Ibrahim Sangaré Back Available for Forest
The former PSV man is back from international duty, but just what have Forest missed in Sangaré's 6 match absence?
This season Forest fans have finally begun to see the best of Ibrahim Sangaré. After a decent individual end to last season, he’s continued that into this campaign and has been one of the few consistent performers regardless of who was in the dugout.
Forest have only won 1 of the 6 (5 in the league) games since Sangaré departed to the African Cup of Nations - but what does the data say he offers compared to Forest’s other midfield options?
It’s clear from just his positional profile (purely as a central midfielder in a pair), that Sangaré has had a strong, all-round game. This is perhaps only matched by Douglas Luiz, although he has had some fitness issues to go along side Forest’s apparent reluctance to give him the game time that makes his deal permanent.
During this time, Yates has also been out injured - so essentially we’re comparing him mostly to Dominguez. Perhaps surprisingly, despite all of the Argentinian’s energy, it’s Sangaré that has a higher ‘Disruptor’ score. Dominguez has offered a lot for Forest in recent weeks, but there’s a couple of things that he’s missing that Sangaré is very good at.
Sangaré’s physicality allows him to get more involved defensively within his own box, whilst also retaining the ability to be a passing option in the opposition half. This pass reception map (the pitch to the right) is perhaps a bit of a surprise, but what it shows really is that Sangaré is always available for Forest to recycle possession no matter where they are on the field.
Where I think he’s been missed the most though, is how he can give Forest a second option alongside Anderson to try and progress the ball from deeper areas. I think Douglas Luiz can do this too, but for whatever reason he hasn’t been a consistent playing option. Sangaré’s numbers from his own half have been very good this season.
Ibrahim Sangaré has the 4th highest figure of all Premier League central midfielders for Passing Yards per Completed Pass in his own half (minimum 50 passes attempted). The Ivorian has the ability to successfully move that ball forward, particularly trying to start transitions. He’s got a better record on this metric than Elliot Anderson, and then there’s a decent drop off before we find Douglas Luiz & Dominguez.
For players who look to move the ball forward more often, you’d expect them to have a lower pass completion. That is the case here with both Sangaré & Anderson being in the middle of the pack here among all central midfielders.
Douglaz Luiz & Nicolas Dominguez both show up as fairly ‘safe’ passers of the ball, which perhaps goes a long way to explain why Forest have struggled so much with ball progression in recent matches, and is one of the reasons they’ve been pretty direct too.
This again matches with the eye test and makes sense with the other data points too - Anderson & Sangaré attempt a progressive pass around 8% of the time, both in and around the top 10 in the Premier League. They’re both reasonably risky when trying to progress the ball, whilst still retaining decent accuracy too. Sangaré’s ability in this respect has definitely been missed, leaving Anderson do more of the heavy lifting in this regard.
In this last chart, we see Sangaré with the 3rd highest Passing Yards per 90 out of all eligible Premier League midfielders. Anderson ranks just behind him in 4th. This metric looks at all of the passes a player has made in his own half, taking into account both forward and backward passes. This tells us that both players are good at progressing the ball forward.
Douglas Luiz, who at his best would be a fantastic option, ranks 8th here. But again we must remember the whole host of reasons why he hasn’t been involved as much as perhaps all parties outside of the Forest’s financial team would have hoped.
What this does tell us, is that Sangaré is a clear upgrade on the more commonly used Dominguez in this facet of the game. My hope - perhaps not immediately for this week against a tough opponent in Arsenal - is that Sangaré’s return to the side can help Forest move the ball more effectively through the thirds, especially in those early phases.
He should provide the side with another option that means they won’t go as direct as often - this should help Igor Jesus in particular who wouldn’t have to fight a lone battle up front as much as he has done in recent games.
Either way, the onus is still on Dyche, the coaching staff, and the players to show an intent to play through the thirds more often. This will help sustain attacks and also give the defence that are clearly lacking in confidence a bit of a break within games.