defenders – ultimately meant that Janssen was ineffective in this capacity upon his move to Tottenham.
This might not have been a problem for him if English defenders weren’t so good at nullifying what he was actually good at: hovering in the penalty box and slotting home chances.
Notice how, in all of these clips, Janssen is rarely operating in any noteworthy amount of space? He instead uses his size to bully the defenders that pressure him constantly. In a league like the Eredivisie, where space is not hard to find, that’s concerning. Unfortunately for Vincent, his physical profile – tall, below average straight line speed, and unremarkable quickness – meant he was far easier to deal with for defenders across the North Sea.
Ironically, this physical description may evoke thoughts of Harry Kane – Tottenham’s first choice striker at the time – but that parallel is superficial. Kane was far quicker across short distances than Janssen, and, most importantly, he played far more aggressively on the last shoulder of the opposing back line. This allowed him to generate shooting opportunities in space, rather than muddled down in the defensive low blocks Pochettino’s Spurs were often faced with at the time. The fact that Janssen wasn’t able to get behind opposing defenses, nor could he contend with the physicality of the defenders themselves when in front of them, meant he had no means for generating high quality goal scoring opportunities. Given that his creative game wasn’t particularly robust (4 assists in the Eredivisie in his golden boot campaign), Janssen was left without a calling card in England. Though things may have gone differently for him under different circumstances (he was playing behind arguably the best striker in the world at the time in the aforementioned Harry Kane, for starters), Janssen’s physical limitations and dubious ball-centric tendencies were still visible red flags.
So, with the greek tragedy that was Vincent Janssen’s Tottenham career in mind, let’s turn our attention back to Boadu. What lessons can we learn from him? Does Boadu exhibit the same traits?
Quite frankly, the answer is no. Though Boadu does benefit from the lower quality of Eredivisie defenders, the methodology he employs to generate his production is much more confidence inspiring. Compared to Janssen, he’s far more capable of running behind the defense. This alone sets the floor for his long term value far higher than Janssen’s: if nothing else, he’ll always have utility for a counter attacking side interested in scoring in transition. Beyond that, Boadu’s physical profile is far more impressive. He’s clearly far faster in the open field than Janssen was, and he’s also much quicker across short distances. This physical advantage, unlike Janssen’s size and strength, isn’t one that will disappear in the Premier League. Though European football is changing in this capacity, centre backs who are quick on the turn and have elite recovery pace are still at a premium. Most of the defenders Boadu sees won’t be able to keep up with him over short or long distances. Boadu’s decision making also sets him apart from Janssen: he’s far more intelligent about picking his spots when he gets the ball in danger areas. This means he takes higher quality shots, but also that he helps to create high quality chances for teammates that Janssen never would. On top of that, though this hasn’t been discussed at length in this article, if you take a look at Boadu’s style profile earlier in the piece, his Europa League numbers indicate he’s very active in the press, as well as a relatively two footed player. All of these factors, coupled with the fact that Boadu is still three years younger than Janssen was upon leaving the Netherlands, should be very emboldening for any club eying the young Dutchman.
That's not to say Boadu is flawless. Amongst his drawbacks: he isn't the type of centre forward who can single handedly run a team’s attack. He requires quality service in order to perform at the level he has at AZ, given that he doesn’t dribble in high volume nor is he an elite creative passer. These are ultimately inconsequential in the right system, though. If a club was interested in investing in him, the true red flag that needs investigating is his injury record. Earlier in this article it was mentioned that he missed the past two club campaigns due to two separate injuries. That’s nothing to take lightly, especially given that the first of the two injuries was an ACL tear, a particular ailment with the potential to become recurring. It’s certainly encouraging that he’s managed to stay almost completely healthy this year, but his injury record is still something to keep an eye on.
The moral of the story is, you shouldn’t be scared off by Myron Boadu simply because he plays in an inflated goalscoring environment. There is no intangible element that makes the Eredivisie some scout’s Venus Fly Trap. Despite popular belief, windmills don’t blow wayward shots towards goal. Whether I’ve identified the signal amongst the noise properly or not, Eredivisie players can and have made it at the top level. Myron Boadu has as good a chance as any to be one of them.
This article wouldn't have been possible without the help of @StatifiedF on Twitter, who provided me with Myron Boadu's Eredivisie data, which bore the weight of this analysis. Many thanks to him, and go give him a follow.
Data Sources:
Fun and a joy to read Kees. Difficult to use performance in one team to predict how a player will perform in another team. For example Boadu does not dribble much in AZ, but if he were in a different team he may adjust the amount he dribbles (if he is a talented dribbler). In football there are one trick ponies and players that make any team better because they close the gaps by adjusting their play. Based on the examples you provide, Boadu is uncommonly talented in positioning. A very powerful asset that lifts an entire team.
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