This blog is written by FPL veteran @mentorfpl
With Matt Doherty recently securing a summer transfer to Spurs after spending 10 years at Wolves, FPL managers across the board are wondering whether or not his departure will impact the Wolves attack.
Now, before I get into it I want to make it clear that there is no obvious answer at this stage, but what we can do, is delver further into Doherty’s stats and contributions to the team to see how he faired in comparison to his former teammates.
The fact that we are yet to have any further insight into who will be replacing the Irishman in the RWB position, makes it a lot more difficult to assess how Wolves will manage with the absence of Doherty.
So, with that in mind, I’m going to talk about a couple of players who have been linked with a move to the Molineux recently.
Possible replacements? Or just newspaper talk?
With recent speculation of Arsenal’s Ainsley Maitland-Niles now dying down after a £15million bid was rejected by the Gunners. There was talk that Wolves would be planning another bid of £20million, but as of yet, it hasn’t happened.
AMN put in a strong performance against Manchester City in the FA Cup Final a couple of weeks ago, and since featured in the starting line-up for Arsenal in their Community Shield triumph over Liverpool. He put in another good performance against Jurgen Klopp’s side and was named man of the match. Arteta has since spoken about AMN in a positive light, which could be an indication that he would like AMN to remain at the club.
“He’s a very important player, for me. I’ve been pushing him for months because I know the potential that he has. He needs to raise that potential in a very consistent way, something that he hasn’t done in the past.”
“He has to be able to convince me every day in training that he can compete at this level. Not once every three months – but every three days. The way he is playing at the moment is showing me that he can do it. His mentality and the way he is going about every single detail about the preparation of a football game is much better than before. I am delighted and very happy for him because he is really changing a lot of things around him to become the player he can be.”
Wolves were reportedly interested in Nottingham Forest’s Matty Cash. Cash is known for his ability to be able to get forward and has been operating in a similar role to Doherty, also playing in a system similar to the Wolves set up. However, cash was signed up by villa for a reported 15 Mil fee and has since been priced at 5 Mil in FPL.
With limited options at RWB, as it stands we could potentially see Adama Traore feature in the RWB position this season, but it remains yet to be seen whether Wolves will recruit to fill Doherty’s void.
Matt Doherty FPL numbers from Last season:
🔢Points: 167 (4th highest amongst defenders) ⚽Goals: 4 (2nd highest amongst defenders) 🅰Assists: 8 (3rd highest amongst defenders) 🥅Shots: 34 (2rd highest amongst defenders) 🥅Shots on target: 16 (Highest amongst defenders) 🔥Big Chances: 12 (Highest amongst defenders) 🧨xG- Expected goals: 6.84 (Highest amongst defenders) 🔥Total crosses 45(38th amongst defenders) 🔥successful crosses 7(48th amongst defenders) 🔥successful cross % 16
Further Read: Best Budget Defenders to consider for the upcoming 2020/21 FPL season!
Let’s take a look at how Matt Doherty performed last season
I’m going to look at some stats to get an idea on how Doherty contributed to Wolves last season and where he ranked in various areas in comparison to his former teammates. I’ll later go on to do a brief comparison with Serge Aurier of Spurs, who now looks like he could be on his way out for Tottenham.
Looking at Doherty’s defensive contributions, his numbers are fairly mediocre, and I can’t say that I am surprised given how advanced he tends to be positioned on the pitch.
The stats suggest that he conceded a lot of shots, ranking 14th in terms of allowing opponents a shot on goal. He ranked 9th for blocks and 7th for successful tackles. You would usually expect defenders to be ranked higher than this, ideally 4th or 5th at worst. But we need to remember that Doherty was utilised pretty much as a right midfielder at times, particularly when Wolves were in possession.
Taking this into consideration, you would probably expect a wide midfielder to be ranked between 5th and 9th for blocks and tackles, so I don’t necessarily think he is bad when it comes to defending, more so that he was in more advanced positions in a team that likes to keep possession and therefore not making as many tackles etc.
I would say he performed as expected really in terms of clearances and interceptions, but from a defensive point of view, his defensive game leaves a lot to be desired.
Doherty’s stats for distribution seem to be an improvement on his defensive duties, ranking 3rd for passes in the opponent’s half, successful passes, final third passes and successful final third passes.
Over 60% of his passes were in the opponent’s half, which again indicates that he spent most of his time in advanced positions as opposed to being in his own half.
Now, given Doherty picked up 8 FPL assists last season, I would have thought his numbers would have been significantly higher when it come to attempted assists, big chances created and successful crosses.
The above figures indicate that Doherty isn’t as creative as I would have initially thought, and it’s interesting to see that he picked up 8 FPL assists, but according to the Premier League’s official website, he only registered 3 “real-life” assists.
Does this mean 5 of his assists were controversial and had an element of fortune about them? I’m not entirely sure. But it’s something that made me wonder. Particularly considering he outscored his expected assist ratio of 2.02, with an additional 6 assists.
