The FM Library

Saturday 23rd September 2023 – Dave settles down into his armchair after a long day, beer in hand and begins to reflect on the day. Union have just lost in the Bundesliga 4-3 to Hoffenheim at home. He picks up his notepad and begins writing down his thoughts. Throughout his time as a data analyst, he has always enjoyed reflecting on his work and jotting his thoughts and ideas down in a sort of ‘football diary’. Today is no different, only this time, it is his first entry into his notepad since he took over as manager of Union.

“Tactically out of my depth” were the first words that Erkle scribbled down. Maybe a job that has come to soon he thinks. The rest of his brief entry reads – “Tactically out of my depth. Something just isn’t clicking and I’m concerned that I am totally out of my depth. We haven’t got the squad depth or quality to compete at the upper end of the table and it’s showing. Tomorrow I’m going to implement a change to our system and bring in a ’10’. I know the role has gone out of fashion in recent years but I think it’s the right call. We will see”.

Welcome back to Germany and to the Statman Dave save. If you haven’t already read the introductory post then you can read it here. When we last spoke, I had introduced you to David Erkle, discussed the aims of the save and the recruitment approach and introduced you to Dave’s first job. Now, it’s time for Dave to take his first steps in his new career here at Union Berlin.

An introduction to the squad and summer transfer business

Upon joining the first thing that struck me was the size of the squad. It’s a small squad with limited quality and a few injuries could really hamper our season. With a limited budget available in the summer I knew I had to spend wisely to try and add some extra quality to our ranks.

Not a lot to work with.

With no statistical data to analyse in this window our transfer policy was to be solely based on our scouting reports. Three players departed in total, giving us an additional £11.5 million in the transfer budget. Paul Jaeckel was the first out the door as he left for Torino for a fee of £2.7 million. Kemlein departed for Hoffenheim in a deal worth £625k. The biggest departure was that of Sheraldo Becker who left the club and joined West Ham for a fee of £8.5 million. I can only describe Becker as a chaos merchant and I was excited to see how he developed this season but he made his feelings clear that he wanted to leave as soon as I walked through the door. Chief.

Chaos merchant

So with some extra capital raised it was time to try and improve the squad ahead of a grueling campaign which includes a Champions League group stage. It was evident fairly quickly that we needed extra quality in the attacking third as well as a creative midfielder.

Four players arrive through to door to give us some much needed depth. Edon Zhegrova joined from Lille for £6.5 million and he will replace the departing Becker. He can operate on both flanks and he should offer real quality in front of goal. At 24 he may not improve much more but he is a solid signing at a fairly low price. Julio Enciso arrives on a year long loan from Brighton in a deal that I am really excited about. He is an incredible talent and he can play in any of the attacking midfield positions. He will no doubt go on to big things in his career and hopefully we can kick start that process for him.

Monchu is a bit of a rogue signing and I picked him up on a permanent deal for £6 million. I needed a new central midfielder to play in the AP role and with the money we had it was slim pickings in all honesty. I think he will be a decent signing but he’s not going to set the world alight. Finally, more of a panic signing than anything, but Shola Shoretire joins on a season long loan deal from Manchester United. Another player that I do think will go on to better things but he comes in as cover.

With the incomings complete, the squad has shaped up nicely for the season ahead and I think we can be relatively confident moving forward.

Goalkeepers

Ronnow is the best keeper we have at the club. He looks a decent keeper and I don’t necessarily thing we need an upgrade on him in the immediate future. We also have capable understudies in the form of Busk and Schwolow.

Defenders

Defensively, we are spoilt for choice in the wing back roles. We have Robin Gosens out on the left and skipper Christopher Trimmel out on the right. The issue comes at centre back where I only feel we have one quality player and that is Danilho Doekhi. On the face of it, he looks a really solid player. He’s 25 so I don’t think he will improve much more but he will be a solid option and is by far our best central defender. We then are left to choose from either Robin Knoche and the retiring Leonardo Bonucci. Both of those are technically gifted at CB but they are just too slow for how we are looking to play. We are therefore left with Diogo Leite to partner Doekhi. A solid player but not someone who is going to win us the Bundesliga.

Midfielders

We are stacked with talent in midfield, especially in the defensive midfield positions. Janik Haberer looks like he will offer real quality, either from a more defensive role but he is capable of playing in a playmaker role. Rani Khedira will come in as our main man in midfield once he returns from injury and he offers a lot of quality in the middle of the park.

Attackers

Here is my problem. We are really not blessed up top. Both Volland and Behrens are getting on a bit and aren’t entirely suitable for the AF role as a lone striker. I have Mikkel Kaufmann who at 22 could improve and be a decent striker. I can already see myself rotating these three a lot to see who works best but it is clear we need to invest in a new striker moving forward.

Goals will have to come from our attacking midfielders and let’s be honest, this is where we are most blessed with talent. Datro Fofana is in on loan from Chelsea and we then have Enciso and Zhegrova who will surely chip in with some goals.

