Last season Fulham had an underwhelming time in the Premier League which saw them drop back into the EFL Championship, after spending just one season.
Even after such disappointing results, the Cottagers had some talented players among their ranks. One of them was their 24-year-old left-back, Antonee Robinson who impressed a lot of people after joining the side last summer.
This season Fulham have been pushing harder than before, to get back into the Premier League and so far it has gone well according to plan for them. They are the best attacking side in the league with 33 goals scored and sit on second position in the league.
A squad full of impressive footballers, Robinson has been a stand out performer again with 12 starts so far and even a goal to show for his impact in the team.
We look at a few stats to analyze his performance.
The American has featured in 12 out of 14 matches so far, cementing his place as the left full-back in the back four of a 4-2-3-1 system. He has been covering a lot of ground on the pitch, from one corner flag to the opposite regularly, showing a high work rate. Robinson has been pushing forward more to provide width than just staying back in his own half. The red and orange areas in the above viz prove that clearly where he has spent the majority of his time in the opposition half on the left flank near the final third. While defending, he has taken up places mostly near the centre in the midfield and has not dropped back very deep into his own half.
Robinson has been one of the best ball progressor in the team, who is very comfortable in possession and quite hard to take the ball off. He has played a total of 642 passes, averaging 85 touches per 90 with 57 passes while registering an accuracy of 78%. While he has been really strong with his other attributes, he still has room to work on his precision. The left-back has played the majority of his passes on the left flank, almost everywhere on this side. His attacking mindset is very clear from the above image, where we can see that nearly 90% of his passes have been played in forward progression trying to link up with his teammates to create chances to score. He has delivered a total of 48 crosses with an accuracy of 40% with xT as high as 0.3500 at times registering an assist to his name.
His passing accuracy has been on the lower side a bit comparing to other defenders in the league, still he has been one of the most creative players. He ranks 95th percentile for xA per 90 where he has delivered dangerous looking balls into the box time and again for others to attack. Robinson ranks 95th percentile for the most crosses attempted per 90 while he has been one of the biggest threat in attack ranking 97th percentile for progressive runs per 90. The left-back has ranked 100th percentile for shot assists per 90- being the best in the league for the metric.
The full-back has attempted three shots yet, one from the inside of the box and a couple of times from distance. His shot accuracy has been 100%, keeping all of his shots on target which shows that he has been really clinical whenever he has tried to test the keeper. Robinson has scored one goal so far averaging a goal every 1022 minutes.
Robinson has engaged in a total of 103 duels in the league, coming up with a success rate of 43%. Most of his winning duel locations have been on the left side of the pitch in the defensive third, sometimes inside the box as well. The American is not a very tall man and has won only 41% of his aerial duels. The majority of his duels have been ground defending. Other than that, he has registered 24 clearances and 27 interceptions so far. Robinson has been a pretty good tackler too, with a success rate of 53%, conceding only nine fouls in 12 starts.
If Fulham can continue this great run of form, they can hope to get back into the top flight again for the next season. Antonee Robinson would definitely play a huge role in order to achieve this and if he can impress in the Premier League again next season, the USA international can very well earn a move away from Craven Cottage to certainly a better club.
