o, which team is better suited to Cascarino?

From the results, a move to Chelsea would be

in line with the way both player and club like to
play. Cascarino is a player designed to use her
speed and crossing ability to attack and with
centre-forwards such as Sam Kerr and Bethany
England, Cascarino would have two potent
goalscorers to aim for - similar to what she has
at Lyon in Hegerberg. However, Cascarino’s
skill set would bring a style change to Arsenal
and arguably present a much more interesting
option.

How Cascarino
fits in at Arsenal?
W e will now analyse how Cascarino fits into Arsenal’s system, and how her
playing
style would benefit the side. First, we need to
understand the players involved in her position
currently at Arsenal. Evans and Van de Donk
are the ones who occupy the right-wing position
playing in a version of the 4-2-3-1 system.
Arsenal’s play is usually fluid and involves
short passing exchanges between midfield and
attack. The average position pass map below
gives us an idea of Arsenal’s attacking style.
While Mead provides width on the left side of
Arsenal’s attack, the right side is usually much
narrower with Van de Donk often drifting into
the central areas (as can be seen in the above
map (#7)) allowing Leonie Maier or Evans to
overlap and create width. If Arsenal are looking
for a more conservative option they opt for
Viktoria Schnaderbeck. They often look to
get their playmakers on the ball in the middle
areas with build-up coming through Lia Walti
as the deepest-lying midfielder. Kim Little and
Jill Roord take up more advanced positions
and control possession to feed the front four.
Van de Donk, Mead, and Jordan Nobbs supply
Miedema up front mainly through the centre, but
there are times when the full-backs will overlap
and provide a crossing option. Their preferred
option is through the middle, and Van de Donk
- the right-winger - will play in a much more
central position playing next to Nobbs because
of her preference to drift inside.
Cascarino can bring a different dimension to
Arsenal with her skillset able to change the
way Arsenal play and give them a second point
of attack. The French winger’s directness,
movement, and crossing ability can allow
Arsenal to take advantage of Miedema’s allround play style and make Evans a much
more
potent attacking threat from right-back on the
overlap. Cascarino’s ability to pull defenders
towards her will give Mead space on the
opposite side to attack the left and allow for
switches of play.
To further emphasise Arsenal’s case for a new
winger, they are ranked third in total crosses
and crosses per 90 (16.76) in the WSL behind
Chelsea and Manchester City. However,
they rank 8th in terms of accuracy with only
26.6%. Manchester City rank first with 41.1%
for comparison. They also rank 4th in 1 v 1
dribbling per 90 minutes with a 53.3% success
rate.
13
The pass network above illustrates Cascarino’s
(#20) position against Montpellier in a league
match. The darker areas indicate where she
was most active and the two players she had
the most connection with. Lucy Bronze (#2) and
Amandine Henry (#6) had the most number
of passes with Casacrino giving her service to
provide to Hegerberg. Bronze is playing much
higher, as is customary for a Lyon full-back
against a team that sits deep. This is a similar
sight for Arsenal when they come against most
teams who surrender possession. Cascarino
would be able to fit in and provide numerous
crosses to a similar clinical striker in Miedema.
These radars compare Cascarino with Evans
and Van de Donk at close quarters. What
instantly jumps out is Cascarino’s crossing and
dribbling per 90. Cascarino eclipses the other
two players by a large margin in this regard
making her much more effective. Van de Donk
does have more goals, but Cascarino’s main
role is to provide service for the forward players
rather than to score. Lyon have forward players
who take the goalscoring burden so the winger
doesn’t need to score a plethora of goals. We
need to take into account the profiling scores
from the earlier section and Arsenal ranked
lower which means Lyon’s playstyle is different
to Arsenal’s. However, I believe Cascarino can
bring both a new attacking dimension and an
added goal-scoring ability to ease the burden
off Miedema. The values have been taken from
the same data set we used for the earlier data
analysis and the players with the highest and
lowest number in each category were used as
the minimum and maximum.

Final remarks
C ascarino is a dynamic right-winger that could improve any side in the world.
Through our tactical analysis, we can see that
Cascarino ranks amongst the best wingers in
the world. Cascarino’s play style is one that
can not only flourish at Arsenal but also give
the team a different point of attack. Cascarino’s
presence would give the Gunners a new
tactical identity in attack by allowing different
players to be moved around into positions of
strength whilst strengthening in other areas.
For Cascarino, this move would represent
somewhat of a bold move for the French winger
but would also give her an opportunity to get
more game time from the start and a chance at
claiming the WSL title.
14
Miguel Angel
Ramirez: