Is it better to be the best player on a bad team or the worst player on a good team?
Fortunately, we’re not here to answer that question but a few others. We have been looking for footballers whose last season performances were well above the average level of their own teams, most of which were relegated. Yes, we’ve been searching for our own Andrew Robertson, who needed Liverpool to take a punt on him after what was apparently a disastrous year at Hull City. The rest, as they say, is history.
Yet, most of the time finding the hidden good players in the worst teams is not the easiest of jobs. Their production, whether offensive or defensive, or both, is closely related to their team’s approach and possibilities. For example, the attacking output of an out-and-out striker in a team that rarely gets into the box consistently will be undermined by that. However, even though his return would still be subject to his team’s, if we compare how much of the offensive burden he’s carrying on his shoulders to his teammates’s, we could get an insight of how important he is to the team and whether he is really living up to the expectations placed on him.
So, with that in mind, we’ve created a list of five players that could be ready for a new opportunity after impressing in a year in which their teams clearly did not.
Chiedozie Ogbene – Luton Town – 1997 (28) – Market value around 8M
Ireland’s Ogbene was one of Rob Edwards’s mainstays in a tricky season for Luton Town. They were the Premier League side with the least resources at their disposal and got deservedly relegated. However, along the way, Luton Town’s use of Ogbene helped us discover a versatile, direct and attacking-minded wing-back on both flanks, who also had spells as a central attacking midfielder and second striker.
Luton were no good but Ogbene stood out thanks to his tireless running and his appetite for things to happen. His season radar won’t impress many people: he’s a wing-back that dribbles quite a lot and completes an average of 81% of his passes per game. However, while he was on the pitch, he did create the 20.2% of his team’s xT from open play and was responsible for nearly 13% of his team ball progression in the opposition half. He also played a big role in creating chances (OP Key Passes and xG Build Up) and winning aerials. The Lagos-born wing-back seems to fit well both in a wing-back system and also as a winger, so he could be a great option for teams that play an old-fashioned but effective approach as Luton did during some moments during the season.
Armand Laurienté – Sassuolo – 1998 (25) – Market value around 10M
This season’s Laurienté is quite clearly an impostor of himself. He was bad, and we mean bad. He took a few shots, completed some dribbles and did nothing else aside. And yet he finished the season with 5 non-penalty goals and 4 assists. Although our point stands, we’ve cheated a bit in this case and we’ve used Laurienté’s radar from the 22/23 season so we could explain ourselves better. He’s undoubtedly good and just 25 years old. But this Sassuolo was one of the worst should-be-good teams in the last decade of Serie A.
In the 22/23 season, Laurienté was involved in 13 goals (7G + 6A) and carried all the attacking burden in his team. Admittedly while taking corners and free-kicks, he completed 32% of Sassuolo’s total number of passes into the opposition box and was the author of 21.6% of Sassuolo’s key passes in open play while he was on the pitch. Compared with wingers like him in the top five leagues, he rocked in most of the in Team metrics, which measure how much responsibility players acquire in certain aspects in respect to other similar players in the league.
Elia Caprile – Empoli (Napoli) – 2001 (22) – Market value around 6M
Who remembers the last goalkeeper that signed for a top club in Europe on the back of a great season at Empoli?
Yes, you all are right, it’s 27-year-old Guglielmo Vicario, who’s playing for Spurs and doing it pretty well. That could be a great advice for Elia Caprile as he’s now returning to Napoli back from a successful loan spell at Empoli, in which they escaped relegation thanks to a last-gasp Mbaye Niang goal. Analysing goalkeepers is always a difficult task, because there are those who face a lot of shots and those who hardly face any. Caprile found himself in the first category as he received 101 shots during the season. However, he prevented the 2th highest number of goals per game, only behind Donnarumma in terms of keepers with more than 1700 mins.
We’ve compared him to Meret’s Scudetto season in which he was arguably joint-second best goalkeeper only behing Mike Maignan. In a more possession-minded team, Meret showed better composure on the ball but was arguably worse overall compared to Caprile. Of course, we have to put that numbers in context: Napoli were champions with a fine margin and conceded a season-low 28 goals. With Meret still at Napoli for preseason under Conte, Caprile could be on the move, whether on loan or on a permanent transfer, to one of many suitors he will deservedly have.
Lamine Camara – Metz – 2004 (20) – Market value around 10M
While Camara has not been good enough to save Metz from relegation (it would be unfair to ask that to a 20-year-old on his first Ligue 1 season), he’s been bright enough to gain a spot in this list. His game as a central midfielder, sometimes a deep-lying one, mixes a few qualities that combine to create a profile with clear potential. Camara has technical quality and good passing skills, while also being a fine set-piece taker, but also his ability to tackle dribblers is good.
Camara generated a bigger share of xT than most of Ligue 1 midfielders while also completing a 15% of Metz total tackles. There’s more on his complete profile as he is one of the busiest players in the league: 14% of Metz’s clearances and recoveries were made by himself and also 13.9% of Metz’s build-up xG came through him. Camara is one of the most promising players in Senegalese football and could now be available at a discounted price. When we say he has a great ball-striking is mainly because of things like the one below: you’d be pursuing Ligue 1’s goal of the season winner.
Patrick Dorgu – Lecce – 2004 (19) – Market value around 12M
Dorgu is a rare profile. In his first Serie A season, he played in all possible left flank positions: 1083 mins. at left-back, 458 mins. as a left-midfielder and more than a thousand as an attacker. However, that mixture paints a poor radar as he only stands out as a good tackler with solid aerial efficiency. He scored two goals and gave no assists. Really, it doesn’t look promising.
However, while on the pitch, Dorgu took charge of 12.4% of Lecce’s xG from open play while also creating chances (open play Key Passes and xG build-up). He also completed 35.3% of all clearances. He can do a bit of everything: his dominant physical profile makes him one of Europe’s most wanted good players from not so good teams.
We are Driblab, a consultancy specialized in the statistical analysis of players and teams; our work is focused on advising and minimizing risk in professional football decision-making in areas related to talent detection and footballer evaluations. Our database has more than 200,000 players from more than 180 competitions, covering information from all over the world. Here you can learn more about how we work and what we offer.
