Is Leeds United’s very own Brazilian ‘starlet’ beginning to show the oft-quoted promise that fans have been clamouring for?

You know he might just well be. You hear phrases such as “not up to the speed of the Championship”, “not cut out for the Championship” and “the Championship is a very physical league” for a lot of new, especially foreign players. Warning is always given that they will need to acclimatise before becoming really accustomed to the hustle, bustle and pace of the Championship. Adryan has shown glimpses in previous games of his skills and all we are now waiting for is for this to become a more consistent effort across a full game. Saturday wasn’t that day, granted, but the signs were very encouraging.

Capture

Without going massively into detail here with an array of numbers, Adryan’s performance on Saturday was above that reflected by his season-so-far returns. On Saturday Adryan was much busier passing-wise than he has been all season; in the 90 minutes he played he attempted 49 passes (vs. 35 attempts for the season per 90 minutes average). Of these 49 pass attempts, 48 were classed as ‘short’ passes, 45 were played along the ground and 40 of them accurately found their intended target. Adryan’s passing accuracy for the game was 83% but he had a phenomenal accuracy of 94% at half time when Leeds were more in control.

Adryan has completed 127 passes this season (6 appearances and 416 minutes of play) in gaining his 79% accuracy rating. Of these 127 accurate passes, 10 have created chances (7.8% of total passes lead to opportunities for others); to put this into perspective, Chelsea’s Cesc Fabregas has 894 successful passes and has created 37 chances (4.1% of total passes lead to chances for others). Now I am not saying that Adryan is better than Cesc Fabregas but, and there’s no doubting this one, in a struggling team like Leeds he is creating a higher proportion of chances than him [Fabregas].

Adryan vs Blackburn

As befitting an attacking midfield player, Adryan received just shy of 47% of his touches for the game in the central section of the Blackburn half. This consisted of touches in the central zone outside the Blackburn box (18.46% of total touches) and in the Blackburn part of the midfield zone (29.23% of total touches). Looking at the right hand side of the graphic, the ‘effectiveness’ of Adryan’s play, it shows that he is more effective on the left of the pitch when he is cutting back in field to let fly with his right foot as he did with one glorious shot in the first half after neat interplay with Tommasso Bianchi.

Adryan’s increased passing output, coupled with his willingness to play shorter passes along the ground, is something that Leeds ought to try and develop as their modus operandi for the passing game. How many times as fans have we criticised the polar of two extremes in ‘tiki taka toe poke’ passing and ‘lump it forrard’ passing? Movement, space and quick passing is the way to create chances similar to the one in the clip above. It needs the other midfield players such as Bianchi, Cook and Mowatt, who at least has shown some excellent phases of play in recent games,  to step up to the plate a little more and ensure that crisp passing is the ‘flavour of the day’ on every Saturday Menu.