Why Dominic Solanke Is Tottenham's Best Signing In Years
Bournemouth's Dom Solanke has agreed a move to Tottenham worth a reported £65m, and that's incredible news for the club. As well as finally representing a direct replacement for Harry Kane, Adam Clery looks at the strikers ability and tells us why he's the perfect player to for Ange Postecoglu's system.
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00:00Right, hello everybody, Adam Cleary from 442 here, and two headlines for you this morning.
00:09One, Dominic Solanke looks like he is going to Tottenham, and two, it was way, way too
00:13hot to be wearing a jumper.
00:16Now what is particularly interesting to me, a dork, about this is that a few years ago
00:21you would have looked at it and thought, oh, Dominic Solanke going to Tottenham, that's
00:25the most Spurs transfer imaginable, in a bad way.
00:28But now, given specifically what he does on a football pitch, and the way this Tottenham
00:32team plays, you look at it and you think, oh, Dominic Solanke going to Tottenham, that's
00:37the most Spurs transfer imaginable, in a good way.
00:41And that's, that's the intro.
00:47Alright so first off, despite all the injuries and form and various other changes, this was
00:51Ange Postakoglou's preferred shape and preferred players across last season.
00:56I'm sure I was a bit surprised at that, actually, I thought James Madison missed loads of last
01:00season, but he started like 26 league games, so.
01:02And obviously they started really brightly, but they tailed off towards the end, but we
01:05will come back to this team and this system and this manager and these players in a little
01:09bit, because first, you need to understand who Dominic Solanke is, and what he does.
01:14Probably the easiest way to describe him is like, maybe Ivan Toney aside, Dom Solanke
01:19is the best centre forward in the Premier League, not currently at a elite or like European
01:25challenging club.
01:26He finished joint fourth in the Premier League for the total number of goals, he averaged
01:30exactly one goal every two games, when you start discounting penalties from that, he
01:35actually finished third in the league, he was third as well for non-penalty expected
01:39goals, if you're a nerd like me and you enjoy that kind of thing, he was fourth for the
01:43total number of shots, he was fifth for the number of touches in the opposition box, those
01:47are elite numbers, and with respect to Bournemouth, he was doing that at Bournemouth.
01:53He is a proper, proper centre forward, like if we look at this very cool graph that Opta
01:58kindly made showing all his shots and his goals from last season, obviously the goals
02:02are the big pink ones, the shots are just the little circle ones with a hole in it,
02:06that's pretty straightforward, you'll see he just loves being in the box, there's such
02:10a high concentration in the six yard box, there's like a few more scattered around sort
02:15of the width of the goal, and he very rarely finds himself either out wide or outside the
02:19box.
02:20There are 16 goals in total there, we've got 19 across the season but we're not including
02:24the penalties, so there's 16 goals from open play there, and they come from an xG of 15.7,
02:30which tells you that he's not an elite fantastic finisher that gets you things out of absolutely
02:35nothing, but if you are a team capable of laying on the chances, he will consistently
02:39and dependably convert them.
02:41Just to put all that in a little bit of context, I've sort of pulled this FB Ref graph together
02:45showing him versus like Alexander Isak, Erling Haaland, Mo Salah, Olly Watkins and Son Heung-min
02:50who was playing that position for Tottenham.
02:53You can see that he profiles really similarly to Watkins and Isak in terms of the number
02:58of shots he's able to get away per game, and more specifically the average xG of all the
03:02shots he gets.
03:03And I know I'm banging on about xG a lot, and a lot of people don't really think it's
03:06that important, but it is a good measure of the quality of chance, like Solanke isn't
03:11snatching at things from outside the box, he finds himself in really good positions
03:16to convert from.
03:17And if you can, just humour me for a few more seconds on the whole xG thing.
03:20When you look at all the xG he got across the season, and you minus the goals from that,
03:24this is where he ranks with all those other strikers.
03:27Like Son is miles ahead in this because he's got like a long-range rasper in his locker
03:31and that sort of distorts the numbers there, but the out-and-out centre forwards, he's
03:35only fractionally behind Watkins and Isak, and ahead of Haaland and Salah.
03:39And just, if I haven't managed to hammer this point home with all those numbers, let
03:43me put it in a small amount of words, okay, he is not an elite get-you-stuff-out-of-nothing
03:47centre forward, but he is very, very good, and more importantly, very reliable.
03:53And that means that theoretically any club in the Premier League that was looking for
03:56a goalscorer should have been looking at Dom Solanke, but Tottenham are not just any club
04:01in the Premier League.
04:02They have other specific needs, and they are specific needs that Dom Solanke also ticks
04:07every single box for.
04:09Last season, he led the Premier League, not just was one of the better ones, was top for
04:13the total number of pressures applied to the opposition.
04:16So the amount of closing down he did, the amount of attempting to win the ball back,
04:20he was the most proactive player of any position for trying to do that.
