Finding a replacement for Marko Arnautović using basic stats

This isn’t meant to be exhaustive or particularly in-depth — it’s an attempt to find players who do vaguely similar things on the pitch to Marko Arnautović or provide a similar level of attacking contribution, using basic publicly available stats.

For comparison, this is what Arnautović has been doing this season:

“Defensive Contribution” is total attempted tackles added to interceptions and fouls to give a proxy for how active a player is in the defensive phase of the game. I went with attempted tackles and attempted dribbles because I wanted a rough idea of how busy they were rather than judging how effective they were. All these metrics are per 90.

I’ve tried to limit this to players who:

A) are theoretically attainable for a club of our size with our resources

B) aren’t older than Arnautović

C) didn’t move last summer

D) play for clubs widely considered to be “selling clubs”

It’s always difficult to gauge how interested these upper-mid range players would be in joining a club who can’t offer Champions League football as you never know how much of a motivating factor money is to them. These names are mostly on the ambitious side, without being ridiculous.

Callum Wilson

He’s probably the best fit of all of these when it comes to finding someone who has the all round game to match Arnautović. He’s been linked to Chelsea recently so there’s a strong chance that he’d view us as too much of a sideways move. If not, he’d cost an absolute fortune and I’m not sure I’d be comfortable spending all of the Arnautović money (and then some) on a player who has had two serious knee injuries in the last couple of years, no matter how good he is.

Gerard Deulofeu

Bit of a surprising inclusion but a similar sort of player in that he’s played most of career out wide and has primarily been used in a central role this season. Deulofeu relies on his agility and his acceleration to cause defenders problems, unlike Arnautović who utilises his physicality. Deulofeu is elusive and tricky and handy at dribbling through tight spaces, but he carries less of a direct goal threat with his shooting, so perhaps you wouldn’t want him as your primary goalscorer. Watford generally play in the same shape as us and he’s played plenty of his football in England, so there wouldn’t be much of a transition period, but he only joined them last summer and Watford are tough to negotiate with, so we would have to pay over the odds to sign him.

Sébastien Haller

I’m a big fan of this guy. He’s got the size and combative nature to bully defenders and the technical ability to bring others into play when he has his back to goal. Eintracht have been going well in the Bundesliga and the Europa League this year, so it might be difficult to prise him away in January. That said, I don’t think they have much financial clout as a club, so if we put a substantial offer in, they might be forced to accept it. Eintracht signed him from Utrecht for €7mil in summer 2017, so if we can get him for £20–25mil he’d be a strong option.

Duván Zapata

Zapata’s a bit of a mystery. He’s got into double figures for league goals in each of the last three seasons and he’s someone who always looks a threat whenever I’ve seen him play. Yet he’s played for four different Italian clubs in the last five seasons and that has to be a concern — there must be some reason that he doesn’t seem to stick anywhere. He can poach, he can burn players on the dribble, he has the physique to be a presence in the final third, he can run the channels; there’s plenty to his game. I don’t watch him regularly enough to know exactly but presumably there are question marks about his ability to do those things consistently. He’s also maybe not the smoothest player on the eye, but you can take that trade off if he’s effective.

He’ll be 28 in April, so he’d very much be a signing for now rather than the future and he’d have to hit the ground running for him to be a worthwhile purchase.

Pablo Sarabia

Another player who would have to be converted into a centre forward role but one who has a lot to offer in addition to his versatility. Sarabia usually plays as one of the two attacking midfielders who play just off the central striker in Pablo Machín’s 3–4–3 at Sevilla. He does plenty of work in the opposition box though, so pair him with the right partner and Sarabia could slot nicely into a more advanced role in our 4–4–2.

He puts in an enormous shift on the defensive side of the game but that’s partly a product of him operating in deeper areas and partly a product of the intensity of the press that Machín demands from his players. That’s a downfall of looking at tackles, interceptions etc — they’re more often a reflection of the tactics employed by a side rather than a reflection of an individual player’s work rate. Even so, putting up big numbers in those metrics at least demonstrates a player’s capacity for large amounts of defensive work.

