Bella-Kotchap to Saints

No frills. New signing for Southampton, 20 years of age, coming from Bochum. Plays at CB. Amassed nearly 1800 minutes in 22 games for a newly promoted side that stayed in the division. Looking at his strengths, areas to improve, and how he'll fit in at his new club. I'm using Footballia right now because I'm not paying for ESPN+ when most leagues aren't playing. There are only three games of his on the site, with one being a 7-0 defeat to Bayern, so we're going with the 4-2 win against the Bavarians and Bochum's 3-2 defeat to Union on the final day of the season.

Doing a slight bit of background prior to watching, it's also nice that Bochum had nearly 1/3 of the ball in the Bayern game, which they won, and in the loss to Union had nearly 60% possession. Mind you, they had 10 fewer shots in both fixtures and were soundly "outplayed" if you use xG as a metric, despite what I've just said. Southampton are a bit more possession oriented than Bochum, at least based on last season, but the circumstances were different, as are the leagues. Also, just coincidence I guess, but having Awoniyi and Lewandowski as tests is a pretty solid look at what he'll experience in England.

Bochum 4-2 Bayern

Early on, it's clear that ABK is the "dog" of the CB pairing, as in literally seconds he's pushing into midfield to press one of the forwards who's dropped in. I'm not sure if Salisu is more aggressive or reserved, but seeing this already (and knowing his rep a bit from watching the league) there has to be balance. Can't have both CB's vacating the back line and letting any and everyone run free, even if they have recovery speed.

Not much he can do for the first goal. The right back initially misjudges the flight of the ball as it reaches Coman, and then there's a cross later on to Coman that he fails to cut out. So while ABK is closest to Lewandowski, who bundles it in, he's in position to try to cut out the shot after some questionable defending throughout the move.

Honestly, most of the Bayern chances come from them going direct and Bochum failing to use the ball properly. ABK doesn't help particularly in this regard, but it seems more of a system or quality issue within the entire squad.

I've seen repeatedly, with one of the best examples being on Lewandowski in the 52nd minute, ABK recovering and bailing out the team when Bayern probably should score. In this case there's a through ball to Lewandowski, he rounds the keeper, and ABK slides to deflect the shot out of play for a corner. From a Southampton perspective, as I said before, this shows he's suitable for a pressing side that plays a high line, as well as last ditch defending.

For the "work on" section, it's on the ball. Horrible pass accuracy (15/29), missed more long balls than completed (4/13). To be fair though, as a team Bochum only completed 59% of their passes, so like I said it's a systematic failure, even if the score says differently on the day.

Union 3-2 Bochum

Dealing with Awoniyi and Becker whilst having more of the ball, I actually think this might be a better game to judge ABK on. Stats wise, much better passing accuracy (42/53) and long balls (6/12). Defensively, though, only 1 clearance compared to the NINE against Bayern, so his computer generated rating is lower. See why you don't use stuff like that to judge players. Playing with a different CB partner this time as well.

At least partly at fault for the first goal. Take a poor angle trying to cut out a through ball, which leads to a cross that finds the goal scorer. It's actually good attacking play after an extended bit of Union possession. Awoniyi dips in, taking the aggressive ABK with him, as the ball is played wide to the right to Haraguchi, who beats the left back as well as a recovering ABK. The ball is played in as Haraguchi is falling after being jostled by ABK, but it finds Promel in the box and he heads in perfectly. The learning bit is to read the situation better and not allow the forward to play you like that, or to just take the guy out before he can cross the ball, knowing that Union score a lot of their goals via crosses.

The next real chance comes at 22 minutes and the same thing happens. Twice actually. First is a tame shot from Haraguchi, stemming from a run by Michel that drags ABK out of position. Then, another run from Michel pulls ABK into the midfield, as Trimmel is found out wide and crosses low into the vacated space, which eventually pops out to Michel who shoots and the ball is handled, thus the penalty. This is a common theme, as you can see. It's good attacking play, but at the same time it can't happen this many times at this level. I mean, nobody really cares about Bochum, but if ABK and Salisu are playing together and do this overly aggressive stuff regularly for Saints, that's a recipe for conceding goal after goal and possibly getting relegated.

Next big chance for Union is at 51 mins. Nothing at all ABK had to do with it. Some bad defending allows Trimmel acres of space to cross, and a failed clearance puts Awoniyi in and he misses wide.

ABK goes off at 65 minutes.

My takeaway from this game is ABK played on his "weaker" side, aka the left, but even still was dragged out of position way too often. His aggression is a double edged sword, and it'll be punished brutally in the Premier League. One way to minimize the vacated space by an aggressive defender is to play a back three. Let's say two of KWP, Livramento and Perraud at wing back with Salisu, Bednarek and ABK as the CB's.

To summarize, Bella-Kotchap is obviously talented, hence the move to English football at such a young age, but like any young player he has his issues. Like many young CB's of French origin, athleticism stands out, and this allows him to recover well and make plays that prevent chances and goals. On the other side, he needs to improve his reading of the game and adjust to what attackers are doing in game. No issues with his ball playing, from what I've seen, as you have to consider the direct nature of what Bochum do. If I'm to predict how it'll go at Southampton, I actually think it'll be much like Salisu. He needs a structured system around him to limit his deficiencies and promote his strengths, and it's yet to be seen if that club and manager can do that. A calm presence next to him would help, obviously, and that back line is super young. 15th was about right for Saints last season. There's a fine line of improving a bit and consolidating in mid table versus dropping a bit and going down.