Las Palmas Riding the Wave Under Diego Martínez
On October 8th, Diego Martínez inherited quite the mess at UD Las Palmas. The club never fully grasped their new identity under Luis Carrión, having watched their previously successful boss, García Pimienta, head to Sevilla. To make matters worse, they were dead last in LaLiga, having only gained three points from their first nine matches.
Since his arrival, Martínez has completely turned their season around. They are now 14th in the table (four points clear of the drop zone), having picked up 16 points in his first eight matches in charge. So, it must be all sunshine and rainbows in the Canary Islands, right? Right?!
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On the surface, yes, but looking under the hood, there might still be some cause for concern, but more on that later.
Martínez’s Background
Diego started his major professional football managerial career with Sevilla in 2009, working his way up from Academy Manager to Manager of Sevilla Atlético (their second team). Along the way, he spent time as the first team’s assistant manager, under the likes of Unai Emery and Míchel. He got his first head coaching job for Osasuna, where he managed them for one year (achieving 8th place in the Segunda División), before moving to Granada in 2018.
Here, he had his most successful managerial spell (to date), gaining promotion at the first time of asking. He then took it to the next level, getting 7th in La Liga in his inaugural season, which earned the club its first ever European competition. In his third (and surprisingly final) season, Martínez led Granada to the quarterfinals of the Europa League, and another respectable league finish, this time in 9th.
Diego allowed his contract to expire after three years at Granada, and a year later, took over as manager for Espanyol, where he did not last a full year before stepping down in April. After this, he joined Olympiacos, and his tenure was even shorter there, only lasting until December of his first year. Despite his recent turmoil, UDLP still put their trust in him this October, giving him the reins after Luis Carrión was sacked.
Now that we’ve established Martínez’s turbulent, but relatively successful career to date, let’s discuss his tactics and impact on Las Palmas.
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Diego Martinez’s Tactical Principles
Dating all the way back to his time at Granada, Martínez has two distinct, and somewhat contradictory defensive approaches. He prefers his teams to press aggressively in their attacking third, but if they do not win the ball back, the team drops into a deep shell, happy to let the opposition keep possession.
Take his initial season at Granada, for example. The club was fourth in the Segunda División with 88 tackles in the final third, but was dead last in terms of total tackles + interceptions. The image below illustrates this:
This graph shows all teams in the leagues of his first five seasons as a manager in Spain, plotted by the percentage of their tackles that came in the attacking third and a possession-adjusted measure of tackles + interceptions per 90 minutes. Aside from his one season with Osasuna, all of his teams have shared this same principle.
However, with Las Palmas, Martínez seems to have abandoned this philosophy completely. UDLP currently ranks 16th in the league with only 9.87% of their tackle attempts coming in the final third, and 1st in terms of tackles + interceptions per match (29.38). Whether this is a product of Martínez assessing that a different approach will work better with this current group of players, or it is a holistic change in philosophy, it is certainly not what you would expect if you watched his teams over the past six years.
In possession, there is one defining characteristic of Martínez’s teams: short, intricate passing sequences. He seems to flat-out refuse to move the ball vertically.
All six seasons he has managed in Spain, Martínez’s teams have been below the league mean for progressive passes per 90 minutes. Progressive passes are defined as passes that move the ball 10 yards forward or more from any point in the previous six passes in the sequence, or passes that end in the opposition’s penalty area, excluding passes in the defending 40% of the field. Effectively, passes that move the ball vertically in spaces where there is a higher density of opposition defenders.
And unlike with the defensive metrics, this time, Martínez has kept his philosophy with UDLP; they rank 18th in La Liga this season with 25.86 progressive passes per 90 minutes.
Diego Martínez’s Impact on the UDLP Squad
I’ll run through four players that have seen their responsibilities shift under Martínez – two that the changes have benefitted, and two that they have hurt.
