Tim Iroegbunam must fix up weak statistic for Aston Villa first-team breakthrough
Although Aston Villa academy graduate Tim Iroegbunam enjoyed a thoroughly successful loan spell at QPR, he needs to sharpen up his passing game to stand a chance of regular minutes under Unai Emery next season.
The 19-year-old is currently sidelined with an injury which has required surgery, but the midfielder is expected to return for Villa’s pre-season training for the 2023/24 campaign.
During his time at Loftus Road, Iroegbunam made an impressive 32 appearances and netted two important goals against Blackburn and Watford in the relegation run-in.
However, if the England Under-20 international harbours ambitions of mixing it with Boubacar Kamara, Douglas Luiz or Leander Dendoncker in the middle of the park next season, he needs to adapt his game to Emery’s passing needs.
According to the Opta-powered stats on FBREF, Iroegbunam was in the 9th percentile of midfielders in Europe’s next eight leagues beneath the major top flights for passes attempted – recording a disappointing average of just 34.01 per 90 minutes.
As well as this, the teenager was in the 7th percentile for total passing distance (420.18 yards per 90) and the bottom 10% of his counterparts for progressive passing distance (107.70 yards per 90).
This is over 100 fewer total passing yards than current back-up Dendoncker, who records an average of 534.86, over 200 less than Kamara (666.57 per 90) and a mammoth 394 fewer yards than Luiz averages every 90 minutes.
Although it could be argued that his lower numbers are due to QPR’s poor season, the Hoops were top of the Championship table in the early stages of the season under Michael Beale and dominated the league for several months.
Iroegbunam has several other brilliant qualities to his game, including his industrious engine, tough-tackling and aerial presence, however, Emery is renowned for wanting his midfielders to be extremely comfortable in possession of the ball.
The above stats highlight that this isn’t the strongest suit of the academy graduate’s game and could certainly be an area that he focuses on improving in the off-season.
If the youngster wants to become a regular first-team option for Emery to call upon in either the Premier League or the Europa Conference League, he must drill into the details in possession of the ball and match Emery’s demands.
In other Aston Villa news, one academy graduate has picked up an injury which could derail his pre-season plans.