The REAL Reason Why Everyone Wants To Sign Xavi Simons

Xavi Simmonds is the wonder kid that everyone wants to sign. A player that has proven his worth in multiple leagues over the last few years and is seamlessly not wanted by his parent club PSG. At just the age of 20 years old, Xavi Simmonds has a lot of quality that he can provide for any of the top European sides, especially in the Premier League. But what makes him so special? Well to find out the answers to these questions, please like and subscribe for any more football Despite being 21, Xavi Simmonds has been known for a long time. He was a child prodigy at La Masia and obviously moved to PSG in 2019, where he is still on the books now. And despite debuting for the Perusian side quite early on at just the age of 19, he was eventually moved out to PSV because there was no way for him to get into the main team squad permanently. And at PSV, he had a brilliant season, getting 22 goals and 12 assists in all competitions and played a heap of in the Dutch League. This led to PSG rebuying him on their buyback clause and loaning him out to Leipzig, who had a brilliant year last year in the Bundesliga, with him looking to even get a move away from PSG permanently yet again or another loan this summer. Now one of the best things about Xavi Simmonds is his versatility. For PSV, he played in a heap of number of positions, even in central mid, on both wings, attacking midfield and striker, but found his place really on that left side in the end. And that continued last season, where he played the majority of his games in that left wing spot, but also played a few times in the attacker midfield and a lot on the right wing, being able to switch rings quite easily. And overall, he's a very skilful player, being very good at quick control and being able to evade pressure. But he's also very good at being creatively two steps ahead, seeing where the space is and being able to scan quite predominantly and well within the side for his team to be able to push the ball up. Now, despite this season being his first year in a top five league that he's ever played consistently, he still managed to get eight goals and 13 assists in the league and 10 goals and 15 assists in all competitions. So he's got a very good output at such a young age within different circumstances. And at his young age, the reason why he's getting these great stats going forward is not down to his dribbling vision, it's always down to his composure and finishing as well. He has a tremendous work rate of trying to win the ball back when he doesn't have it. And obviously the speed that he does this ability at, it really helps him in a sense for his team. Now in possession, Xavi can be useful to his teams in many different ways. He's got a very low center of gravity and he's someone who loves dribbling and taking players on in a one v one with duels to create space for even his opposition or himself in time. And last season, while playing in Leipzig's 4-2-2-2 setup, he was allowed to basically run free and roam free on that left half space. He could even go forward or come back and and was playing as a bit of an 8-10 hybrid. This allowed him to pick the ball up from deeper and progress with it, which he did brilliantly. He was having around 41 carries per game and had a total carrying distance of a lot compared to other players within the league. He also was progressively carrying it a lot, nearly five per game and progressively carrying it four into the final thirds. He was picking up in that half space so he could progress forward and wasn't someone that was really going to deal with it defensively back. This is obviously great for Premier League teams that want someone on the break to be able to keep the ball with a lot of players around it, but it's also some great for teams in transition. He's a very good player with his speed and the quickness he does things and makes the movement happen where he can progress a team for even a ball or a run if they have won it back against a few defenders. Despite being 21, showing the confidence to take people on consistently with two and a half take-ons per game successfully and over a 50% rate, it does show that he is weaving through tackles and bringing the ball up for his team, even in counter-attacking situations or at times where the other team may be discomforted with their defence. And while Leipzig do play a progressive system with a lot of their players being very quick and good on their counter-attacks, which definitely helps Xavi Simmonds, he's also a very good passer genuinely in settled possession. Now he doesn't make the huge amount of passes per game and making around 38 completed and trying about 48. His progressive passing is most of the passes that he does. He loves passing it forward and one in every five passes he does ends up being a progressive pass in a game. This is accomplished by the fact his long passing is very good at 63% completion rate with around four a game happening. Shows he's got a lot of confidence of switching the play and getting the ball up the team quickly in a long ball situation. Now this guy does play mostly as a 10. His creative numbers, his key pass is around 2.7 and he does like sitting a little bit deeper to make sure he can control the game rather than being a winger that would run at other players. His passes into the final third and into the penalty area are very high for these positions and it is because he majority plays centrally or coming in the middle to help Dani Olmo who's the other attacking player for Leipzig. And now this leads to him having around six shot creating actions per game and a lot of his successful take-ons around half of a game is becoming a shot for his teammates overall. And overall everything he does is to help the players around him then necessarily being a player that is always going to look to shoot. This is why his shooting stats are much lower for players in his position only around two and a half per game and one on target. But when you compare that to the assist he's getting per game at 0.3 with an expected assist of a 0.31 