- Kirian Rodríguez: Positive impact. The heartbeat of this squad has seen his role shift forwards on the pitch, from distributor in possession to central area creator. Martínez seems to want his deep-lying midfielders to be disruptors of his opposition’s play, rather than harmonizers of his own. KRod’s progressive passes per 90 have fallen drastically from 8.29 last season (8.42 this season before Martínez) to just 5.59. However, this is to be expected given Diego’s philosophy.
The flipside of this is that he has more responsibility in the final third… his chances created per 90 are 1.81 under Martínez (having risen from 0.68 in the first nine games this season).
- Dario Essugo: Positive impact. I mentioned above that Martínez seems to prefer a disruptor at the base of his midfield, and the 19 year old Portuguese international has been the direct beneficiary. He is seeing more minutes now (339 league minutes in the first nine games, compared to 585 since Martínez started), and has become far more active defensively.
He averaged 3.45 tackles + interceptions/90 pre-DM, and is averaging 6.46 over the past eight matches. The main catalyst? He is being asked to drop really deep in the midfield. His attacking third touches per 90 have plummeted from 13.0 before Martínez to 4.18 since his arrival.
- Fábio Silva: Negative impact. He had 1 goal + 0 assists pre-DM, and has contributed 4 goals + 2 assists under the new boss. So the ‘negative impact’ is surely a typo, right? Wrong. As weird as it may seem, I think this bump in performance is a mirage. He was averaging 0.41 non-penalty expected goals + expected assists before, and is now averaging 0.15 npxG+xAG/90. It would be an exceptional outlier scenario for this outperformance of expected goal contributions to continue.
Not only that, but the underlying “usage” metrics have declined under Martínez. Some rapid-fire examples of pre-DM -> post-DM reductions in the role Silva is seeing: progressive receptions per reception (36.0% -> 20.3%), attacking penalty area touches per 90 (6.21 -> 4.35), and carries into the penalty area per 90 (2.07 -> 0.84). Effectively, Silva is receiving the ball in space less, is using his ability to carry the ball less, and as a result, is seeing the ball in dangerous areas less often. I do not think this bodes well for his future output.
- Alberto Moleiro: Negative Impact. The handcuffs Martínez has applied to this starboy’s creative abilities are much easier to identify. Shot creating actions/90 are down (5.42 -> 2.49), xG/90 is down (0.25 -> 0.17), and xAG/90 is WAY down (0.19 -> 0.03). The main culprit behind this reduction in output is positioning. Moleiro is an extremely creative player, and does well in central positions where he can be involved in all aspects of possession. However, Martínez has asked him to play in a very wide role, hugging the touchline, rather than being allowed to tuck in to link up with his teammates.
Moleiro exited UDLP’s most recent match in the 60th minute with a hamstring injury, and is expected to miss a month, so hopefully upon his return, Martínez can find some ways to maximize his creativity without derailing the team’s current form.
The Underlying Concerns
I mentioned at the top that while it appears Martínez has completely turned around Las Palmas, I see some underlying causes for concern. And listen… I know football is a results game, but the results often follow the trends of the advanced metrics.
On the surface, earning 16 points from eight matches when the team previously earned three from nine is stellar. But digging a bit deeper, not much has changed from an expected goals perspective.
UDLP is still in ‘relegation territory’ when comparing the xG difference before Diego Martínez and since his arrival. Defensively, the xG allowed per 90 has improved from 1.88 to 1.64, but the xG generated by the attack has fallen too (0.92 to 0.86). This results in a net improvement from a -0.96 xG difference to a -0.78. It is an improvement, but not the kind that would usually merit a 1.67 points per match increase.
Diego Martínez to UDLP: Conclusion
Martínez’s hiring was always an intriguing one, given his high highs and low lows as a manager, plus his distinctive tactical ideas. There are absolutely positives so far – most notably the monstrous turn around in results. That said, the expected goal metrics have not improved drastically, so I am worried this string of good fortune will not continue.
However, there is always the flip side – the expected goal marks could improve as the team adapts to his ideas, which would make the ensuing results sustainable. Either way, UDLP will continue to be worth watching as the LaLiga season progresses.
By: Spencer Mossman / @fc_mossman
Featured Image: @GabFoligno / Getty Images