5 Statistics That Show Why Thomas Tuchel Is So Keen On Signing Kingsley Coman For Chelsea

Chelsea are interested in Bayern Munich winger Kingsley Coman, according to reliable sources in the German media.

It is a surprising development considering that manager Thomas Tuchel already has the likes of Christian Pulisic, Hakim Ziyech and Callum Hudson-Odoi at his disposal in the first-team squad.

However, if we delve into the data for the four players from last season, we can begin to see why Tuchel is so keen to bring in Coman as another potential wide option.

Press the next page as we look at five stats that show why Chelsea want to sign the 25-year-old.

Dribbles

While it is not absolutely vital for a winger to have good dribbling ability, it is something that is important if you want your team to be more direct and ask more questions of an opponent’s defence.

In this metric, Coman comes out comfortably on top, attempting 103 dribbles last season and completing 64.1% of them. In contrast, Pulisic completed just 48.9% of his, while Hakim Ziyech (52.9%) and Callum Hudson-Odoi (53.6%) were slightly better.

Carries Into The Penalty Area

There is no point dribbling if you are just running into blind alleys on either wing, so carrying the ball into the penalty area is another indication as to how effective a winger is.

Again, Coman comes out pretty favourably, having 47 carries into the 18-yard box last season for Bayern. It must be pointed out, though, that Hudson-Odoi had 34, which considering he had far fewer minutes on the pitch means the 21-year-old would probably have surpassed Coman in this area if he had been afforded more game time.

Key Passes

Creating shots on goal (i.e key passes) is an important part of being a winger and Coman is again very impressive, coming out on top in raw numbers, with 47.

However, again, if Hudson-Odoi had been given more starts, he could have matched or even surpassed that total. The England international managed 31 key passes last season. Ziyech similarly made 34 with limited game time, but Pulisic provided just 26 despite being handed more minutes than either of his two teammates.

xG + xA per 90 minutes

While shots and assists can provide a good indicator of a player’s contribution in front of goal, it is sometimes difficult to get a decent gauge of a player’s consistency by using a single season’s total.

xG (expected goals) and xA (expected assists) offer us a better indication as to how productive a player actually is, whilst removing any freak goals or fortunate assists from the data. Here we see Coman (0.55 xG and XA per 90 minutes) is clearly ahead of Pulisic (0.43), Ziyech (0.43) and Hudson-Odoi (0.38).

Goals To Shots Conversion

Goal conversion rates can give us a good idea about who is the best finisher and we see, again, that Coman is the best in this area, albeit marginally.

The France international scored with 9.6% of his shots last season, compared with Pulisic (9.3%), Hudson Odoi (8.7%) and Ziyech (5.7%).

You may also be interested in reading:

How Chelsea Could Raise The 150M They Need For Haaland By Selling 12 Players This Summer
From “Hopes Are Gone” To “Big Chance”: How Chelsea Became Favourites To Sign Erling Haaland
Who Is Joakim Maehle? Four Things You Need To Know About The Reported Chelsea Target
Forget Hakimi: Tuchel Should Sign “Undefendable” Spaniard Who Could Be Available For Half The Price
Achraf Hakimi V Reece James: Who’s The Better Wingback? We Take A Look At The Stats
How Chelsea Could Get The Most Out Of Their 200M Budget By Signing These FOUR Players
Two Pros And Three Cons To Selling Callum Hudson Odoi Amid Reports Chelsea ‘Are Willing’ To Let Him Leave
The Top 5 Best Performing Premier League Players Of 2021 So Far

Or

You can visit our blog home page to read more news about Chelsea here