What makes João Pedro a £60m player?

Several rich clubs have been linked to Brighton attacker João Pedro all summer, most strongly of which is Newcastle. They reportedly submitted a £30m bid and were told to double it if they wanted to sign him.

On first glance, it might not be obvious what all the fuss is about. João Pedro is a bit of a weird striker/10 tweener who can play in either role. When he plays as a striker, he regularly drops deep to combine in midfield. When he plays behind a striker, he’ll make more runs in behind and dribbles into the box than the average 10. The result is a bit of a strange radar — despite spending most of his minutes as a center forward, João Pedro does not really do Striker Stuff.

His shot map is not just unimpressive, but genuinely alarming. That is a crazy low volume of unblocked shots. But he finished 5 of the 7 genuinely big chances he had this year, and they were big enough that he performed at his xG.

His key passes map looks a little better, though still not exceptional. I love the one “assist” where he makes a 1-yard pass to a teammate in the center circle, that’s outstanding stats farming.

Things start to look a little bit more interesting when you pop João Pedro into the attacking midfielder radar template, though. He’s not quite elite at anything besides pressing output, and his dribbling isn’t as impressive relative to the true dribbly boys as it is to the strikers, but he’s doing several things at average to above average level.

But I think StatsBomb’s 360 data gives us an even better hint as to what João Pedro’s potential suitors love about his game. Among strikers and central attacking midfielders who played at least 1500 minutes in the Premier League last season, he was 3rd in line-breaking passes received in the attacking half. Among the top 25 players in that stat, he is the only one who also completed 2.5 attacking half LPB per 90, or 1.5 final third LBP per 90. He’s the only player in the top 10 for all three of these categories. João Pedro has a very unique and cool skillset that isn’t easy to measure by publicly available stats.

Despite that, he is ultimately an attacker who does not get a high volume of xG or xA. Call me closed-minded, but if I am paying £60m for an attacker, I want him to score or assist at a high volume. And I think Brighton agree, which is why they’re negotiating instead of telling potential suitors to go away.

More news and rumours

• In addition to João Pedro, Newcastle have also reportedly bid for Nottingham Forest winger Anthony Elanga. I don’t think the Magpies need both players, feels like an either-or.

• We wrote about how good Bradley Barcola is a couple days ago, and suggested that he should be extremely in demand. As it turns out, both Bayern Munich and Liverpool have asked about him. But despite not having him in their first choice starting XI at the moment, PSG have told them to get lost and want to extend his contract.

• After his agent was unsuccessful in getting £10m out of Arsenal or Tottenham as suggested in the media repeatedly, Leroy Sane ultimately settled for that wage at Galatasaray.

• Napoli sure is busy. Kevin De Bruyne is expected to sign his contract today, while AC Milan midfielder Yunus Musah and Chelsea defender Trevoh Chalobah are also linked at the moment.

• Darwin Núñez strongly prefers a move to Spain or Italy to getting paid in Saudi Arabia, so sorry if you’re a Liverpool fan hoping for a max payday. A loan with an obligation to buy next summer feels much more likely.

• In case you missed it, all of Tijjani Reinders, Rayan Cherki and Rayan Aït-Nouri are all now officially Manchester City players.

• Speaking of City signing all those players, it means there was no room for Jack Grealish in the Club World Cup squad. He’s likely to go out on loan to find playing time in a World Cup year, which would require a compromise from all parties. He’s on nearly £15m a year, and no one’s paying half that. City will need to eat some wages, and Grealish will probably need to take a pay cut too. But if you’re, say, Everton or West Ham? I’d take a risk on this.

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