Tactical Shape

With our transfer business done and dusted, it was time to settle on a tactical shape for the season. In line with modern German football, we are adopting a high press tactic with a number 10. I had originally settled on having a number 6 over a number 10 but things just weren’t working.

Erkle’s 4-2-3-1

This is what I would consider our best eleven. My biggest concerns are at CB and we will need a serious reinforcement in that position either in January or next summer. I am also incredibly underwhelmed by our options up top. Alas, we must remain positive and I have faith in the system.

August 2023 to December 2023

We kicked off our campaign with a resounding 5-1 win in the Pokal away at lower league Gutersloh. Let’s be honest, if we didn’t win this then I would be worried.

August saw us go unbeaten in our first three competitive games, including the Pokal win. We opened up in the Bundesliga with a drab 0-0 at home to Mainz before a dominant win over Darmstadt.

Tough.

Excitement grew at the end of August as the Champions League Group Stage draw crept closer and this is what our fans had to look forward to. Trips to Naples and Madrid have certainly caught their attention. For us, this was always going to be a tough group but it would give us a good idea of where the squad is in a European stage.

Quite the contrast between the two months. September was dismal, we just couldn’t do anything right. I couldn’t settle on a team nor a shape. This led to the inclusion of a number 10 instead of the number 6 and well, it seems to have worked?

There is no getting away from the fact that September was poor. We also opened our UCL account with a disastrous 3-1 loss away at Braga. However, our fortunes in the UCL soon changed as we entered October. Wow, these boys are something special. A 2-0 win over Atleti and a 3-1 win over Napoli in the UCL mixed in with 3 wins out of 3 in the league. Did anybody mention our 2-1 win over Dortmund courtesy of a 96th minute winner from Zhegrova?

What a performance!

The slight change in formation has transformed our form and we are now playing to our full ability!

Let’s start with Champions League. What a group stage campaign! A 5-2 win away at Napoli means we do the double over them and we then dispatched Braga 4-1. A 3-2 loss away at Atleti to finish the group stage meant we couldn’t quite nick that top spot. We go through to the RO16 unseeded but I can’t quite believe how well we’ve done. I would happily have settled for 3rd place after seeing

Our reward for our hard work in the UCL is a last 16 tie against PSG. Not what we were looking for but getting to the RO16 was a bonus!

Moving back to the league, we have been mightily impressive in the last 2 months. Some incredible results in there, especially the 2-1 over Bayern featuring a Shola Shoretire banger to win it for us. The Bochum result in December was frustrating considering they were rock bottom and we only just managed to scrape a draw!

What a first half of the season it has been. 16 games played and we sit in second, 6 points behind Leipzig who appear to be running away with the league! After September, I did wonder whether we would even make it as far as January but here we are. Seriously, the boys have put in a massive shift so far. We are very much overachieving given the squad we have. The players I have at my disposal are certainly not what I would describe as Bundesliga winners but we are putting up a bloody good fight! Erkle has certainly made his mark on the Bundesliga.

The aim from here remains a top 6 finish. You may think that I am maybe lacking ambition but if you see the teams in and around us, they aren’t a million miles away and with a few injuries we would seriously struggle.

F*ck. Our captain and right wing back is out for pretty much the rest of the season. Trimmel has been fantastic for us so far, making 22 starts and notching up an impressive 7.28 average rating. We do have depth in that position but his loss is massive.

Player Stats

I think it is worth just having a quick look at the top performers from the first half of the season before looking at potential January recruits.

Our skipper tops the charts. An impressive 5 goals and 7 assists from right wing back. Doekhi has also been mightily impressive at the back and has contributed 7 goals from set pieces. Edon Zhegrova and Enciso have combined really well in attacking midfield. 7 goals and 10 assists for Zhegrova and 6 goals and 5 assists for Enciso.

Previewing the January Window

We now enter January and it is perfectly clear to Erkle that he needs a new number 9. Volland, Behrens and Kaufmann have failed to nail down the spot. Volland has been most impressive with 7 goals but it is clear he is not suited to the AF role.

We have just £2 million to use in January, unless we make any big sales. This limits who we can look at and we may not be able to pick anybody up who fits the mould be we will certainly look. With some statistics now available I have put these two strikers on the shortlist.

We have two players that we could potentially bring in, based on the likely price and the data we have available. Dragan Stoislavljevic is a 20 year old Serbian and Idan Toklomati is a 19 year old Israel international. On paper, Dragan looks like the much more complete player but his lack of pace does worry me.

When you dive into the stats, you can see that Dragan is the more physical of the two, better in the air etc.. Dragan has the better shot conversion rate, but only just. Even then, 12% is still poor. Idan’s is 10% which is even worse. I am encouraged by Dragan’s shots on target per 90 being at 1.83 but then Idan has 2.11.

In terms of raw stats, Idan has played 11 games and scored 3 goals. Dragan has started 8 games and has come off the bench 10 times, scoring 5 goals in the process. It’s hard to really work out who is the better played based off these statistics.

My initial views are that I will stick with Kaufmann, who for context has a 38% conversion rate. Let’s see what January brings. Until then, I hope you have enjoyed this blog post and I’ll see you again soon!