As is being widely reported about in the national press, both print and online, Hull City are preparing a bid to take Leeds United’s youngster, and academy product, Alex Mowatt into the heady heights of Premiership. Josh Dixon wrote about this initially on The72, so I don’t want to step on his toes; I do, however, want to see just what Hull City would be getting for their reported £7-8m bid.
Passing
- 909 accurate short passes/173 inaccurate short passes (84% short pass accuracy)
- 54 accurate long ball passes/44 inaccurate long ball passes (55.10% long ball pass accuracy)
- 963 accurate passes/217 inaccurate passes (81.60% overall accuracy)
- .917 short pass ratio (favours short passes 91.70% of time)
- 42 shot assist passes for teammates (4.36% of passes result in opportunity for teammates)
- 2 goal assist passes for teammates
Offensive
- 42 shots taken; 33 out of box/9 inside area
- 17 on-target shots/25 off-target or blocked shots (40.50% overall shot accuracy)
- 9 goals; 6 out of box/3 inside area (18.20% out of box conversion rate/33% inside area conversion rate)
- 9 goals from 17 on-target shots (52.90% conversion rate of on-target shots)
- 15 successful dribbles/16 unsuccessful dribbles (48.40% success rate)
Defensive
- 54 successful tackles/25 unsuccessful tackles (68.35% success rate)
- 42 interceptions of opponent ball
- 20 contested headers won/28 contested headers lost (41.67% success rate)
- 45 blocks of opponent ball (33 blocked passes/6 blocked crosses/6 blocked shots)
Hull City are likely interested in the headline aspect of Alex Mowatt’s play – the 9 goals that he has scored. However, they would also be getting a highly accurate passer in the short pass game (84%) and high overall pass accuracy at 81.60% from around 40 pass attempts per typical 90 minutes. Mowatt also favours playing short passes 91.70% of the time so would likely transition into a Premier League short passing attack and flourish with more polished players around him. He also weighs in with a decent ratio of chances for teammates with 4.36% of his passes leading to shooting opportunities for teammates; as a measure, Chelsea’s Cesc Fabregas’ shot assist pass rate is 4.09%. When it comes to goals, Alex Mowatt scores predominantly from outside the box and is a more than adequate free kick taker, but it is his goals to shots on target that is impressive with him converting 52.90% of on-target shots into goals. Defensively, he also weighs in with tackles and has a 68.35% success rate in tackle situations; added to this he also has high returns of 42 interceptions and 45 defensive blocks of opponent ball.
I’ll likely make myself very unpopular with fellow Leeds fans with what I write next. The lure of the moolah is likely to be too much for Leeds United to resist, especially if Hull City do come riffling the edge of their chequebook to the tune of £8m. Should Leeds succumb to the bid for Alex Mowatt’s services, £8m buys you a lot at Championship level talent but, then again, Leeds are still under the auspices of that Football League-enforced transfer embargo. Being under the transfer embargo does limit Leeds a lot, especially as to how much they can spend as a ‘salary cost’ per player that they bring in to replace Mowatt.
Now this sums up the predatory aspects of Premier League football. With England’s top league awash with money, teams such as Hull City can ‘player speculate’, in other words pay a high price and hope that this pays handsome dividends further down the line in terms of goals and continued Premier League football. With the financial and transfer restraints in place at Elland Road, I’m pretty certain this can only end sadly for Leeds fans like me.
All we can do is hope it doesn’t set a ‘fire sale’ precedent with regard to other young Leeds United players.
