Davide Frattesi: How close to a perfect box-to-box midfielder is he? – scout report

Italy are entering a new era on the international stage; one of transition, patience and compromise. The old guard is being replaced by a fresher generation of raw talents doused in ambiguity.

Former Man City and Internazionale boss Roberto Mancini is overseeing this changeover of cohorts, but the future of Gli Azzurri looks impeccably uncertain right now as it’s yet to be seen whether this new breed of players can maintain the same standards as those who have reached the end of their road on the international stage.

One player that is part of this new generation of exciting young talents in Italian football is Sassuolo’s Davide Frattesi who has made three appearances for the national side already.

The young midfielder had a wonderful campaign with the Neroverdi, individually, despite the team’s struggles to crack on after Roberto De Zerbi and Manuel Locatelli parted ways with the club last summer.

Being a skilled technician in the middle of the park with a bright future ahead at club and international level, we have decided to write a scout report on the 22-year-old using tactical analysis.

It will be an analysis of his style of play, strengths and weaknesses, as well as looking at where the former AS Roma youth product fits into his teams’ tactics.

Player profile

Last summer, after an impressive 2020/21 season with Sassuolo in midfield and playing a part in helping Italy lift Euro 2020, Locatelli was moved on to Serie A giants Juventus for a fee in the region of €37.5 million.

During that same campaign, Frattesi was on loan with Monza where the youngster was excellent, bagging eight goals in total and registering two assists in Serie B. It was obvious that he would be Locatelli’s replacement at the Mapei Stadium.

Of course, the two players are very different in terms of their styles of play. Locatelli sits deeper and dictates the play just in front of the backline, while Frattesi advances further up the pitch and is far more active in the final third.

Sassuolo’s tactical set-up under Alessandro Dionisi allows Frattesi to use his strengths well. The Italian minnows mainly deployed a 4-2-3-1 over the past year.

However, regardless of whether Sassuolo use a 4-2-3-1 or the slightly more attacking 4-3-3, the shape always resembles the latter during the possession phases.

In the 4-2-3-1, Frattesi plays as the right-sided player in the double-pivot, while he operates as a right central midfielder in a 4-3-3. Regardless of the structure, Frattesi drifts towards the wide areas and halfspaces which can be seen from his heatmap:

As will be analysed later, Frattesi is often positioned between the lines in pockets of space. At 5’10 (178cm) and 163lbs (74kg), one may get the impression that the midfielder is a bit too clunky to be used in these tight areas, but this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Frattesi is truly scintillating with the ball at his feet, capable of taking it on the half-turn in these areas and the 22-year-old even drives out of pressure with his dribbling quite often.

One of the star’s most impressive traits is his lack of injuries. The best ability is availability, and Frattesi is almost always fit to play, having featured a total of 36 times in the 2021/22 league campaign for Sassuolo and 38 overall, accumulating a total of 3,016 minutes.

Positional sensibility

In the modern game, a midfielder without a sense of positional awareness on the football pitch is just as useless as a car without wheels, even if the engine is made by Ferrari. They can have all the technical skills in the world but remain a liability without the knowledge of how to move into the correct spaces.

Fortunately, Frattesi doesn’t have this problem. The Italian international is always moving into the correct spaces to receive the ball or sometimes to merely pin two opponents down.

When Sassuolo have the ball in the middle corridors of the field, Frattesi pushes up into the right halfspace which is his preferred area to occupy. Speaking generally, this would normally be the space between the opponent’s left winger and central midfielder.

Having Frattesi in this area of the opposition’s defensive block is smart for two reasons. Firstly, the 22-year-old is excellent at receiving the ball with his back to goal and has great body orientation. This allows him to know when the right moments are to take the ball on the half-turn and drive forward.

Being positioned between the lines, solid body posture is a must. If there is enough space, Sassuolo are able to quickly play to his feet in this area, giving Frattesi the chance to open his body up and turn on the ball, allowing him to face forward towards the goal.

Here, for instance, Frattesi is positioned in the right halfspace between the opposition’s midfield and backline. But what’s more important is the positioning of his body. Being right-footed, Frattesi opens his body up to receive on his strong backfoot which would put him facing toward the goal.

Unfortunately, the touch let him down in this instance but it’s a great example of how dangerous Frattesi can be in these areas. Overall, the midfielder is in the 82^nd percentile for Serie A midfielders for progressive passes received.

Furthermore, Frattesi is very reliable in these areas. The player was in just the 15^th percentile for miscontrols last season, meaning his touch is excellent for the most part.

Also, often when the Italian is positioned in these higher spaces inside the opponent’s block, it pins the opponent’s winger and central midfielder, allowing the wide player on his team to receive the ball unscathed.

In this example, Frattesi’s positioning has pinned the opponent’s two midfielders back. Once the ball has been played out to Sassuolo’s high fullback, these pair cannot step across because of Frattesi’s pinning.

Instead, Lazio’s left-back comes across, opening a gap between himself and the left centre-back. Once the Sassuolo player receives the ball, Frattesi quickly makes his run into the gap which has been created.

Without even touching the ball, Frattesi has simply caused a ripple in the opposition’s structure merely through his excellent positioning.

