Odsonne Edouard: Analyzing the Next French Attacker who can make it big!
Name: Odsonne Edouard
Date of Birth: 16–01–1998
Height: 6 ft 2 inches
Weight: 83 kgs
Team: Celtic FC
Nationality: France
Clubs linked to: Arsenal, Borussia Dortmund, Newcastle United
“I find myself applauding due to the sheer quality that he possesses, which is incredible. He also has a great footballing brain and technique for such a young player. He’s very strong and he also gets goals. There have been games when I’ve really wanted to take him out just to give him a breather”
— Brendan Rogers during his stint at Celtic FC
Story so far:
Paris Saint-Germain Academy (2011–2016)
During the 2013–14 season, Edouard was the club’s top goalscorer at the U17 level with scoring 25 goals in 22 appearances in the U17 National Championship. He scored 22 goals in 14 league appearances for the U17s the following season and was part of the squad which won the Al Kass Cup. In two years, he scored more than 60 goals for the club at youth level, earning him the nicknames of “The Rocket” and “Magic Odsonne”
In January 2016, he won the 2015 Titi d’Or, an award voted for by the club’s supporters for the best academy player of the year, an award which was previously won by Kingsley Coman as well. PSG also made it to the UEFA Youth League final but were ultimately beaten 2–1 by Chelsea. Edouard scored three goals and registered three assists during the competition.
Loan to Toulouse (2016–17)
On 27 April 2016, he signed a professional contract with Paris Saint-Germain’s senior side. But owing to heavy competition in the senior team, Edouard was loaned to Toulouse for the 2016–17 season during which he made appearances occasionally as a substitute and also scored his first senior goal coming off the bench against Marseille. Things took a turn when Edouard got involved in off-the-pitch controversies which had led Toulouse to terminate his loan move abruptly.
Loan to Celtic to become their new found hero (2017–present)
Just when it looked like his career was about to go downhill even before it started, Celtic had struck a deal for the Frenchman, a loan move for the 2017–18 season. During the first season at Celtic, he was more of a substitute with Lyon’s Moussa Dembele leading the line despite which, Edouard managed to score 11 goals and 4 assists in 1200 odd minutes. It was enough for the Scottish Champions to be convinced of Edouard’s potential and ability to rise up to the occasion.
Things further fell into place when Lyon bagged Dembele and Celtic in turn, decided to hand over the responsibility of leading the attack to Edouard by making his move from PSG permanent for a fee of £9 million. In the very first season as a starter, Edouard found the net 15 times in the Scottish Premiership and 23 times in all competitions. The 2019–20 season has been furthermore promising as the Frenchman has scored 22 goals in 27 games in the Scottish Premiership, making him the league’s top scorer with Jermaine Defoe at a distant second with 13 goals. Edouard is undoubtedly the best number 9 in Scotland today and in all fairness, it wouldn’t be an overstatement to call him the best footballer in the country as well.
Playing Style
Among the youngsters, Odsonne Edouard is one of the most complete forwards in football today. The Frenchman checks all boxes to lead the front-line for a top-flight club as he has the height, strength, physique, close control, dribbling, ability to link-up, bring in other attackers into the play and an eye-for-goal with clinical finishing. The skill sets that he carries would be welcome in any club as in modern-day football, no player is expected to do just the basic duties of his position but contribute to the team in as many ways as possible irrespective of where he plays. To quote some examples, teams consider an attacking full-back, a ball-playing centre-back or a sweeper-keeper as highly valuable as apart from their basic role they add another dimension to the team, making it more difficult for the opponents to completely nullify the player.
Similarly, the revelation in recent times of football with regard to strikers has been those who drop deep and link-up play to build attacks together. This breed of strikers are arguably the most underrated attackers in football as they have a tendency to sacrifice scoring goals in order to allow their teammates to get involved in the build-up, create and score goals. Odsonne Edouard belongs to category of strikers as well and there is no doubt that this is what makes him absolutely pivotal to Celtic’s attacking. Similar to the Benzemas and Firminos of the World, Edouard also drops deep into the half-spaces of the final third to receive passes with his back to goal and likes to play quick one-two touch combinations to create chances or be at the end of the chances himself.
Standing at 6 ft 2 inches with supreme strength and close control, he makes it really difficult for the defenders to dispossess him from behind. The Frenchman tries to make the most of his skill-sets by dropping into midfield, linking up and bringing the others into the build-up as the ball enters the final third.
However, what separates Edouard is the rate at which he has found the net despite playing a link-up role to create attacks for the team. In all competitions in the 2019–20 season, the Celtic striker has scored 27 goals with 14 assists in 38 starts and 2 appearances as a substitute. Simply put, the Celtic striker averages 1 Goal/Assist per game and 1.13 Goal/Assist per 90 mins, an incredible number that suggests that you can bank on him to either score or create a goal for Celtic every game.
