Gabriel Misehouy: Analyzing Girona’s Dutch New Signing

After finishing third in La Liga and achieving a first-ever European qualification, Girona have suffered some major departures with Aleix García and Artem Dovbyk, but they have nevertheless rebuilt Míchel’s squad with some intriguing additions. Spanish striker Abel Ruiz has made the move from Braga for €9 million, whilst Czech international Ladislav Krejčí will be tasked with filling Eric García’s void in central defense after joining for €8 million from Sparta Prague.

Girona have also parted with €3.5 million to sign Real Zaragoza’s Spanish center back Alejandro Francés and loaned in Spanish winger Bryan Gil from Tottenham Hotspur, whilst they’ve also reunited with Oriol Romeu on loan a mere one year after he joined Barcelona for €3.4 million. They have bolstered their unit with two Dutch signings — Donny van de Beek has arrived from Manchester United for €500,000 whilst Gabriel Misehouy has arrived on a free transfer.

Born in Amsterdam to Ghanaian parents, Misehouy, like Van de Beek, began his career at Ajax’s academy. He worked his way through the ranks for the Netherlands’ youth teams as well as at De Toekomst before calling it quits after 12 years with the Dutch giants. The 19-year-old hasn’t made a single appearance in senior football, but that could be set to change soon in Catalonia.

Name: Gabriel Misehouy

Position: Attacking Midfielder/Left Winger

Country: Netherlands

Age: 19

Height: 173cm

Preferred Foot: Right

Last Club: Ajax

Misehouy began his career at Ajax’s academy and has been playing in Ajax’s B team for two seasons now. This season he has scored 7 goals and made 3 assists in 13 appearances.

Goals + Assists

How many goals and assists a player has shows how decisive he is and this for attacking midfielders is key as they are offensive players counted upon to have high figures in these aspects.

These images tell us that Misehouy has a higher instinct for scoring goals rather than giving assists. This is because Misehouy’s expected goals are far higher than his expected assists. 

In addition, Misehouy more than doubled his xG tally showing his impressive ability to put the ball in the back of the net. Nonetheless, it is unlikely that he will keep his goals exceeding the expected goals in the future. On the other hand, we can see that giving assists is not one of his most important aspects of his game as his numbers are low.

Dribbles 

Dribbling for an attacking midfielder is not essential, though, the capacity to get past your marker through a skill differentiates good players from great players.

This image shows us that Misehouy is a great dribbler on the ball as he averages many dribbles per 90 minutes and his success rate is slightly above 50% highlighting his effectiveness in these actions, much more than Girona’s current players.

From this image, we can deduce that Misehouy does not participate much in the possession of his current side as he has only slightly more than 20 passes per game compared to more than 45 of Pablo Torre and Iván Martín. This is an aspect he must improve upon if he is to play at Girona as the attacking midfielders do get involved in the play as seen in the data.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Misehouy can be an excellent player for Girona, the stats show he is an impressive player who has the ability to score goals and dribble past players. Nonetheless, his tally of assists suggests that this is an area of improvement if he is to become a top player. In addition, his pass volume must increase as the midfielders at Girona get involved in the play as it is a heavily possession-based side and this position is essential for this style of play.

However, he gives Girona another option with a different profile to Iván Martín who is more of a passer than a dribbler. However, we have to take into account that these statistics are taken from his time in the second Dutch second tier meaning that he must adapt to the Spanish top-flight, and whether he will or not is something we are yet to see.

Featured Image: @GabFoligno / Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA / Getty