FM21: Au Revoir Rony
The moment which every manager dreads during their save on Football Manager has appeared its ugly head. One of my key players and star performers has opted to move away from the club after having his head turned by the interest from some of European footballs superpowers.
Rony Lopes, Les Aiglons captain and arguably our most consistent player will be leaving Nice in January 2024 after nearly four seasons with the club.
Temptation
With 18 months left on his contract, which was due to expire in June 2025, Europe’s elite smelt blood. As you can see from the below screenshot the clubs interested in the Portuguese winger are really quite impressive.
The likes of Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United and Juventus all sit above OGC Nice in the European rankings.
The appeal to play for a bigger club was too much for Rony, who at the age of 28 will see this move as the one in which he will play out the rest of his peak from his career.
The Portuguese player has been in scintillating form across the 2023 calendar year, earning him the accolade of Ligue 1 Uber Eats Foreign Player of the Year.
This was the first time since 2011 (Eden Hazard of Lille) that the award has been won by any player from another club other than PSG, which highlights the level to which Lopes has been playing. Especially considering the likes of Neymar (20 goals, 10 assists) and Erling Haaland (22 goals, 2 assists) who have been playing some beautiful football for the oil-rich club.
The winger has also secured the OGC Nice fans player of the year twice over the last three seasons, a true fans favourite at the Allianz Riviera.
Rony Lopes and OGC Nice
Taking a look at the above table which contains an overview of Lopes’ time at the club, it is clear to see that Rony Lopes is a player who must have a high hidden attribute value for consistency as he has been able to perform close to his full ability in most matches.
Consistency only affects the technical and mental attributes of a player. Therefore, players with better physical attributes are less affected by poor consistency.
Lopes has managed to add a goal contribution in 71% of his games across his OGC Nice career and impressively secured the Player of the Match award in 17% of those fixtures, he will certainly be missed.
At the time of this interest, Lopes’ in-game attributes are pretty impressive, the player has an attribute rating of 15 or over for eight out of the 11 key attributes associated with the player role of a winger with an attacking duty.
He is also an effective dead-ball specialist with his corners (16) and Free Kick Taking (16) and Vision (16) which no doubt have enabled him to add to his goals and assist contribution.
Unique style of play
I wanted to highlight how unique Rony Lopes was for Les Aiglons, to do this I have opted to share with you a comparison of his Shots on target per 90 statistics when plotted against Key Passes per 90.
I have chosen both of these metrics as his ability to produce assists and score goals stand out when looking at the above table, these metrics have been compared against every player in Ligue 1 who have secured over 1000 minutes at the midway point.
Just to remind you that Rony Lopes has played every minute of his career with OGC Nice as a right-winger with an attacking mentality.
Analysing the above data visualisation enables me to add a little more context to the type of player that we had in Rony, it also again goes to show how exporting the in-game statistics can help to make informed choices when recruiting players.
If this topic is of interest to you I have written a bespoke piece which will of no doubt be of interest, it is called using data to aid recruitment.
Firstly, the human eye will be drawn to Neymar, the Brazilian is an outlier in terms of the is the only player in Ligue 1 who contributes to games with a significant number of shots on target per 90 and key passes per 90, making Neymar a huge threat to the opposition anywhere in the attacking third.
However, if you cast your eye backwards at a 90-degree angle you will see Rony Lopes, the Portuguese player is also performing on a similar trajectory to the Brazilian, he too is in a league of his own in terms of providing a dual-threat.
The above radar compares both Rony Lopes and Neymar, this is a tool that a majority of FM players use in order to compare players. As you can see both players have a similar make-up, however if you were using this off the back of a scout report/recommendation would you come to the same conclusion as we did using the data visualisation?
Possibly not and for that reason I am banging the data drum, we all know that there have been a few (being polite) flaws in retrospect to this side of the game that have been swept under the carpet due to the community not making enough noise.
YouTuber’s such as BusttheNet Gaming (Daljit), FoxInTheBox FM and Matthew Ringham have recently started to use data to aid recruitment in some of their content, the linked videos are certainly worthwhile watching.
The offer
What is a player like Rony Lopes worth? Well, Juventus were the first team to make a move for our star performer, I have attached their offer below.
£71 million, £56 million of which is pretty much a guarantee with the following add ons (50 league appearances, 30 league goals and winning the Coppa Italia) having slightly more risk associated with them.
Au Revoir Rony
Rony Lopes signs for Juventus as the Old Lady of Turin strengthens her squad as she looks looks to secure the Scudetto after finishing fourth in 2022/23, a whopping 13 points behind eventual winners Inter.
This resulted in the sacking of Andrea Pirlo who put an end to the eleven year choke-hold which Juventus had on Serie A.
He was replaced by Zinedine Zidane who now has lead Juventus back to the top of the Italian pyramid, sitting comfortably seven points clear of second place Napoli.
