This exercise is now at an inflection point, as the alignment of profiles with style of play shifts from what had been Wilfried Nancy’s to a return to Martin O’Neill’s. The latter introduces some uncertainty given his prior interim tenure was only eight games and we do not have clear visibility on the power dynamics between he and his coaching staff, with Shaun Maloney seemingly prominent.
So we plow on and do our best!
As usual, first some context on the two seasons in question. He played both at Hapoel Petah Tikva, with 2024-2025 in the Israeli second division, and then 2025-2026 so far in the top flight with the team earning promotion. He’s being deployed mostly as a wide attacker from the right with a lot of what appears 4-2-3-1 and close variants.
The team has been one of the more attacking sides in the respective leagues both seasons, while creating near or at the highest level of xG per shot. Not particularly aggressive in their pressing, a metric which jumps out is that the team system seems to love a throughball. More on that later.
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