04:25He led the Premier League for pressures all over the pitch, he led the Premier League
04:28for pressures in the final third specifically, and he led the Premier League for pressures
04:33that then led to a shot on goal.
04:36Now the vast majority of the credit for this does go to Areola and how quickly he transformed
04:40Bournemouth into this really aggressive, high-pressing side, but were this not part of Solanke's
04:45inherent make-up, he wouldn't have flourished quite like he did.
04:49And I cannot thank Opta enough for their continuous hard work in the world of football graphs
04:54that I can neatly overlay on my picture, but this is a brilliant diagram showing you where
04:59Dominic Solanke applied pressure across the course of the season.
05:03The numbers here basically represent how many times per 90 minutes he pressured the
05:07opposition in that specific area, and you can see it's so, so front foot.
05:13Yes there is a little bit in his own half because sometimes you will just have to sit
05:16back and that's how football is, but the vast majority is in the opposition third and he's
05:20not afraid to go all the way forward and do it in the opposition box.
05:25And I was there man, I saw it happen, I was at St James' Park when he closed down an errant
05:30back pass to the goalkeeper and got a goal from absolutely nothing.
05:35That doesn't just happen if you're loitering around, that happens because you're the kind
05:39of player that does that every single time.
05:41So that's good isn't it?
05:43Obviously he's very good, he does everything you want in front of goal, he's a force in
05:46nature when you're out of possession as well, but why is this specifically so good for Tottenham
05:52that were I a Spurser, I would have a flare up my bottom the day this gets announced?
05:57As we said at the very start of the video, Tottenham started so brightly in the league,
06:01they were top for long periods but then they slowly faded away and somehow missed out on
06:06the top four.
06:07And the reason for both of those facts is literally the same reason.
06:11Ange Postakoglu came in and he really quickly implemented this aggressive front foot, play
06:17it forward, press them to death style of play and in the opening weeks of the season, players
06:22like Udoge, players like Van de Ven, players like Maddison made this system absolutely
06:26sing and they scared the life out of everyone they played.
06:30I'll always go back to this, that 2-2 draw at the Emirates, both of those goals a Tottenham
06:35score, Arsenal simply cannot believe that is happening to them.
06:39For the first, they cannot believe that Tottenham are breaking up the field that quickly and
06:43that incisively and for the second, they cannot believe they are being pressed that aggressively.
06:48But the problem they had as the season went on was they got major injuries to several
06:52players who made this system sing and all of a sudden, you're trying to play really
06:57high, really front foot, really suffocate the opposition but you've got Ben Davies
07:02here having to cover back all this distance and you're trying to have these full backs
07:05inverting to the middle and it's not Udoge, it's Emerson Royale.
07:09And he did get a lot of criticism for this, Postakoglu, if you remember.
07:13People said he should have adapted Tottenham's style to not quite be so aggressive given
07:18the personnel they didn't have available but of course, I say, no, never compromise
07:24on anything, ever.
07:26Be stubborn, be rigid, be a complete nightmare, that's what I do.
07:30Anyway, so the point I'm actually trying to make here is that Postakoglu has fundamentally
07:34altered the DNA of this team very quickly.
07:37If we look at this graph that Sky made, in one season he took them from being bottom
07:41of the league in terms of their starting position for both offensive and defensive actions and
07:46turned them into the highest team in the league from that.
07:49They literally went from being the most back foot team to the most front foot team.
07:53They were top of the league last season for the number of high turnovers where they win
07:57the ball back close to the opposition goal and they were second for the number of chances
08:01they created from high turnovers.
08:03They are so aggressive, they are so front foot, when the players are available it works
08:09really well.
08:10But one thing they could never quite get right was the identity of the centre forward.
08:14Tottenham were 4th in the league last season for the total number of shots they created.
08:18They were a really attacking team, but they dropped down to like 7th or 8th for the total
08:23number of goals.
08:24Just to put that in its most basic terms, they are a Champions League side when it comes
08:28to creating chances and they're just about a Conference League side when it comes to
08:33taking them.
08:34And the problem primarily was Son, who I'm not having to go out in any way, shape or
08:38form.
08:39I thought he did fantastic last year, it's just that they lost Harry Kane and they didn't
08:42get a direct replacement.
08:43So he found himself pressed into playing into the middle and it didn't really suit him.
08:47And as a result he was kind of in and out of that position, like he played the bulk
08:50of his games as their centre forward, 23 I think in total, but he also had 12 more starts
08:55on this left hand side because he just never quite clicked.
08:58And I'll show you what the problem is right, this is Son's seasonal heat map across the
09:02last campaign.
09:03You can see he spends loads of time over here and he spends loads of time there, it's because
09:07obviously he was interchanging positions across the season.
09:09But his last game that Tottenham won, where he played centre forward, was the win against
09:14Burnley and they dominated the ball, so everybody was involved a lot, right?