Joelinton

He’s probably the player with the highest upside on this list but that comes with the associated risk that he doesn’t fulfil his potential at all. He’s also a little less technically polished than some of the others but he uses his strength and body shape well to hold up the ball and often beats defenders by pinning himself against them and rolling away. The other major positive is the tremendous amount of work he does out of possession, although some of that comes from taking clumsy touches that he then has to contest. On top of that, Joelinton has a deceptive change of pace and the intelligence to pick out through balls for his team-mates in the final third.

It supposedly took him a while to settle in Europe, hence why he spent two years on loan at Rapid Vienna to help him get acclimatised while playing at a more forgiving standard. Then there’s the Julian Nagelsmann factor — he’s a manager who consistently seems to get the very best out of players, both through the systems he employs and through his approach to man management. I’d be wary of buying players from Hoffenheim as there’s no guarantee they’ll be as effective elsewhere. Still, Nagelsmann is leaving in the summer and Hoffenheim’s business model is dependent on a willingness to part with players for the right price, so he’s certainly attainable.

Joelinton’s a gamble, but one that might be worth taking.

Leon Bailey

This guy is about as close to a direct replacement for Arnautović as we could possibly find:

• Played most of his football as a winger and could be converted into a centre forward
• Potent combination of physical, technical, and creative attributes
• Previously had a decent goalscoring record from out wide
• Questions marks over his attitude and consistency
• Considered a bit of a luxury player who is too flash for his own good
• Has a dickhead agent who also happens to be a family member

Bailey is probably a pipe dream as he’s perpetually linked to enormous clubs. However, none of them have made a serious attempt to sign him yet, which might be down to his perceived baggage and we could capitalise on that by taking a punt. He’s been a bit underwhelming this year as part of a mediocre Leverkusen side who have underperformed as a result of managerial trouble. Bailey’s stock is therefore probably a bit lower now than it was last year when he scored 9 goals and got 6 assists (off 8.01 xG and 6.39 xA) — for context, Arnautović registered 11 and 6 assists (off 9.80 and 4.45 xA). A lot of those goals from last season came from central areas and he definitely has the composure to finish like a striker when he finds himself in those positions. Put a concrete bid on the table, offer him a boatload of money, give him assurances that we’ll let him move on a few seasons down the line if the money’s right, and he might be tempted to use us as a stepping stone.

Marko Arnautović is quite hard to replace directly as, where most forwards tend to excel at either goalscoring or chance creation, he balances both sides of the attacking game to the point where he’s pretty-good-to-great at both without being outstanding at either. I’m generally of the opinion that trying to buy like-for-like replacements when you lose a big player is a bit of a fool’s errand — you’re better off splitting the departing player’s skillset up and finding multiple players who can tick those boxes between them/compensate in other ways. That might mean you have to make adjustments elsewhere in your side, but it’s better to strengthen some of your other weak links than to put all of your eggs into one basket and hope that you manage to entirely fill the boots of your absent star.

With that in mind, I think we’d be better off going with someone who is passable in terms of chance creation with a stronger goalscoring record — as long as they’re not a complete non-factor in build-up play, hopefully our midfield would be able to pick up some of the chance creation slack we’d lose without Arnautović.

Someone like Giovanni Simeone from Fiorentina could be a good shout if we’re looking for that type of player as he unsurprisingly has a prodigious work rate off the ball in addition to being a ruthless poacher. It’s also well worth keeping an eye on Aleksandar Mitrović if Fulham go down. It seems like a bit of an obvious comparison to make, but he’s actually been more productive in front of goal than Arnautović has been this season, both in terms of his actual output and his underlying metrics. Mitro’s chance creation numbers are significantly lower, but that might be caused by the way Fulham play, using him as a lone target man while their midfielders shoulder the creative workload. There’s a possibility that he’d be able to improve that side of his game if he played in our set up and he otherwise seems like a strong fit.