It’s unusual to see a wide player deliver only 7 successful crosses all season, but still manage to pick up 8 FPL assists. We are now starting to see a pattern emerge here.
He appears to be more of a ‘passer’ of the ball as opposed to a creative player who looks to whip balls into the box or play through balls.
Here we can see that Doherty was heavily involved when Wolves were in possession, ranking 3rd for touches and successful touches. He was 4th in terms of touches in the opponent’s box, which is exactly what you want to see from your FPL assets, particularly when they are classified as a defender.
Now we can start to see the threat that Doherty has to offer when he is given free rein to get forward. His ability to get into the opponent’s penalty area is where his assist potential and goal threat stems from.
Doherty was joint 3rd highest goal scorer for Wolves. Now, considering Wolves scored 52 goals I was again surprised to see Doherty 3rd for top scorers as he only notched 4 in total. We know Jimenez chipped in with a majority of the goals, topping the charts with 17, but next in line after Jimenez is Jota with 7.
This indicates that Wolves were not reliant on Doherty’s goals, as they were evenly spread amongst the team. This suggests that Wolves will still be just as capable of finding the net via alternative options, rather than being reliant on Doherty’s goal contributions.
The rest of the goals were shared amongst the team, with the likes of Traore (4), Dendoncker (4), Neto (3), Saiss (2), Jonny (2), Neves (2), Cutrone (2), Moutinho (1) & Podence (1).
Further Read: The Best Mid-Priced Strikers To Consider For The Upcoming 2020/21 FPL Season
Will Wolves cope defensively without Matt Doherty?
I think they will, and it doesn’t look like Wolves were heavily reliant on Doherty for his defensive duties.
Will Wolves miss Matt Doherty’s creativity?
Providing they find someone for the RWB position who is committed to getting forward and into the box, or someone who brings a different element to there game such as excellent crossing ability, then I think they will be fine. I don’t feel like Wolves have relied on Doherty’s ability to get past people, dribble and fizzle in crosses, but more so work rate, stamina to get up and down the pitch, being able to pass, and not being afraid to get into the box. So, in short, someone who can pass has physical attributes with good positional awareness (or lack of, whichever way you like to look at it)
Further Read: Is doubling up on Liverpool defence a good strategy for the upcoming 2020/21 FPL season?
Will Wolves miss Matt Doherty’s goals?
Again, I don’t think so. As we have seen when looking at the goal scorers for Wolves this season, they were evenly spread-out amongst the team. If Dendoncker was to leave Molineux this summer, I wouldn’t suggest Wolves would miss his goals, despite scoring the same amount as Doherty.
I know many will disagree with my take on this, given Doherty is such a popular pick in FPL, but as I said at the very start of the article, we don’t know for certain how his departure will impact Wolves, so this is just my take on it after interpreting the stats.
How do I think Doherty will do at Spurs?
Defensively, I don’t think Matt Doherty brings much to the table, but I doubt that will be the purpose of Mourinho investing £15million in the Irishman. If he wants to get the best out of Matt Doherty, surely Mourinho will have to set up his team in a way that will allow him to get further up the pitch and get into the box.
This feeds into my thinking that Mourinho will likely opt for a 3421 formation, with Ben Davies taking up the LCB position with Sessegnon operating as an LWB on the opposite flank to Matt Doherty at RWB.
Alternatively, we could see a 4321 with Matt Doherty playing more as an attacking right fullback. This formation would put more responsibility on Doherty’s defensive duties, however, Ben Davies at LB could easily tuck inside to form a back three for Spurs enabling Doherty to again push on and get further upfield.
We know from analyzing the stats that Doherty’s success seems to come from his passing, positioning, and ability to get into the box. We also know that he likes to shoot more frequently than he does cross or look for through balls.
I know Serge Aurier has had a lot of criticism for his erratic defensive displays, so I thought it would be interesting to do a comparison between the two.
Further Read: Premium FPL Forwards Comparision, Analysis and Rating ahead of 2020/21 FPL Season
Matt Doherty vs Serge Aurier
Image from Fantasy Football Fix comparison tool
So, if you think Matt Doherty might be the one to feed the likes of Harry Kane by whipping balls into the box, it doesn’t look like that will be the way to go next season. I do think he will still pick up a handful assists, due to the fact he gets into the penalty area, and I can see him pulling back a few passes to the likes of Kane, Son & co. His main threat seems to be in terms of goals, so I think that is where the points are likely to be scored, which is everything you could ask for from an FPL prospect.
Personally, for me, I won’t be getting him in from the get-go. I’m going to see how he settles and see how Spurs perform over the opening few weeks. I know they have a hectic schedule coming up competing in Europa League qualifiers etc. At this stage, I don’t have enough trust in Spurs yet, or Mourinho, so for me, It just makes sense to wait and see.
You can reach out to me on Twitter @mentorfpl. Check out my previous Article, The Best Mid-Priced Strikers To Consider For The Upcoming 2020/21 FPL Season
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