09:17And this is his heat map from that game specifically.
09:21Now what you should be noticing here is he does most of his work outside the box.
09:24Now yes, Burnley did defend deep, so there wasn't a lot of space, but you would still
09:27expect a focal point centre forward to be further up, to be far more concentrated around
09:34this area, not drifting sort of all over the place and even back in his own half doing
09:39bits and pieces.
09:40And the problem with that is that the Arnge ball system has so much interchanging going
09:43on from the sixes and the eights and it wants the full backs to get involved here and it
09:48sometimes wants the wide players to hold the width, but sometimes it wants them to sneak
09:51in when the play's developing on the other side, it wants these guys to steal in when
09:55the centre forward can create space.
09:56There's so much movement, there is so much flexibility, but it is all built around a
10:01central pivot.
10:03And this is a real deep cut graphic for you, right?
10:05In Arnge's last season at Celtic, his starting centre forward was Furahashi, right?
10:10And from that season, this is his seasonal heat map.
10:14And straight away, what do you notice about that?
10:16Like obviously there's splotches here, there and everywhere because it's across the course
10:18of the entire season, that's going to happen, but the vast majority, the biggest concentration
10:23of his actions are all deep into the box.
10:27Now you look at that, which is what a centre forward is supposed to be doing in this system
10:31and you compare it again to Son versus Burnley, it's night and day.
10:35And then, and here's the real payoff of the video, you compare that to Dom Solanke's seasonal
10:40heat map from Bournemouth last season, and would you look at that?
10:44It's right where everything is supposed to be.
10:47This is funny, obviously, because he takes a lot of kick-offs, but other than that, everything
10:51he's doing, where possible, is in this central area.
10:54It's between the width of the goal, it's in the 18-yard box.
10:57Hell, let's stick his shots and his goals on top of that again, and it paints the picture
11:01of someone who is an out-and-out, egg-and-chips centre forward.
11:06So, and I'm feeling very pleased with myself here, just to recap, what are Tottenham's
11:10major problems from last season?
11:11Well, they create a lot of chances, but they don't reliably take them, and also, they don't
11:16have a central focal point in the 18-yard box leading their attack.
11:20And what is Dom Solanke?
11:21You can say it at home with me if you like, he is someone who reliably takes his chances
11:25and is a central focal point at the very point of their attack.
11:29And oh, wait a minute, what have we got here on the heat map?
11:32Is that some vital defensive contributions in his own 18-yard box?
11:36Well, if we just get the old FB Ref stats up, you can see that he's by no means one
11:40of the best players in the world at winning headers, but he's certainly incredibly
11:44competent at them.
11:45And you think back to last season, where Tottenham had that really bad run where they were conceding
11:49loads of set-piece goals, all of a sudden, having a much bigger, stronger, better-in-the-air
11:54centre forward than someone like, say, Son, means you've got an extra defensive weapon
11:59at the back as well.
12:01Funny that, innit?
12:02Now, obviously, nothing is guaranteed in football, but I think, honestly, this is probably the
12:07best player-to-club fit I've seen so far in this transfer window.
12:12Like, he is a player whose every ability, whose every positive is exactly what Tottenham
12:18need right now.
12:19Now, maybe that's the kiss of death on him.
12:21Maybe he gets three goals all season.
12:22Maybe his head falls off.
12:23Who knows?
12:24But I really do not think it is.
12:27Now, I've got absolutely loads of housekeeping to do today, because I finally remembered
12:30to bring a copy of the season preview in.
12:31It is the best thing we do all year, in my opinion.
12:34It comes with this special season preview guide, as well as the latest issue of 442.
12:38It previews everything going on in England and Scotland.
12:42It's honestly, like, even before I worked here, I would go and get this.
12:45It was a ritual I had before the season started, and you should too, because it's excellent.
12:49And also, I've been saying this in every single video, I am running the Great North Run very,
12:54very soon.
12:55And that's a bad idea, because no knees, bad heart, childhood asthma, et cetera.
12:59But I'm trying to raise some money for MIND, who are a mental health charity here in the
13:03UK.
13:04I'll stick a link below if you want to read about why I'm doing that, why it's a cause
13:07close to my heart, why they do such amazing vital work here in the UK and beyond.
13:12And if you have got a couple of quid sitting around after watching a video about a man
13:16who costs £60 million, any donations whatsoever, big or small, they go absolutely mild.
13:21They really do make a difference, and they make my heart grow several sizes.
13:24You can get me across all the social medias, at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y.
13:28Thank you to my parents for giving me such an SEO-friendly name.
13:31The 442 Socials are in the corner of the video, the mag I've told you about, the sponsorship
13:35thing I've told you about, Dom Solanke I've told you about, and also it was too hot to
13:39wear a jumper.
13:40I told you that at the start.
13:42So I'm going to shower now.
13:43That's my treat.
13:44Goodbye!