System Scaling: Joelinton
As most of you know, Joelinton’s transfer to Newcastle has been subject to significant criticism over the years. It tends to be served up as a prime example in discussions about the importance of scouting — you know, the ones where someone ends up finding a way to include a Moneyball quote which then spawns a wave of people giddily discussing the film.
These discussions always make me wonder if we will ever see the antithesis to Moneyball. Just imagine a film starring Steven Seagal where he beats up nerds, breaks computers, and yells at his scouts for suggesting players who do not have that dawg in them.
The discussions also show that, unlike the first installment of this series, this case is one of a player not scaling as planned. As such, I will try to break down the disconnect between Joelinton’s skill set and the initial role planned for him at Newcastle, as well as a new twist in the Brazilian’s story that fills me with a tremendous feeling of optimism for his future.
*All data from StatsBomb via Football Reference
System and Role at Hoffenheim
Joelinton spent his first true season in the big five leagues under wonderkid manager Julian Nagelsmann. That 2018/19 campaign would end being Nagelsmann’s last and Joelinton’s only at Hoffenheim.
While some unfortunate variance led to a 9th-place Bundesliga finish with the division’s 3rd-best xG difference, both player and manager certainly did enough to propel their careers to new heights.
Nagelsmann usually set up the side with a back three and front three in possession. From there, you would have shifts between 3–4–3, 3–2–5, and 3–1–4–1. Joelinton tended to be one of the “wingers” in the front three, but these were definitely more inside forwards who occupied the channels while wing backs provided width and verticality.
Meanwhile, Nagelsmann utilized more of a front two out of possession. The shape here was usually a 5–3–2, which could look like a 4–4–2 at times. Joelinton usually stayed up as the right half of this first line of defense.
Hoffenheim’s line of high engagement during established opposition possessions was usually around midfield, and they got all 10 men behind the ball. From there, they would funnel opposition attacks wide — part of Joelinton’s job — and then look to trap.
As you may have come to expect from a Nagelsmann side, Hoffenheim were very forward-thinking after winning possession. They initially ended to play the ball into the feet of Joelinton or the “true” nine in the side. These players were then tasked with holding the ball up and laying it off while numbers got forward — opening play up for third/fourth man runs.
Signs of a Newcastle Nine?
So within that role, what did Joelinton actually show that would translate to leading the line for Newcastle? A great place to start would be his pressing engine and ball winning capabilities. As I said in the Cucurella article, every side needs players who can make opposition ball carriers uncomfortable, and Joelinton could certainly do this.
The Brazilian led all Bundesliga forwards in dribblers tackled per 90 and tackles + interceptions per 90 that season. His ability to disrupt from the front and occasionally drop back would have certainly been appealing to a side who spent a lot of time out of possession.
Joelinton was also excellent at taking in balls out of the air. He had the size and aerial ability to go with brilliant chest control and composure. While Hoffenheim matches would get quite open, this was something he consistently showed the ability to do under pressure.
He did not put up monster aerial numbers (61st percentile among forwards for aerials won per 90), but this was in a Hoffenheim side that played the third fewest “high” passes in the division.
Even with some of these nice, transferable qualities in mind, though, there was one thing I just could not really believe throughout my time watching the Brazilian: his goal-scoring movement was basically nonexistent.
Renowned analyst sthsthburner wrote about how Edinson Cavani’s movement made him “as anonymous as possible” to opposition defenders. Well, in true box movement situations, Joelinton often made himself anonymous to his teammates instead.
The Brazilian was often just kind of “there”, or elected to stay at the edge of the box. Even from deeper positions, he was not really making bursting channel runs — he was linking play.
A lot of his good chances came from transition situations, and within the Hoffenheim system, Kramarić (0.57), Belfodil (0.55), and Szalai (0.47) all put up higher npxG per 90 tallies than him (0.39).
While I admit it would have been interesting to see how Joelinton’s movement could have developed in multiple years under Nagelsmann or someone like Klopp, I do not know what Newcastle thought they saw.
How Did It Play Out At Newcastle (Initially)
And well, yeah, things did not really work out as Newcastle — for whatever reason — had hoped. Even when paired with an established Premier League nine like Callum Wilson, Joelinton’s role just seemed so awkward.
The lack of goal-scoring movement was super apparent. I have just seen nothing in his locker in terms of check-in-check-away movement, blindside runs, attacking the front/back post, etc.
Thus, over the course of the 2019/20 and 2020/21 Premier League seasons, the Brazilian put up only 0.19 non-penalty expected goals per 90.
He was still very good at allowing possessions to reach the attacking half, but within Newcastle’s system this was far less valuable. A Steve Bruce side — with all due respect — was not going to put in work in transition like a Nagelsmann one.
