Albion Analytics: Kaoru Mitoma's magic numbers

Main Club Sponsor

TICKETS

SHOP

The Japan international made his 20th Albion appearance on Saturday against Bournemouth.

Liam Tharme

Albion Analytics

2023-02-08T06:00:00Z

Kaoru Mitoma spins away after netting a late winner against Liverpool in the Emirates FA Cup.

Kaoru Mitoma continued his scintillating start to the season by netting the match-winner at home to Bournemouth on Saturday.

This means the Japan international, who featured for his country at the World Cup in Qatar, has netted the winning goals in consecutive games, having fired in the winner against (current holders) Liverpool in the FA Cup last weekend.

The raw numbers are impressive. In terms of end product, no Brighton player has more than Mitoma’s seven goals this season, across all competitions, and he has supplemented that with a further two assists. In the Premier League, he is the most effective of Albion’s shooters, netting five times from an xG of 1.9.

This is a small sample size — Mitoma has only taken 18 shots in the league but hit the target with ten of them — but it also reflects his ability to convert difficult chances, notably when under pressure or from distance, like at Leicester. Only Evan Ferguson (113 minutes per goal) has netted more frequently than the winger (164 minutes per goal) for Brighton this season.

There is already clear variety to his goals. His dribbling skill was on display for all to see on loan at Royale Union Saint-Gilloise last year in Belgium but his winning goal against Bournemouth was the second header (alongside his equaliser at Wolves, his first Premier League goal) the 25-year-old has netted in blue and white.

Across all competitions this season, Mitoma — per game — averages the most final third passes (21.1), expected assists (0.3) and take-ons (4.9) of any Brighton player, underlining his ability to use ball carries and combination play as a method of chance creation.

Much has been made of Mitoma’s dribbling thesis during his university years in Japan, where he studied himself and his teammates to identify how the more successful players managed to consistently dribble effectively. He noted that superior players were able to watch the defender more and it is one of the reasons for his upright style of dribbling where he uses changes of direction and body feints to disorient defenders, rather than skill moves.

It is significant that not only does Mitoma attempt and complete more dribbles than most Premier League wingers, ranking in the top 20% for attempts and 4% for completions, but he is intelligent at picking moments to dribble and implementing his research findings to maximise success — his 52.4% dribble completion rate may not seem significant but it places him in the top 6% of Premier League wingers this season.

Perhaps it is the reason why head coach Roberto De Zerbi said “you can never substitute him” following the Bournemouth win, “because you always expect one goal, or a one-to-one”.

It was the success of the recruitment team to scout Mitoma. De Zerbi deserves credit for crafting a system in which he can thrive. The 4-2-3-1 shape that the Italian traditionally uses allows Mitoma to play inverted off the left, as a right-footer, dribbling inside from the wing and supported by the forward runs of Pervis Estupinan. Solly March on the right wing is having an equally good season, and ranks as one of the top five most statistically similar wingers to Mitoma.

It must be remembered that Mitoma is only in the infancy of his Premier League career, with just 15 appearances, seven of which were off the bench earlier in the season, and just four full 90 minutes to his name.

SofaScore’s algorithm rates Mitoma’s performance against Liverpool, in the FA Cup, as his personal best game of the season so far, where he recorded 58 touches, completed 25 of 32 passes, created a big chance (for Solly March) and, in typical Mitoma fashion, completed seven of ten attempted dribbles.