Final third play

Following on from the previous section, Frattesi’s play in the final third makes him stand out amongst the crowd. For someone who starts games in a double-pivot in the 4-2-3-1 base formation, he is often one of the most attacking players on the pitch. Sassuolo’s expansive style of play under Dionisi facilitates this greatly.

Frattesi is constantly attacking the depth behind the opposition’s backline, causing trouble with his runs from deep and stretching the defence vertically.

Frattesi is quite a well-rounded midfielder in terms of his style of play and abilities, but he also possesses the attacking instincts of a ghosting number ‘10’ such as Dele Alli or Donny van de Beek.

In this example, England failed to plug the gap between their left-back and centre-back. Frattesi spots this and instantly makes a run from deep into the exploitative space to get in behind the backline.

Overall, Frattesi touched the ball 3.03 times in the penalty area per 90 last season, putting him in the 94^th percentile for this metric, which is highly impressive.

A lot of the time, Frattesi wouldn’t need the ball to be played into space in order to get into the penalty area. The midfielder ranked in the 91^st percentile for carries into the box per 90 with 0.47 as well as in the 83^rd percentile for carries into the final third per 90. What helped this is his wonderfully powerful dribbling ability.

Frattesi carries the ball well, of course, which is an easy conclusion to draw from the previously mentioned metrics.

However, he has very powerful bursts of pace on the ball and uses this to bypass opposition pressure often, such as in the last image. Two Juventus players closed together to gang up on Frattesi with a 2v1 situation. Instead of releasing the ball, Frattesi pushed it ahead of both and burst into space.

The 22-year-old is quite fast as well which certainly helps in these situations to get out of danger with his explosive mini-dribbles. Over the course of the previous Serie A campaign, Frattesi attempted 1.80 dribbles per 90, placing him in the 78^th percentile in comparison to the league’s other midfielders. Furthermore, he had a success rate of 59.6% which is really solid.

A master of getting into the box from deep, Frattesi also likes to help out in the final third, trying to chip in with a few goals. At Monza in Serie B in the 2020/21 campaign, the Sassuolo youngster bagged eight goals in total which is a great output for a midfielder. This was cut in half once he began receiving minutes with the Neroverdi in a much tougher league.

This data viz plots all of Frattesi’s previous 75 shots in all competitions. While there was quite a high volume of strikes taken from outside the penalty area, the Italian also commonly shot inside the box, which is intriguing.

The visual resembles that of a number ‘10’ which is all the more interesting when you realise that Frattesi started in a double-pivot in almost every game last season.

What’s even more impressive is his offensive statistics, notably regarding expected goals. Frattesi averaged an xG of 0.21 per 90 in the 2021/22 campaign, placing him in the 95^th percentile for midfielders. He also averaged 2.08 shots per 90, getting 0.6 of these shots on target, ranking him in the 96^th and 95^th percentiles, respectively.

Frattesi’s accuracy is definitely something that still needs work though. The midfielder bagged 0.13 goals per 90 for Sassuolo which is an underperformance of his xG by 0.08 per 90.

Defensive improvements

From a defensive standpoint, where Frattesi impresses the most is in his reading of the game. The 22-year-old has a wonderful knack for plugging gaps in the backline, especially when there has been a separation as the opponent are in the final third.

Look at this example. The Sassuolo centre-back was struggling to get back into his position. Instead, noticing the lapse in structure at the back, Frattesi sat in as a temporary right central defender to plug the gap.

The ball was played across by Juventus and Frattesi was there to block the strike from Paulo Dybala. Had he not slotted into the vacated space, the new Roma star would have had an easy tap-in to open the scoring.

Again, Frattesi’s positional awareness is excellent on and off the ball, during the attacking and defensive phases.

His style of play is undoubtedly that of a box-to-box midfielder. This can be seen from his number of touches in the opposition’s box as well as his own penalty area. As stated earlier in this scout report, Frattesi is in the 94^th percentile for touches in the opponent’s penalty box.

Meanwhile, he is also in the 83^rd percentile for touches in his own box, averaging 3.53 per 90 last season. Only a true box-to-box midfielder would accumulate such numbers.

However, the midfielder still needs to do a lot of improvement in his defensive work. While Frattesi is a very tenacious tackler and is certainly not afraid to get stuck in, he’s not great at applying pressure to the opposition. Last season, Frattesi applied pressure to the ball-carrier 16.27 times per 90 for Sassuolo but was only successful in 4.51 pressures per 90, ranking him in the 19^th percentile. This was a 27.7% success rate.

Furthermore, Frattesi was dribbled past 0.91 times per 90, putting him in the 81^st percentile for Serie A midfielders in the previous campaign.

While he is a wonderfully useful asset in the middle and final third when attacking, Frattesi needs to improve his defensive play desperately.

Conclusion

Like his predecessor Locatelli, Sassuolo will probably struggle to hold onto such a gem, but he is at the right level at this moment in time that his current ability allows.

Frattesi plays a lot like Chelsea’s Conor Gallagher in the attacking phases — a constant threat in the box and loves attacking the right-hand channels — while he is very reminiscent of Leicester City midfielder Youri Tielemans in the defensive phases — a good reader of the game but can be played around quite easily.

Still incredibly rough around the edges, Frattesi is a wonderfully exciting prospect for the future of Italian football.