Name: Jorginho (Jorge Luiz Frello Filho)
Age: 26
Nationality: Italy/Brazil
Position: deep-lying playmaker
Height: 180cm
Stronger foot: right
Contract until: 2020
Current salary: £65K/week
Estimated transfer cost: £40M+
Since my post in the Ruben Neves thread can give a wrong impression that I don't rate Jorginho, I thought I'd clarify what I think about our reported #1 midfield target. First of all, after watching through quite a few archived Napoli games to focus exclusively on Jorginho, I have to admit that I somewhat overestimated the defensive and physical side of his game – it was quickly noticeable that he is rarely the one who puts the foot in to break up attacks, not because he doesn't understand defending (his tactical awareness and positioning is superb), but probably just from him being aware of his own physical limitations. Most of his defensive work is in reading the game, blocking passing lanes and making interceptions and he only tackles if the opponent is careless or as a last resort. Because of this, he must play with 2 physically strong and energetic midfielders on either side to give him protection (in Napoli it's usually Allan and Hamsik/Zielinki) And still, in the toughest away games where Napoli expect to lose the midfield battle (such as Man City or Shakhtar away), Sarri usually plays Diawara instead of him for more solidity and strength in the middle. I've never seen him play in a 2-man midfield, but I'm guessing it can only work alongside a powerful and tall partner like Can.
The good side is that his passing ability is ridiculous and completely fine-tuned towards efficiency, which must have huge appeal to scientifically oriented managers like Sarri or Rafa, who originally signed him. He never makes a beautiful pass just for the sake of it, 9/10 times he is making a safe, short and quick pass that's impossible to intercept and the other 1/10 is a rocket into space upfield that just opens defenses up instantly. Most of his long passing is vertical; unlike Xabi or the aforementioned Ruben Neves he doesn't switch the ball to the flanks as often – instead recycling it with quick passing triangles in the middle (to discourage opponents' pressing) and patiently waiting for the right run from one of his front 3 to put the ball directly into the danger area. Once you understand how it works it's breathtaking: you can just see he's playing a different game to 99% of other CMs and it changes how opponents must defend against Napoli because the they always have to be aware that when the ball is at Jorginho's feet near the centre circle it can be on a striker's foot in front of goal 2 seconds later.
An important feature of his game is how quickly he makes all decisions; where Can or Gini would take 3-4 touches before moving the ball along Jorginho normally makes 2 or 1 and usually knows what he's going to do even before receiving the ball. Even without the ball he is constantly pointing to his teammates and "directing traffic". He is usually the most "switched on" player on the pitch, constantly looking for somebody else's lapse of concentration to exploit. Finally, I like how he seems to be immune to pressure – his touch and ball control is so assured that attempts to tackle him or intercept the ball don't seem to faze him at all; in fact many of his spectacular attacking through-balls get launched just a millisecond before an opponent catches up to him to tackle – he is like an American football quarterback who knows to keep complete concentration on the execution of the pass and the movement of the receiver far ahead even as a 300 pound mass of bone and muscle is bearing down on him ready to inflict pain if he doesn't release the ball in time.
And that's the most important thing to understand about Jorginho – mentally he's really quite tough, having grown up playing on the streets in one of the poorest regions of Brazil and moving to a new country all by himself as a teenager to try to get his family out of poverty. I think his playing style reflects his upbringing – it's understated, designed not to draw attention, to avoid even a hint of showmanship or "style" or anything that is not purely practical. Only if you follow closely you will notice that the skill is sublime and the thinking is razor-sharp. It's possible that had Jorginho been blessed with powerful physique in addition to his mental and technical prowess, we might be talking about him as one of the all-time great midfielders of the game. As it is though, his body frame is simply not powerful enough to win most 1 on 1 duels, his pace and agility are nothing special, so teams who want to make use of his extraordinarily efficient passing have to devise a system that adequately protects him and inevitably make some sacrifices in other areas. Is it worth the trouble? For Napoli it certainly is and Klopp, being tactically quite similar to (and I suspect quite a bit influenced by) Sarri, will know exactly how to make the best use of this player's talents.
If you can't already tell, I'm quite excited by the prospect of having this new attacking weapon in midfield; a player capable of creating chances for our front 3 with more consistency and less risk than before. Let me explain what I mean by less risk: the great thing about vertical passing is that it comes close to solving one of the great tactical problems of modern game: how to attack with speed and penetration while keeping perfect defensive shape. Since in this way of attacking it can take as little as 2 players (the "quarterback" and the "receiver") to create a goal-scoring chance, the rest of the players don't have to distort their shape trying to pull opponents out of position, so the whole construct becomes far more defensively solid. Turns out you don't have to always work the ball into the final third (and risk losing it with half the team out of position defensively) to make the final pass when you have a player capable of producing a quality final pass from a nominally "safe" position on the pitch. Teams know this and that's why in roughly half of the games I watched Jorginho was the one Napoli player who was personally man-marked (!) – not that it helped to stifle his effectiveness all that much. It's a powerful weapon that very few teams possess and in theory, a front 3 like ours with a mercilessly efficient playmaker like Jorginho supplying them from midfield is a perfect antidote against teams playing with a high defensive line (i.e. Man City, Spurs). It should also help us to create more chances against teams who park the bus and control the tempo much better whether we need to speed up or slow down the game.
Last point I want to make: if we do get Jorginho in the summer, he is in no way a Can replacement. His qualities are completely different and the most similar player we have in the squad currently is of course Henderson. Whether this will mean Hendo will lose his place in the first team or that he will move further up in midfield again, with Jorginho now at the base, this is the position and the role in the team that will be affected.
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