Rony 2.0
With one spare non-EU slot still available within the squad it made total sense for me to look to South America to bring in Rony’s replacement, a continent which has produced some of the finest flair players to grace the game of football.
Renyer was a product of the famous Santos FC youth academy, he is considered to be the most talented Santos youth graduate since Rodrygo Goes.
His high scoring attributes in Dribbling (16), First touch (15) and Technique (16) make him a great fit with the technical profile of Lopes. He also has a similar physical profile to the Portuguese winger which is what makes him so appealing.
Renyer’s form across 2023 (12 goals, nine assists and six POTM) was enough for me to have an £11 million bid accepted by Santos.
It gives me pleasure in posting the below GIF one last time, in honour of Rony Lopes.
Ligue 1
PSG are still on their unbeaten run from the 2022/23 season which means that they are now only three games away from being undefeated for a season and a half! There is a strong possibility that Tuchel’s side may go this season invincible which would really add insult to injury, seeing them trump our achievement of last year and walk away with yet another Ligue 1 title.
In terms of our performance, clearly we are doing exceptionally well sitting in second place and with the one defeat which came to PSG. Despite the pretty picture our defence is starting to creak and we do not feel anywhere near as solid as we did last season.
PSG, Marseille and Angers all have conceded less than us in the league and with us losing Rony, one of our main goal contributors it makes sense in trying to strengthen this department.
Again the likes of AS Monaco and Marseille look likely to be the two sides which will provide the biggest threat, whilst the likes of Dijon FCO prop up the table, the side from Burgundy have been the whipping boys of the current campaign.
Other business
If losing one key player in a January transfer window wasn’t enough action for you, you will be pleased to know that we also lost Kristoffer Klaesson to Dortmund who offered £39.5m for the Norwegian who felt the move would provide him with the chance test test himself at the highest level.
Fortunately for us we were able to strike a deal with Betis for the signature of Bartlomiej Dragowski (£15m) who definitely is a more than adequate replacement.
Alexis Trouillet made a move away from Nice, the appeal of regular first team football was enough for the youngster to move away from France and play his trade in the Premier League with Swansea, who offered £8.5m for the midfielder.
He will be replaced with Romain Faivre (£9.5m) will act as cover for the outgoing Trouillet and will begin his transition to operate in the role of a Mezzala.
Finally, as stated above central defence is an area which I felt we needed to reinforce. Zouma is still some way off the mark in terms of being able to compete with Robson Bambu for a position in the starting eleven, therefore He will be moved off to FC Lorient where he will be an important player.
I am hoping the increased exposure of top flight football will enable him to return the player which I am hoping he can be.
I had three criteria that the central defender target needed to meet;
- French — to fit straight into the squad and become another addition to the core member of the team which is now made up of 63% domestic players.
- Ligue 1 — January signings are never ideal due to the individuals needing to pretty much hit the ground running. Therefore a history of playing in Ligue 1 was an essential criteria for me in this window.
- Aerial dominance — we have been conceding quite a few goals of late due to our failure to win aerial duels, therefore it makes sense to bring in a player who is winning a large amount of headers per 90.
Loic Bade joins OGC Nice from RC Lens, the 23-year-old is leading the League 1 stats for headers won and also is performing above average in terms of his tackle success rate. His value is £6.75m, this quick piece of analysis has allowed us to identify a target that is clearly undervalued when you compare him to the likes of both Thomas Basila (£21m) and Bafode Diakite (£28m).
Ones to watch
I value player pathways as being extremely important in terms of developing youth to get their current ability closer to their potential ability in order for them to make the transition to the first team.
I would like to quickly run over a few of the talents which I have in the pipeline, all of which were at the club from the start of my save.
Alexandre Parsemain
An Advanced Forward, Alexandre has been on loan now for a second year at Chamois Niortais who are now playing their trade in Ligue 1 after gaining promotion last season.
The forward only has a three star potential but he certainly knows where the net is, this season he has scored eight goals in 18 appearances in the league, showing his ability to not be phased when facing the top defences in the country.
This paired with the fact that he scored 19 goals in Ligue 2 last season shows that he is now playing at the right level and as of next season he will stay with Les Aiglons as a well deserved squad player.
Reda Belahyane
Belahyane is performing along a similar trajectory to what Alex was last season, he has 17 goal contributions (12 goals, 5 assist) to his name in the 22 appearances in Ligue 2.
I am hoping that he can secure Rodez, currently in fifth place at the midway point, promotion to Ligue 1 to play for them next season. If not then the False Nine will be loaned out to a Ligue 1 side where he will test himself at the top level before potentially moving to OGC Nice.
I hope you have enjoyed my latest update, as always feel free to hit the applaud button below, drop me a DM on Twitter @MattyLewis11 or even give this Medium account a follow to ensure you stay up to date with future content releases.
Fini.