Joelinton’s defensive numbers did remain elite as well, and his aerial performance scaled, as reflected by his percentile ranks among Premier League forwards in 2020/21:
- 96th for dribblers tackled per 90
- 91st for percentage of dribblers tackled
- 91st in aerials won per 90
- 84th in percentage of aerials won
However, that major, major weakness of his just loomed over everything. There was definitely some level of ignorance from fans about the ways in which a forward could contribute outside of goals, but this really was just an awkward fit — not a case of a misunderstood genius.
A New Hope
In recent months, though, Joelinton’s Newcastle career has taken quite an inspiring turn. Again, I am not saying I predicted this whatsoever, but let us look at how it has happened and how his profile has translated into a new role.
We can start by jumping back to his Hoffenheim days for a reminder of just how good his link-up play was. In Germany, the first thing that really popped out were his great connective and combinative abilities.
Now he gets to utilize these skills — among others — as the left centre midfielder in Eddie Howe’s 4–3–3, without the weight of goal expectations on his shoulders. Howe’s arrival has also helped the Brazilian in general as it has brought much more attempted ball circulation and structure in possession.
He is able to pick out simple passes and/or make the occasional bursting carry out of pressure. Centre midfield Joelinton does not make a ton of “wow” plays on the ball, but he has the fundamentals — like “If I receive the ball like this and drive at this opponent, then I can lay the ball off to my teammate in more space.”
The goal scoring movement is really not much of an issue now, as Joelinton can just kind of arrive late at the top of the box without having to worry much about shaking a marker. Try to focus on the position he gets into instead of the absolutely hilarious miss here:
One fear with moving the Brazilian to midfield would probably have been forcing him to defend much more dynamic athletes than centre backs carrying out from deep. However, the space and level of isolation is lower in this midfield role, so he can rely more on his long legs and upper body strength in traffic to be quite a valuable ball winner.
I have taken Joelinton’s stats from his recent run of Premier League matches listed as a centre midfielder (starting against Liverpool on December 16, 8.5 90s in total) and tried to put them in a bit of context. Now, the manner in which I have done this is a bit suspect, but I could not really think of another time-efficient way.
Basically, if you take Joelinton’s “centre-mid-only” stats and look for similar values in Football Reference’s scouting reports for midfielders over the last 365 days, you get:
- Shots: 1.66 (Adrien Thomasson is in the 90th percentile at 1.69)
- NpxG+xA: 0.21 (Marcos Llorente is in the 79th percentile at 0.22)
- Shot-creating actions: 2.37 (Sergi Darder is in the 71st percentile at 2.33)
- Pass Completion Rate: 86.19 (Adrien Rabiot is in the 70th percentile at 86.2)
- Progressive passes: 2.72 (Seko Fofana is in the 21st percentile at 2.80)
- Progressive Carries: 4.26 (Boubakary Soumare is in the 61st percentile at 4.25)
- Successful Dribbles: 1.66 (Seko Fofana is in the 94th percentile at 1.67)
- Pressures: 21.64 (Thiago is in the 80th percentile at 22.12)
- Tackles: 4.14 (Wilfred Ndidi is in the 99th percentile at 4.00)
- Interceptions: 2.25 (Guido Rodríguez is in the 85th percentile at 2.29)
We will need to see this play out over a longer run of matches, but there are certainly good signs early on against varying levels of opposition. By no means is Joelinton a perfect midfielder, but paired with Jonjo Shelvey (main long/progressive distributor) and Joe Willock (super dynamic, silky on the ball as well) it is quite cool to see that he has carved out a nice role.
On a team level, too, Newcastle’s average xG difference in those last nine matches has been a solid -0.07. Only nine Premier League sides have better season tallies than that at the time of writing.
Key Takeaways
So what can we learn from Joelinton’s story thus far?
- Knowing how an attacker puts up good underlying numbers is crucial. Open Bundesliga matches in a Nagelsmann-coached side is not a “typical” setting.
- A player can maintain their performance of a certain action at a high level and still provide less value to their team with that action. Joelinton’s link-up play to facilitate the initial progression of attacks led to far less without Hoffenheim’s aggressive runners.
- Player build is a difficult thing to take into account. I almost wanted to say something like, “Oh, it feels like we are seeing a lot of long-legged tackle machines popping up in centre midfield. It made sense to try Joelinton there.” But at the same time, he certainly had the size and the muscle to be the nine Newcastle wanted. I guess it all comes back to how those attributes are utilized.
- Finally, while this is not really the point of the series, it is always nice to be reminded that a player’s career is never fully devoid of hope. Sometimes the right blend of situation, manager, etc. just has to come together.
