An early look at Eze in the '10' role

Some people thought when he signed that he might just take this position and make it his, let's see how the early returns are going.

Last season revealed a tough reality for Arsenal: the team heavily relied on a fit Martin Odegaard to the team running.

His injury and dip in form weren’t the only issues for Arsenal last season, but he was a player whose absence or lack of sharpness clearly impacted the team. It was evident how much Arsenal struggled to progress the ball and create chances without him at his best.

It’s hard to say exactly how much the signing of Eberechi Eze was to bolster the options in case Odegaard missed time, but it sure is nice that the team has been able to turn to him as the captain has again missed significant time this season due to injuries.

It is still too early to draw definite conclusions but making it to the quarter of the season played milestone gives us just enough information to start getting an idea of how things are going for him.

For this analysis I am going to combine his Premier League and Champions League time this season to try and add in a few more minutes and help alleviate some of the small sample size worries, while I also compare him to ‘advanced midfielders’.

Let’s start with a nice old standby, the classic slice chart that compares his production on a percentile basis to his peers.

This is solid overall production, but not exactly spectacular. He so far this season doesn’t have any areas that are clear holes in his data, but he also is not up filling out the graphic.

So far this season, Eze has bounced around playing all over the attacking half of the pitch showing off his versatility, but the vast majority of his time has been central and playing in one of the advanced midfield roles.

One of my main takeaways from the initial run of games is that trying to do what Odegaard does is hard, and that Eze has taken a different approach to playing in this position.

In this regard, I have a few templates that try and capture that even if players play in the same parts of the pitch and have the same position on the lineup graphic, what they are trying to accomplish and what matters varies from player to player.

Eze to my eye looks and plays much more like a classic attacking midfielder, even a second striker. The attacking midfield template here focuses much more on the end product actions and that shows Eze’s strengths a bit more.

So far, he hasn’t fully hit the highs that he had shown in previous seasons and is still adjusting to Arsenal, even if he doesn’t have to adjust to a new league.

Let’s go through this in a bit more detail.

Shooting

This is Premier League only, I don’t have these graphics set up to use the data from multiple competitions.

So far this season Eze’s shooting numbers have all taken a step back from what he did at Crystal Palace. His shot volume is still good, but he has gone from 2.8 open play shots two seasons to 2.2 open play shots last season, down to 1.9 this season (1.6 in the PL and CL).

Eze has never been a selective shooter and has been more reliant on volume over average quality and that has remained with Arsenal. It’s a touch worrying that even with a drop in volume, that hasn’t been made up by a corresponding increase in average quality.

The drop off in volume and average quality has meant that his overall expected goals are down as well.

He’s still in a good range, but he has fallen down from the borderline elite production that he had shown the last two seasons.