Adnan Januzaj

There have not been many rises to footballing fame quite as explosive as that of Adnan Januzaj.

Under David Moyes, he was labelled as a minor savior for Manchester United, lighting up the languid side with raw creative talent. His brace on debut was an immediate peak to his Manchester United career, with a good first season following.

This new era was short lived at Manchester United, but Januzaj has still paved a solid career for himself and is now at Real Sociedad where he tends to dip in and out of the side of late.

Is there any chance he returns to Europe’s elite then? Or has he plateaued and found his level at Real Sociedad?

Real Sociedad’s style

Despite a recent indifferent spell, Sociedad have been massively impressive since the initial lockdown period in Spain.

The squad is very well balanced so a range of formations have been experimented with, most commonly with a back four and often favouring a 4-2-3-1 or 4-1-4-1 with wide midfielders and full backs to stretch the play.

Mikel Oyarzabal, the side’s top scorer, occupies the left and is given freedom to roam between the lines to pick up the ball and confuse defenders, whilst Portu takes shape on the right, the position which Januzaj is most often challenging for.

Full backs move forward whilst central midfielders are flexible, with Guevara, Zubeldia or Zubimendi (depending on who starts) often dropping into a back 3 while attacking. Mikel Merino, the other member of the central pivot, is an all-action adaptable midfielder who fills gaps effectively and has been a standout player in La Liga this season.

Build up play is passing based, with an effort to create space for the key attackers with quick movement. This is epitomized by new signing David Silva who helps to unlock the most stubborn and frustrating defences.

Up front they score goals through Willian José (now on loan at Wolves) or Alexander Isak, both of whom are required to showcase strong link up play and help open the game up for Oyarzabal and company.

Off the ball its all about pressing and winning the ball back quickly, the forward players are aggressive in their attempts to re-gain possession high up the pitch.

This hyper-aggressive style can expose them defensively, especially if Merino has pushed up heavily, but they often reap the rewards of this risky defensive style and steal a few goals due to a disciplined collective approach.

Key traits

Januzaj operates primarily as a right or left winger but can also play as an attacking midfielder or second striker. His versatility makes him a good squad player for Sociedad, but his inconsistency means he struggles to nail a first XI spot; more on those later.

This ability to play from either side is due to his proficiency on both feet, he’s comfortable on his left and right when dribbling and passing and even opts to shoot from either side.

He has a quite electric change of pace, especially with the ball at his feet, meaning he can force defenders onto their heels and accelerate past them with ease. Last season he averaged almost 11 dribbles per game with an impressive 53.95% completion rate. As such he can create his own chances and work something from nothing, which despite highlight his greed in possession, can be considered a positive.

He’s also skillful and creative with the ball at his feet and often uses tricks and flicks to get beyond defenders and create space for his teammates or open up an opportunity to cross or shoot at goal.

This dribbling also makes him a good advancer of the ball, which has been a ley to the success of Soceidad over the past couple of seasons. Januzaj, Portu, Oyarzabal, Silva and the now departed Ødegaard have all performed well in moving the ball up the pitch with purpose for the side.

Defensively he puts in work for the side, but I wouldn’t expect to seeing him making too many tackles or interceptions and instead simply pressuring and pressing opposition defenders when required.

He loves to shoot though and certainly isn’t afraid of having a pop from distance which alongside his skills and trickery results in a brilliant highlight reel, with the pick of the being and

Reasonable comparisons

With an exactly matching xA of 0.26 and an almost matching xG of 0.31 to 0.33 per 90 minutes, it would be fair to compare Januzaj with Thorgan Hazard over the past few seasons, especially since both are on the fringes of their respective first XIs.

Hazard is the more efficient of the two Belgians. He registers 0.3 goals per 90 in comparison to 0.21, despite the similar xG. He also gets more assists, with another 0.3 per game compared to Januzaj’s 0.25.

Januzaj likes to dribble more than Hazard and also likes to take on more shots though, with 2.7 per 90 compared with 2.31 – this indicates that Januzaj may be a little more greedy than Hazard, but also shows his proficiency in getting into the right areas. This shooting stat lines him up with Bayer Leverkusen’s Leon Bailey (2.72) but again, Bailey is more efficient in turning these shots into goals.

Another positive of Januzaj’s play is that he can be a real challenge to dispossess, despite his love of direct dribbling. In fact, he and Sadio Mané perform a similar number of dribbles and only find themselves dispossessed around 1.8 times per game, making them both effective ball carriers.

The downsides

We’ve covered a handful of things already but Januzaj can be rather wasteful in his play, which is the main reason why he tends to find himself behind Portu in the pecking order.

Januzaj is a good striker of the ball but will often be found taking pop shots from outside the area when working the ball into the box would likely be a preferable option; evidenced by the fact he’s scored just once outside the box for Sociedad in total.

When dribbling he can again fail to look for the easy passes and gets tunnel vision, which looks particularly bad when you have Mikel Oyarzabal pulling the strings and making effective choices on the other side.

Also, since joining Sociedad, his number of bad touches per game has risen, likely as a result of him wanting to continually dribble. 2.4 bad touches per game might not seem a lot, but it can be very frustrating to watch a player ruin chances for the team by over-dribbling and forcing a bad touch due to running out of room.

Aerially he does get bullied given his lightweight frame, but since that isn’t where his proficiencies lie, it would be unfair to mark him down on that front.

Finally, recurring injuries and niggles have plagued Januzaj through his career so far. He’s missed 30 games through absence for Sociedad, as well as 7 for Sunderland and 10 for Manchester United, meaning he misses one in every five or six matches on average. This makes it difficult for him to gel into teams effectively and means good form is extremely hard to maintain.

Conclusion

Turning 26 very soon, Adnan Januzaj is about to hit his prime years and he has to find greater efficiency if he is ever to hit his expected peak.

The highs of Januzaj’s play are so high – when he’s on song he’s a menace to defend against and can score some improbable goals – but the lows, with injuries, losing the ball and inconsistency, are so low.

Shooting/dribbling less and finding the key pass would be of great benefit to both himself and his attacking teammates, though with these being leading traits of his game, it will take some serious strict coaching to develop his game in this manner.

If it isn’t to work out at Sociedad, where he is well placed to get back into the manager’s first team, then a team looking for a high-risk, high-reward winger could benefit from his presence. Everton could perhaps make good use of him in their thin squad, whilst Brighton and Southampton have had tenuous links to him in the past couple of months.

Regardless, his time at the top table is all but done, and he’ll have to continue to work hard to break into a first team looking to secure Champion’s League football.

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