Under the microscope: Elijah Adebayo – Luton Town’s bargain from Walsall, what do the stats say? | OneFootball

Luton Town have been pretty inconsistent this season in the EFL Championship.  A recent slump of form and winless results has seen them go down to 13th in the league. They have only managed to win one out of their last five matches.

Luton have got one of the best attacks in the division but a constantly leaky defence has not helped their cause at all. They have blown away some huge leads in recent times to settle with a draw in the end.

Their players have been really inconsistent but among the ranks, one man who has tried to keep hold of his good form is the 23-year-old forward, Elijah Adebayo. He has scored five goals in ten matches so far and is the highest goal scorer in the squad.

We take a look at his attacking stats.

Adebayo has featured in ten matches yet alongside his striker partner Harry Cornick in the 3-4-1-2 system. He has played on both sides of the attack – be it right or left. From the above image it is clear that Adebayo has been able to get into good goal scoring positions into the box more from the left-hand side as he has spent the majority of the time inside the box while on the right, he has ventured into the box but has spent most of the time near the wings – the red and orange areas. The English forward has not dropped much into his own half but has covered a lot of ground in the attacking third.

The 23-year-old has played a lot fewer passes relatively than other forwards in the division. He has completed a total of just 145 passes in ten matches while his accuracy has been really below satisfactory with 51%. He averages only 16 passes per 90 while having 37 touches on the ball. He has played passes throughout the final third on the pitch, most of which are near the right-wing. He has not attempted long balls, playing short passes trying to link up with his teammates. Adebayo has put in a lot of through balls and crosses into the box for his teammates to run onto with xT of 0.3060 at times.

The forward has 90% of his shots taken from the left side of the box, most of which have been inside the area while a few others were taken from the edge of the box. All of his goals have come from inside the box while averaging a goal every 163 minutes. Adebayo has been equally good on both his feet and with his head, scoring with all of them. However, he has made the keeper try harder every time and been really clinical in front of goal, with a shot accuracy of 57%.

Adebayo has got exceptionally great positioning off the ball ranking 95th percentile in xG accumulated per shot while ranking 87th percentile in total xG gathered per 90. He has attempted a lot of dribbles as well ranking 85th percentile in the league but his success rate remains lower than the league median.

Luton Town’s hopes of a finish in the playoff positions lies on Elijah Adebayo by a huge margin. As long as they do not fix their defensive issues, the English forward needs to compensate by scoring more goals upfront.