you can definitely see he is a more of a creative player from deeper than someone that is going to have loads of shots at the goal. Now with his ability to run at defenders but also be two steps ahead and making passes is really helped the output in the Bundesliga and obviously was the top assist the last season within the league in his first year and almost all of his assists were just brilliant movement and connection that he has with the teammates around him. And the biggest beneficiary of his talents has been the star striker Appenda who has found the perfect partner in crime to complement their speed and attacking outs that they both have. And while the team does overall typically thrive in transition when there's space to be eaten up, Xavi's ability to manipulate the ball allows his teammates to make off ball runs into space where the Dutchman can find him with pinpoint passes into that space overall. He loves a players around him that are going to run and going to move and although he has often played against teams that don't really have a low block against Leipzig, with his ability to run past multiple players at once and keep the ball it could be very good in the future for getting that low block out of position. Now while Xavi Simms is known for his on the ball work being incredible and he's a great creative player he has actually shown a lot of intelligence and potential to be a very good defender or someone that he's could have worked very hard. Now he is very dedicated for his team systems and does love winning the ball back on the left wing spot. He will come back and help the fullback often at times as well and with around six ball recoveries per 94 wingers that is a very high amount. This alongside a 0.55 interceptions per 90 and winning around 53% of his aerials won despite him not being very tall. Although he is having a short amount of game maybe one or two and he's winning half of them it shows he's intelligent of when he's actually going to go in for the aerials because he can win a majority of them despite not having the biggest stature out there. Now he's not an aggressive player and he isn't going to be someone that wins tackles and really beats the other team he is someone that is going to be intelligent and pick runs and places where he can intercept the ball without having to touch anyone in the meantime and sometimes an aggressive player could make mistakes in giving away poor fouls in poor positions when they don't need it to and getting cards which they don't need to which Xavi Simmonds doesn't pick up only picking around 0.3 per game. Now despite Xavi Simmonds obviously having a brilliant output and clearly has a lot of potential even starting for Netherlands in the Euros it doesn't seem like PSG want to keep him putting him up for sale or at least alone this year but he does want to leave permanently if he isn't going to play and with the quality that this guy has and the price PSG would want being valued around 80 on transfer market it definitely could be a great bargain for anyone to sign. Now it's quite clear that this player can do it in a top five league but he needs the best environment to make him succeed someone that is going to give him time and allow him to play with like-minded young players develop in the squad. Arsenal is definitely an attractive proposition for him he's been linked with them before but his style of play on the ball with a dribbling counter-attacking system could help Arsenal on the transition it's also very coachable because he's very hard-working and has a great football IQ something that Mikel Arteta looks for a lot in his players. He has worked with attacking midfielders before like Olmos so he could always work with Odegaard and can fill in as a backup option in both winger positions and even center forward and attacking midfield if Odegaard isn't there. He could provide brilliant elite play in that advanced eight his work rate will really help them be able to win the ball back in that position as well working well with Rice in defensive midfield. He would give Arsenal that transitional threat they would need and with the cheap deal that they can get him for I think it could be a brilliant signing that they should make or at least try to even though it could be quite hard. Another caveat is that his agent is actually Darren Dean the son of David Dean who used to be the Arsenal owner so he could potentially be convinced to join the Gunners. Another potential outfit for him could be Man Utd now if Eriksenhage stay in there is definitely a project built in there and obviously they both have that Dutch connection. I think for Man Utd he'd predominantly play on that right wing spot that they've struggled to deal with so they could keep a lot of pressure down that side and be very good on the counter attack which is sort of the style that they go for anyway playing a bit of a long ball system where he can work really well off the ball but more importantly can actually get the players within the team on the ball a lot more such as Bruno further up the pit. His smart IQ is something that Man Utd are missing and his work rate would definitely be what they want from their wingers which they don't get right now. Of course he might not get them those time or most output might come at Man Utd right now but he definitely has potential and has shown that he has good output within every season he has played. So for the value that you can get him for could be worth Manchester United getting him and I think these two teams make the most sense for me right now where he's going to play a lot and develop around a group of players that are very similar to him and his style. But overall where do you think Xavi Simmonds should sign for and who do you think would be the best place for his progression to go? I think he definitely should leave PSG if they're not going to give him substantial game time and I think realistically a lot of top six clubs could be interested in the Premier League and outside of Europe. Let me know what you think about him and in the comments of this video and I'll see you in the next one.