How Leny Yoro Solves Man United's Biggest Problem
Manchester United have signed Leny Yoro from Lille for just shy of £60m. It's a transfer fee that's being called "inflated" but, given Erik ten Hag's defensive shortcomings last season, could it actually work out to be a bargain? Adam Clery takes a lot at what the player offers, and what Man United really need, to find out.
Transcript
00:00Hello everybody, Adam Cleary from 442 here, and Manchester United have signed Lenny Yorrow.
00:10And that, not unlike the player himself, cos he's like 6 foot 3, is no small thing.
00:16At 18 years old and like 50 odd million quid in transfer fees, he breaks all manner of
00:20records for players in his age group and players in his position.
00:24But perhaps more significantly, Man United have stolen him from under the nose of Real
00:28Madrid.
00:29They saw him as the long term feature of their defence, the ultimate successor to David
00:35Alaba.
00:36So a.
00:37Why did Real Madrid rate him so highly?
00:38And b.
00:39Why did Man United go out and spend allegedly double what he was valued at to make sure
00:43they got him instead?
00:46Transfer videos are back, yay!
00:50Ok so if you are coming into this video completely cold on Lenny Yorrow, that's him there.
00:55He will be the right sided centre back in a back four, that's where he played for Lille
00:59all last season, that's where he likes to be.
01:01But before we get into him specifically, this is the Manchester United XI from last season
01:06based on the players that were most commonly used.
01:09However, there is a curiosity in this XI at the centre back position, because while this
01:13is the two players who were most commonly used, it is not the pairing that was most
01:18commonly used.
01:19That, believe it or not, was Jonny Evans and Rafa Varane.
01:22If you're sitting there thinking, I don't remember them playing together that often,
01:26was that really the most common centre back pairing?
01:29Yes, it happened six times in the Premier League.
01:32Just six.
01:33The fact there is this absolutely sensational graph on the Opta website today, only six
01:37times that pairing appeared, but it meant we saw it more than Varane and Maguire, more
01:42than Evans and Maguire, more than Lindelof and Maguire, more than any combination with
01:47Martinez in it.
01:48Casemiro was in there sometimes, Kamberwala, Luke Shaw somehow turned up.
01:52Manchester United had no stability whatsoever in that key position.
01:57Obviously, we know why that is.
01:58Ten Hag wasn't just pulling them out of a hat every single week.
02:01They had really, really bad injury problems in those positions, meaning they could never
02:05get any stability at the back.
02:07And if I've said it once, my friends, I've said it a thousand times, what is the single
02:11most important ability in football?
02:14Availability.
02:15Above all the other things that Lenny Oro does on the ball, and I'll think which we're
02:19going to get to in just a second, Manchester United have spent that much money on him
02:24because he is young, he is full of energy, he will run for days, he's missed like three
02:29days of his entire career to injury.
02:31They can build around him reliably.
02:34That, and obviously Varane has left, hasn't he?
02:38Kamberwala has left, Lindelof will probably leave.
02:40Johnny Evans is my age and was never actually signed to play football in the first place,
02:45so him getting 23 appearances, I've not made that up, in the Premier League last season
02:50was a problem all of its own.
02:52They needed another body regardless.
02:54And I mean, ladies and gentlemen, what a body that is.
02:58Not in a creepy way, at 18 years old and six foot three, he's all limbs and shoulders and
03:04legs and arms and very, very gangly.
03:06This is a player who does potentially change things massively for Man United.
03:11So what kind of defender is he?
03:13There's been lots of comparisons done so far with Varane himself, who he's obviously
03:16the direct replacement for, Rio Ferdinand, who was apparently his idol growing up.
03:21But does he play like either of those?
03:24Well, there's been a little bit of concern already from people going and looking at the
03:28old FB Ref profile to see how he sort of compares to all these other players, because a lot
03:33of the numbers there look really, really underwhelming.
03:37Now first up, these are his defensive numbers on FB Ref.
03:41Now if you're new to the channel, you've never watched this kind of thing before, you've
03:43never heard of that website, right?
03:45It basically brings together all the data across world football for how certain players
03:53play.
03:54And those are the raw numbers for how many times he does something per 90 minutes across
03:59the season.
04:00And these bars on the right basically allow you to contextualise that.
04:03That's it compared to other centre-backs.
04:06And in this graph, it's in comparison with all the other centre-backs across Europe's
04:09top five leagues over the last 365 days.
04:13So basically all last season, how does he compare to the other defenders in Ligue 1,
04:17Serie A, the Premier League, La Liga and the Bundesliga?
04:19So the big, big tests.
04:21Now if a player is particularly good at something, doing it more than lots of other players,
04:25those bars will be very long and very green.
