Sevilla FC's squad depth, key to the start of the season | OneFootball

José Ignacio Navarro gives Luis García Plaza a high-quality squad with the ability to respond from the bench

Sevilla FC have made an outstanding start to the season, collecting an unimaginable 13 out of 21 possible points at the beginning of the transfer window, when José Ignacio Navarro surprised many and gave Luis García Plaza enough tools to build and reshape a competitive Sevilla side.

The Madrid-born coach has kept what appears to be an unchangeable core in the first seven matchdays, with Odysseas Vlachodimos, Gabriel Suazo, Juan Iglesias and Lucien Agoumé playing every single minute. However, the numbers suggest a considerable improvement in the so-called “Plan B”, with players coming off the bench and making the difference with key contributions.

Involvement of the starters

As we have been mentioning, Vlachodimos, Suazo, Juan Iglesias and Agoumé have been untouchable at the start of this campaign, although there are three other players who have also featured in every match, but with varying amounts of playing time: Miguel Sierra, Robbie Ure and Jon Guridi, all seemingly regular starters in this early stage of the competition.

In total, 14 members of Sevilla’s first-team squad have already gone past the 200-minute mark in the league. Joining those already mentioned are Andrés Castrín, Kike Salas, Arouna Sangante, Youssouf Fofana, Félix Correia, Isaac Romero and Chidera Ejuke. One of the most relevant facts is the distribution of goalscoring responsibility, with ten goals already shared among nine different scorers, Miguel Sierra being the only player to have scored twice.

Contribution of the substitutes

One of the improvements compared to last season is the team’s ability to improve or, at the very least, maintain its level through changes from the bench. This backs up the fifth-place position achieved before the international break. So far, players coming on from the bench have produced four goals (Peque, Isaac Romero, Ejuke and Stassin) and three assists (Isaac Romero, Robbie Ure and Kochorashvili), for a total of seven goal contributions.

It is worth noting that in Sevilla’s last two matches, the second-half substitutions did not perform as expected, leaving room for improvement in their impact. Even so, the presence of different profiles gives Luis García Plaza a wide range of options when it comes to making tactical adjustments, pressing according to the context of the match, and/or maintaining a high-intensity tempo throughout the game. With more options from the bench and a more competitive team, this Sevilla side does not rely on just one approach, but can vary depending on the context, clear proof of the club’s current level.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.