Finishing
For a 22 year-old, Edouard’s clinical finishing is commendable to say the least. The Celtic striker has been scoring for fun this season, not only in the SPFL but in all competitions. Be it the UEFA Champions League qualifiers, UEFA Europa League or the France U-21, his finishing has been efficient irrespective of the opponent or competition and hence, it would be unfair to call him a flat-track bully. A specialty about his finishing is his ability to place the ball towards the bottom corners and he has scored a majority of his goals in those areas. It is probably something that the Frenchman has picked up from the early stages of his career as even from the edge of the penalty area, placement over power is the way to go.
You would have seen another one of his well-placed finishes aforementioned above in this article while we spoke about his playing style. It takes not only skill but also a lot of composure in order to pull off these placements to perfection. So we can definitely interpret that Edouard has the ability to keep his cool inside the box before pulling the trigger.
The picture above shows how Edouard’s shots have been directed towards goal in terms of percentage of all shots on target. As you can see, shots directed towards the bottom of the goal (low and grounded shots) constitute to almost 60% of his shots with shots towards the bottom corners constituting to around 38%.
It is also easy to notice the contrast between the shots taken towards the left which is at 20.1% and shots taken towards the right which is at 37%, a stark difference of 17%. This is probably owing to his tendency to drop towards the left half-space (as we saw above in the heatmap), making the right end the far post which is certainly a more sensible option to beat the goalkeeper, especially when a forward is going for placement.
This confirms our observations and it is probably now safe to say that we have a pattern in the Celtic striker’s attacking gameplay which is as follows:
1. Drop Deeper in the left half-space to link-up with midfield and bring fellow attackers into the attack
2. Keep the ball under control with back to goal and when there is no time/ space to do it, then play quick combinations with 1–2 touches
3. Arrive in the box preferably towards the left side and go for a well-placed shot towards the far post bottom corner
Edouard is also gradually becoming a dead-ball specialist as he found the net thrice with direct free-kicks in the 2019–20 season. This will obviously be a welcome addition to any team who’s going to sign him up sooner than later as it gives him another way to score apart from his already well-rounded attacking gameplay.
Stats
Top scorer of the 2019–20 SPFL season — 22 goals
Fourth highest assists in the 2019–20 SPFL season — 9 assists
As you can clearly see, Edouard has an open-play xG of slightly more than 0.6 while an open-play xA of 0.25. This takes his open-play xG+A above 0.8 which is the best in the league. This is mainly owing to his ability to both score and create goals, making him arguably the most important attacker in Scotland this season.
As the image shows, Edouard is way above the average attacker in terms of shots taken, shots on target, key passes, xG, xA, Non-Penalty Goals and completed passes% in final third.
The comparison here is the deviation from the average goals per 90 of all strikers since the 2013–14 season, which stands at 0.32.
Hence a striker with average goals per 90 of 0.22 would be at -0.1 in the graphic above while a striker with average goals per 90 of 0.42 would be at +0.1 in the graphic.
As we can see, Odsonne Eduoard stands at +0.6 which means he has averaged 0.6 goals per 90 more than the average 0.32, making it 0.92 goals per 90 this season. The Celtic striker has maintained 0.9 goals per 90 over a stretch of 25 games with 22 goals, which is a much more consistent performance than anyone in the league.
Ideal system to get the best out of Edouard:
The Frenchman has been part both solo striker and two-striker systems with Celtic this season. During the first-half of the season, Celtic majorly deployed a 4–2–3–1 with Edouard leading the line with Ryan Christie as a 10 behind him but the 1–2 loss against arch rivals Rangers at Celtic Park in December, motivated the boss Neil Lennon to shuffle things up a little as Rangers manager Steven Gerrard deployed man-marking with Steven Davis to nullify Edouard whenever he drops into midfield to link-up.
The game certainly left a lasting impact on Lennon as he shifted to a 3–5–2 post this loss with Griffiths pairing up with Edouard up front. Ever since there has been an improvement in both the strikers as they seem to complement each other. Even the number seem to suggest the same:
The numbers seem to suggest that Edouard’s attacking output has seen a positive impact since the change to a front-two system. It does not necessarily mean that he cannot lead the line but a possible interpretation could be that if Edouard is to lead the line as a solo striker, then he may probably need an additional goal-scoring option either from behind him via a goal-scoring number 10 or from the wings via a player who would drift into central spaces vacated by Edouard as he drops deep into spaces. So to summarize the big picture for teams that may be looking to sign him up, an ideal way to get the best out of Edouard would either be to pair him up with a poacher as a front-two or let him lead the line with goal-scoring wingers or midfielders who would make runs into the box from the middle-third.
Data Sources:
www.sofascore.com
www.fbref.com
www.modernfitba.com
www.celticbynumberscom.ipage.com
www.transfermarkt.com
www.youaremyarsenal.com
