Chelsea have completed the signing of Joao Felix for a fee estimated to be in the £38M region. Joao Felix has been dubbed an upcoming superstar since 2018 but has never really matured into one.
His career has consistently been underwhelming after becoming the fourth most expensive footballer in the world after completing a £112.9M transfer to Atletico Madrid from Benfica. In truth, he is a flop.
After a relatively disappointing spell at Atletico Madrid, Joao Felix went on loan to Chelsea in January of 2023. He played sixteen games, scoring four goals for Chelsea.
The signing has been met with a storm of disagreement amongst football fans and Chelsea fans with many questioning how Joao Felix fits into the team.
What is his best position?
Joao Felix is one of those players in which his best position is relatively unclear. He is an insanely talented progressor of the football and is also exemplary at taking on players.
Despite this, he lacks the defensive work rate and end product to fully justify taking the position over other more refined players like Christopher Nkunku and Cole Palmer.
When looking at a player like Joao Felix you can’t help but feel he would be very good at operating in the attacking half spaces, receiving balls, and operating in-between the lines.
Despite this, you have to ask a few highly logical questions when analysing the quality of this signing : Does he start over Nkunku and does he start over Palmer?
And, can he sufficiently start as a touchline winger?
The logical answer to both of these questions is no.
The analysis you need to conduct to answer these questions is very very iffy though and you could justify answering yes.
The data and why the signing could work:
Joao Felix is a very good player, a luxury player almost. Therefore, can you justify benching him behind Palmer and Nkunku? Probably not.
However, Chelsea could play around 70+ games this season.
Palmer and Nkunku obviously can’t play all of them, so in my opinion, Felix would be a very very good addition and depth to our team.
Felix, during his Chelsea spell, accumulated 0.47xG per game.
The only players last season, in Pochettino’s free-flowing attack that could compare to those numbers were:
- Cole Palmer, 0.63xG per game
- Nicolas Jackson, 0.60xG per game
- Christoper Nkunku, 0.48xG per game
- Armando Broja, 0.47xG per game
Let’s take a look at Felix’s progression numbers compared to Chelsea players last season.
- Enzo Fernandez, 8.57 Progressive passes/90
- Cole Palmer, 6.79 Progressive passes/90
- Moises Caicedo, 5.44 Progressive passes/90
- Conor Gallagher, 4.94 Progressive passes/90
- Carney Chukwuemeka, 4.80 Progressive passes/90
- Joao Felix, 4.48 Progressive passes/90
It is important to note that Joao Felix’s numbers during his Chelsea spell were fairly consistent with a player who got into good goalscoring chances but also had emphasis on progressing the ball up the pitch.
In all his other seasons, Joao Felix’s numbers suggested he actually made more chances for teammates as opposed to being on the end of them.
So let’s look at his shot creating actions/90 last season compared to our wingers.
- Neto, 4.45 SCA/90
- Madueke, 4.35 SCA/90
- Sterling, 3.87 SCA/90
- Joao Felix, 3.62 SCA/90
- Mudryk, 3.43 SCA/90
Let’s also take a look at his goal creating actions/90 last season, compared to our wingers.
- Neto, 0.83 GCA/90
- Madueke, 0.68 GCA/90
- Sterling, 0.63 GCA/90
- Joao Felix, 0.53 GCA/90
- Mudryk, 0.51 GCA/90
So as we can see, Joao Felix is relatively average in these metrics.
This is consistent with the claim that Joao Felix looks good but lacks any consistent output.
It is for this reason that many are still skeptical over his quality as a signing and whether he provides enough to justify a place in the team over others.
Ultimately, only time will tell.
