В Атлетик высокого мнения о Хойбьерге. Гвардиола хотел вылепить из него нового Бускетса, они одного типажа игроки. По некоторой статистике он лучший по возврату мячей в Лиге.
https://theathletic.com/1980973/The most ball recoveries in the league – what Spurs should expect from Hojbjerg
Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, like Sergio Busquets, the linchpin of Barcelona, has a natural sense of position. It is an innate skill and something he has never needed to work on. At just 17, he does most of the right things automatically. He has also come along ready and willing to learn” – Marti Perarnau, in his book Pep Confidential
Every effort at assessing Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg probably contains a shoehorned Pep Guardiola reference, but it’s a helpful starting point for assessing Tottenham Hotspur’s latest acquisition.
Hojbjerg, “a diamond in the rough” who Guardiola tried to polish up in the Dane’s first two seasons at Bayern Munich, was tipped as a future Busquets-style midfielder: someone who reads the game brilliantly, protects his backline with intelligence and positional awareness rather than overt physicality, and opens up opposition midfield lines with penetrative passing. It’s likely that no Tottenham fan is expecting Hojbjerg to be north London’s answer to Busquets, but what can they expect from the former Southampton captain?
Southampton play a 4-2-2-2 under Ralph Hasenhuttl, succinctly explained here by The Athletic’s Carl Anka. Hojbjerg is one of the double pivots, playing largely behind the two inverted wide midfielders and alongside James Ward-Prowse. Of those two, Ward-Prowse is the slightly more progressive passer and Hojbjerg the slightly more aggressive presser and defender, but it’s noticeable just how close their statistics are in these areas – Hasenhuttl created a midfield machine where roles overlap and players are expected to contribute to all facets of the game.
Hojbjerg’s headline-grabbing statistic is the less-than-glamorous “ball recoveries” – winning back a loose ball that’s been lost by a team-mate — and this past season he made 510, according to StatsBomb, more than any other player in the Premier League. Third for this metric was Hojbjerg’s midfield colleague Ward-Prowse – between them, they accounted for a quarter of all Southampton’s recoveries, and no team snaffled the ball back more than Southampton. This is testament both to Hojbjerg’s reading of the game and his slightly maniacal energy levels. He’s effective when mopping up loose balls after attacks break down and protecting Southampton from transitions and will hunt down counter-attacks too, although he’s not blessed with real pace.
Southampton are a pressing side and Hojbjerg was key to this. He’s an organiser, barking orders and setting the tone for their pressing game. He responds well to the pressing triggers – loose touches, backwards or horizontal passes by the touchline – and he’s also adept at pouncing on players from their blind spot as they receive a pass. In his one-one-one defending, he can get too square and occasionally dives in a little quickly, though in general he’s quite disciplined; his technique could improve, though.
This combination of good spatial defending, commitment – it was deep into stoppage-time with the scores level at this point – and technique is the sort of around-the-box presence that helps any side.
As a ball-progressing midfielder, Hojbjerg has probably developed less than Guardiola would have hoped in their days together in Munich.
This, however, comes with a significant caveat. Because of Hasenhuttl’s very specific approach, which uses counter-pressing by the strikers and wide midfielders to hem teams in around the wide areas and half spaces, Hojbjerg hits a lot of early passes to drop in the channels for them to hunt down — this naturally inhibits his passing numbers.
Nonetheless, he’s a good technical striker of the ball. The match above against Brighton, which he actually began playing at right-back, showed off his long passing – one cross-field ball to Nathan Redmond hit its exact spot with some nice backspin, and a long pass down the line to Michael Obafemi boxed Brighton in.
Often, he receives the ball under some pressure from the defence, shifts it back and moves to take a higher position between the lines to show as another passing option. So he’s good at keeping the ball moving, and busy when it comes to getting into position. Around a fifth of his passes are made under pressure (according to StatsBomb data) indicative of his role in keeping play moving in midfield before another player plays a more direct pass forward.
In general, though, it’s hard to assess what kind of passing Hojbjerg will bring. He’s probably got more in his locker than he’s shown this season, but it could take him a bit of time to rediscover that, or it could be that Spurs head coach Jose Mourinho wants exactly that kind of receive-pass-move-receive player to oil the cogs in midfield.
So how will he fit in? Much will depend on who he gets paired with in the double pivot. In some ways, the most exciting prospect is him playing alongside Giovani Lo Celso, who shows up extremely well in pressing metrics and moves the ball forwards in a similar way to Hojbjerg, but with more line-breaking ability. This would give Tottenham a dynamic, pressing double pivot, although perhaps without the sheer athleticism Mourinho wants in at least one of the deeper midfielders.
Although Tanguy Ndombele seemed to end the season out of favour, he too could work neatly with Hojbjerg, bringing similar passing numbers but greater ball carrying. A Hojbjerg-Harry Winks double pivot would probably see the latter dropping off to collect the ball and move it on, with Hojbjerg working more as a screen and doing the bulk of the defensive work, an area where Winks is a little less effective.
Of course, Mourinho could persist with Moussa Sissoko, who started all of Spurs’ nine post-lockdown matches and played the full 90 in six of them. He does offer ball-carrying from deep, and this could allow Hojbjerg to play further up the pitch, engaging a higher press and using his progressive passing, which is better than Sissoko’s. There’s a danger that this midfield pairing could be too similar, though – two good all-rounders who don’t do anything exceptionally – and it would lack a real progressive passer such as Winks or Le Celso.
Here’s how Hojbjerg compares with Spurs’ current options, based on this season’s key metrics per 90 minutes, according to StatsBomb.
Hojbjerg vs Spurs' midfield options
The key with the construction of any midfield is balance. A manager likely wants some aspects to be complimentary – similar pressing styles, for example – and some to give variety – one player being better defensively, another better at getting the ball forward. Hojbjerg certainly adds to Mourinho’s options in that regard, but perhaps isn’t different enough in some key regards from what is already in the squad.
Hojbjerg has yet to deliver on the promise Guardiola saw in him as a teenager at Bayern, and one wonders how such attention, both from the coach and Perarnau’s book, affected his progress. He has developed into the kind of player who is good at pretty much everything, long-range shooting aside, but without managing to be great at anything, recoveries aside.
His reading of the game is his biggest asset and that will certainly benefit Spurs. But, having played in such a clearly defined system with Southampton, one hardly geared to encourage the kind of line-breaking passes and tight game management once envisioned as his future, it’s hard to know Hojbjerg will adapt.
He’ll be an asset to his new club, certainly. But to what degree depends on how exactly Mourinho plans to use him and how quickly Hojbjerg adapts to a very different style of play.
A more genuinely destructive and athletic presence, with the same positional acumen, might have been a more sensible choice – another Victor Wanyama, in other words – but for what’s available currently in the market and the price bracket Spurs were shopping in, Hojbjerg should be considered a good, if not outstanding, acquisition.
DirtyBird » 23 фев 2012, 12:08 