04:27And that number on the end will be very, very high, represents what percentile they're in.
04:31So if it says 99, you're in the top 1%.
04:34But if they're low and they're small and they're red, it means they don't do them as often
04:38as other players.
04:39So on the face of it, that is an incredibly, incredibly underwhelming set of statistics
04:45for a defender.
04:46He doesn't make many tackles, he never really gets a dribbler, he hardly ever blocks the
04:50ball.
04:51These are the numbers of an average too-bad footballer.
04:54What these numbers don't give you is proper, proper context.
04:57Because individual numbers are all well and good, but that's an individual who's playing
05:01as part of a team's playstyle.
05:04And that playstyle can massively influence what it is you're doing.
05:07Thoreau's role in France was not to be a front foot defender going after the ball and
05:12chasing it.
05:13Instead, he worked more as a sweeper in their back four, dropping off, allowing other players
05:18to challenge for the ball, and then basically mopping up stray passes, mopping up loose
05:22balls, or then going after players and sort of motioning them out of play.
05:27So fundamentally, his numbers for tackling tended to be very low, because if somebody
05:31got through to him, he can't really afford to go diving in.
05:35His job is then more to sort of stand them up, stop the play, and see if he can stick
05:39out one of his very gangly legs and try and nick the ball back.
05:42And Man United fans, if that's just ringing the tiniest, faintest little bell in the back
05:46of your head, that is because it's the kind of player Rafa Varane was, especially when
05:51he was at his best at Madrid.
05:53Just to show you the exact same numbers for Varane during his last season in Spain, which
05:57is I think considered one of his best, you'll see they're very similar in terms of profile.
06:03He's not really putting a lot of tackles in.
06:05He's not really getting a dribblers.
06:06On the face of it, these would be the numbers of a pretty underwhelming player.
06:10But you know, they're not.
06:12They're from someone who was genuinely world class.
06:15That's just how he played.
06:16And if you're still not entirely convinced, then he does at least pass the eye test in
06:19this regard.
06:20Like his reading of the game is something that is already way developed for how old
06:24he is.
06:25And he gets across into empty spaces, he recognizes danger, he gets over to runners.
06:30And then he does very calmly, bide his time, only challenging for it if he thinks he's
06:35got a good chance of winning it.
06:37And that's what makes him a really good defender already.
06:39Caveat, he is still 18 years old and can get sold a kipper quite easily.
06:46The amount of times attackers, when at the very last moment they look to shoot, they'll
06:49cut back and he just is off to the shops, is still a little bit too high, but that's
06:55obviously something you'd expect him to improve upon as he gets older.
06:59Leal, very similar to Manchester United, also played a 4-2-3-1 last season, but they
07:03had hyper, hyper aggressive fullbacks who'd push all the way up the pitch.
07:08So Jaro's job tended to be not just sitting in this space, but covering right across onto
07:13the flank, making sure that opposition attackers or even fullback couldn't exploit that.
07:18And it's just reading of knowing when to be there and when to sit and when to engage and
07:22when to not was so far above his years.
07:25Above his years?
07:26It's beyond his years, isn't it?
07:28So far beyond his years, yeah.
07:30So that's Varane, but he also gets compared to Rio Ferdinand, who was sort of a very calm
07:35on-the-ball central defender as well, and that also, to a degree, is Jaro.
07:40Now these are his passing numbers and unlike the defending ones, they actually do paint
07:43a fairly complete picture of the player.
07:45As you can see, there's a lot of green in terms of the amount of times he gets on the
07:48ball and his pass completion and what he's doing, sort of short and neat and tidy and
07:53risk-free.
07:54Brilliant.
07:55But you cannot panic him on the ball.
07:56If you watch Man United's friendly with Rangers, you've already seen that he's happy to receive
08:00it in any sort of position, he doesn't mind people pressing him, that's really, really
08:05valuable in the Premier League.
08:06Like 94th and 95th percentile for completed short and medium passes across all the centre-backs
08:13in Europe's big leagues is staggering, frankly.
08:17He'll have it off the goalkeeper, he will find the midfielders, he will find his fullback,
08:21it doesn't matter whether there's a player in his face or a little bit of space, that
08:24rhymes.
08:25He's just so, so composed, so cool, so calm on the ball.
08:29But you will see for all this lovely green at the top of the chart, there is a lot of
08:33this red at the bottom and that's because the kinds of passes he's capable of making
08:38are currently, he is 18, limited.
08:40So key passes, progressive passes, ones into the final third, ones into the penalty area.
08:45To quote Austin Powers, they are not his bag, baby.
08:49And what that means in real terms is that while he's excellent on the ball, whether
08:52it's passing or carrying it, he should be making more of an impact in terms of how
08:57Manchester United can build up and play through the opposition.
