Aston Villa News 24/7
You may or may not have noticed that I haven’t been following Premier League games up with Statshacks for a little while. There are numerous reasons for that which I won’t bore you with, but I have still been glancing at the numbers and I have to bring Jean Makoun’s passing statistics from Old Trafford last night to your attention.
I don’t always single individual players out and I don’t keep records, but I do look them over and it’s rare to see any one Aston Villa player connect more than 50 passes in a game. Some players will achieve high 40′s here and there, occasionally mid-50′s, I think James Milner was the highest I ever saw with a game in the low 60′s one time.
Have a look at Jean Makoun’s passing map on the right. That’s 85 complete passes out of 94 attempted, a 90% completion rate. During the 75 minutes Stiliyan Petrov was on the pitch, Makoun completed 73 passes to Stan’s 42.
I should give Petrov some credit, he still managed to complete the same number of passes as Utd’s player with the highest number; Nani also completed 42 passes during the game, although his passes, one in particular, were a lot more significant in Utd’s game.
Makoun achieved these numbers mostly through his speed of passing, frequently moving the ball on with his first touch, but rarely holding the ball for more than a second or two before passing it on to a team mate. But almost always a useful pass and often a clever pass to someone in space.
His movement off the ball allowed him to receive the ball in space, his awareness of what’s going on around him and general reading of the game facilitated the quick one and two touch game. When the players around him are closer to his wavelength, special things are going to happen.
On this occasion, arguably because Wayne Rooney finally found his shooting boots, we didn’t come away from Old Trafford with anything, but it’s not insignificant that Villa held 56% of the possession and a 57% share of the completed passes (CPS%) in the game.
As we always remind ourselves here at AVC, there is only one statistic that truly matters, but to go to Old Trafford and hold the majority share of a couple key metrics has to be encouraging, whatever the result. With a little more composure and potency in the final third of the pitch, this side will be deadly.
With Makoun behind the attacking players, pulling the strings, I can’t imagine it’ll be too much longer before it all starts clicking into place. If he strikes up a strong partnership with Fabian Delph and/or Michael Bradley… well, I’ll leave it there before I get carried away.
You might also like...
8 Comments to “Meet Jean Makoun, the new ticking heartbeat of Aston Villa”
Leave a Reply
Well put. Makoun from Cameroon was a class act today. I have high hopes for Bradley, whom I rate highly, but I feel that Makoun and Delph may prove to be the best pairing.
I was very impressed with Makoun .. thought he was a stabilizing influence in the middle which seemed to be lifting the passing game of the rest of the team, Ash seems to be getting better week by week and Big Brad was amazing at times and Bent will get 25+ next season. This is the most upbeat I can recall after a 3-1 loss .. going to Old Trafford is always difficult but the spirit and togetherness the team showed was a good sign of Villa’s intent to force our way up the table .
Makoun has impressed from the start. He’s cool under pressure and doesn’t force anything. I look for big things from him. Definitely on the back of my next kit!
I noticed the passing as well. In all honesty, I’m surprised at the completion percentage. He missed several passes where he was anticipating a move by another player that never materialized. He can only get better as the rest of the team learns what to do off the ball.
I wasn’t as impressed with our performance as some (just too many “off” individual performances) but we definitely didn’t get overrun in the midfield and they are starting to show some sparks of what they can become.
One thing I did notice is that Makoun really looks a bit “lightweight” for some reason. He seemed to get shoved around a bit but to his credit I don’t think he lost the ball due to the physical play. I think it makes a Makoun/Bannan pairing unlikely though — I agree that Delph or Bradley are the ideal partners (and I think Petrov is starting to realize this as well…).
He’s definitely more of a finesse player than a physical one. But I agree that it hasn’t impacted his overall game (due IMO to his dribbling skills).
Sorry just seen this. Posted my Makoun praise on the last thread. Agree it is REALLY exciting. Can’t recall seeing a Villa player in that position demanding the ball so often and using so well. He still looks hopeless in a defensive role, but hey ho, who cares?
Looks like a quality player, we don’t need him charging/dribbling forward when we have Young, Agbonlahor, Downing etc to do that. Good to have a player who can hopefully just sit in midfield, playing fairly short successful passes to start attacks, don’t really need him bombing forward when we have others who can do that.
my thoughts exactly, I see him as a distributor in the middle of the team, the centre of the wheel. When Bradley plays he will be the battler in the middle of the park. What Makoun will do is gather the ball from our backline, and distribute it forward to our attackers, with his keen eye for holes and movements. He can easily be the missing link we need to gel it all together, and i suspect GH knew this, hence his quick work signing him