Turning Japanese

How does Shin Yamada compare to peak J-League Daizen Maeda and Kyogo Furuhashi?

In this week’s piece, I will not be persisting with the current trend for cloud yelling in response to the apparent lack of drive, enthusiasm, energy, strategy, action, direction, ambition, creativity, ah ffs, of Celtic.

Sorry, Grandpa Simpson – cancelled.

Given the travails of the forward line and the debates about recruitment, I wanted to explore the profile of Shin Yamada, but in a different way from James’s excellent benchmarking on the player.

Rather than benchmark against all J-League strikers, I wanted to compare the best of Yamada (his 2024 season when he scored 21 goals for Kawasaki Frontale in 51 matches) with the best of Kyogo Furuhashi (16 goals in 21 matches during the 2021 season before his exit to Celtic, for Vissel Kobe) and Daizen Maeda (23 goals in 40 appearances for Yokohama F. Marinos also in 2021 before joining the Hoops).

For reference, at that time, Kyogo was 26 years old, Maeda was 24 years old, and Yamada was 24 years old. Kyogo was in his fifth season as a full-time professional, Maeda his sixth and Yamada only his second.

The buzzword this summer has been profiling. We know that Tony Bloom’s pals at Jamestown Analytics are the bomb at this (apologies, I am currently rewatching Breaking Bad. Expect more stoner bollocks.). Even the delinquent basket case The Rangers seem to be filling key positions with competently scouted players. Hibernian have a coherent playing style manned with personnel capable of doing the job asked of them. Scottish football is growing up!

Whilst Celtic appear in many respects stuck in adolescence as regards a modern recruitment operation, this summer's intake does offer some promise. Benjamin Nygren seems to be a good fit for the creative eight role. Hayato Inamura offers potentially high-end attributes pertinent to Celtic’s style of play at a very low-risk price point. And Kieran Tierney fixes “the” problem position.

Which leaves Yamada. Is he another stockpiled cheap project that does not take the team forward, or a bargain gem who will become the number one striker?

The data used in this piece is from Wyscout. The descriptions of tactics and roles mainly come from the excellent Ryo Nakagawara, whose output can be found here.

As always, we must establish context.