09:00That's not something he's likely to be doing at this stage of his career.
09:04He's short, he's neat, he's tidy, but he's not going to change anything for Manchester
09:08United from a possession standpoint.
09:10Again, caveat to all of that, he's 18 and he's definitely got the technical ability
09:14to improve in that area, but in terms of what he's likely to do immediately, it ain't that.
09:20But now, the fun part, right?
09:22So this is probably painting the picture to you of a player who is good, is solid, is
09:27definitely an upgrade on what Manchester United have got.
09:30But why go out there and chuck nearly 60 million on a player who's roughly been valued at about
09:3530, 35?
09:37Well, in short, because he is potentially worth a lot more to Manchester United than
09:43he would be to any other club interested in him, because he solves one very, very specific
09:50problem.
09:51If you watched any of our coverage on 10 Hogs Manchester United last season, you know exactly
09:55what I'm going to talk about now.
09:56But if not, I'll keep it really, really short for you, right?
10:00Man United's entire problem, tactically speaking, was they like to press you really, really
10:04high with all of these players, but because they had very little pace in the defence,
10:09certainly in the central areas, they wouldn't commit the entire team forward, leaving this gap.
10:15Oh boy, the mileage I've got out of this particular compilation.
10:19If you can turn the ball over against Manchester United, or if you can play through their initial
10:23pressure, you've just got all this space to run into.
10:25And that was the major reason why their shots conceded numbers last season were comparable
10:31with all the relegated sides, wide open.
10:34But all of a sudden, you put Yoro into this back four, and you've got not only a player
10:39who was a better reader of danger than you've currently got, but also someone who's quick
10:44as a f***ing bee.
10:46And that is why I mentioned before about Man United's most common centre-back pairing being
10:51Varane and Evans, because you've got two solid, dependable, experienced central defenders
10:56there, but also two lads who I think I could have a go at in a footrace.
11:04I have a heart condition and knees made of crisp packets.
11:07You bring in Yoro's ability to read the game, to recognise danger, to make recovery runs,
11:12to never, ever get done in a sprint, and all of a sudden, that entire Manchester United
11:17defence can push further up the pitch, which is a huge deal for them.
11:21Partly because it allows you to bring Onana more into play, to use his sort of playmaking
11:26and his sort of ability with the ball from the back, but also it allows them to press
11:30more cohesively as a unit and do exactly the kind of football Ten Hag really wants
11:36them to do.
11:37And that's not to say he's a magic fix and everything's going to be amazing and they're
11:40going to win the Super Bowl this year, but it does certainly get them closer to being
11:44the kind of team Ten Hag always insisted they were going to be.
11:48Now, they do still, and this is just me editorialising at this point, need to decide what kind of
11:53player Kobi Maneuw is going to be and then go shop for somebody who will complement that
11:58very nicely.
11:59And they also need a lot more goals from centre forward, so either they need to give better
12:03service to Hoyland or Xherpes has got to come in and change sort of what they're doing up
12:08front.
12:09But the major problem they had was the pace at the back and Yoro, if nothing else, solves
12:15that overnight.
12:16That's why sometimes it is okay to pay massively over the odds for a footballer, because he
12:21was worth £30 million to Real Madrid, because they were going to bring him in and gradually
12:25introduce him to the first team and see if he was at the kind of level they wanted him
12:29to be.
12:30But he's worth more to Manchester United if he immediately remedies some issues.
12:34Trying to think if there was anything else I wanted to mention about him.
12:37Yeah, the whole sort of like not going out and winning the ball, being a physical sort
12:42of defender.
12:43I think if you look at his frame now at 18, that'll start to fill out in the next two
12:48or three years.
12:49And I think you'll see Manchester United him becoming more of a front foot aggressive player.
12:54I think those numbers are reflective of who he is now, not who he's going to be.
12:58Anyway, speaking of numbers reflecting who you are, thank you so much for viewing this
13:02video here on 442.
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13:06to us here because we're going to do so much transfer coverage over the next month for
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13:12Definitely whoever that is, and then we're into the Premier League season where we'll
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13:26This is what club football looks like.
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13:38are a Manchester United fan.
13:39Are you excited by Euro?
13:40Does he get straight into your best 11?
13:43What is your best 11?
13:45Because Sancho and Mount and that's a video we're going to have to do all of its own.
13:51So I would like to take the old pulse on it.
13:53But yes, anyway, until next time, I'd have been Adam Cleary.
13:56This has been 442.
13:57That's Lenny Euro, him right there, that guy.
14:00And we'll both see you soon.
14:03Say goodbye Lenny.
14:04Au revoir.