After successfully navigating our first proper European match in 40 years, Matchday Two in the Europa League Group Stage and a home tie against Rapid Vienna is up next. Callum Goodall and Jack Elderton got together to take a closer look at the opposition.
This fixture couldn’t be much more of a contrast from the first. If on paper Dinamo Zagreb away was as tough as we thought it could get, it couldn’t get much easier at this level than Rapid Vienna at home.
The Austrian side have suffered through an abysmal start to their league season and currently sit second bottom with two wins, two draws and five losses from their opening nine games. They come into Thursday’s fixture off the back of a 3-0 loss at home to Sturm Graz.
Conversely West Ham could scarcely be in better form with three consecutive away wins sandwiching a close-fought home loss to Manchester United in the Premier League.
Prior to the Dinamo Zagreb game we took a closer look at their squad and highlighted Mislav Oršić, Luka Ivanušec and Dominik Livaković. While Oršić had a quiet night, many of Dinamo’s brightest moments came through Ivanušec who went closest when he displayed some lovely close control to get past Issa Diop before firing just wide.
Our analysis of Livaković’s ability on the ball also came into play…
“The second area of weakness is [Livaković’s] ball-playing ability… With this in mind, if we can put him under pressure by pressing aggressively in the final third then we could force an error that may lead to a goal.”
Mystic Cal
So, onto Rapid and we sat down on a Zoom call to take a look through their squad and compare notes on what we knew about them… And the first thing to note is that they lost their best player, Yusuf Demir, to Barcelona in the summer.
Then 17 year-old Demir lit up the Austrian Bundesliga in 2020-21 as Rapid went on to finish second. He’s already made four appearances for Barcelona this season in La Liga which gives an indication of just how highly rated the young Austrian is.
So, who is left?
Kevin Wimmer, CB, 28
Nah, just joking but remember when Stoke spent £17.5m on him? A true Mark Hughes special…
Leo Greiml, CB, 20
Ahead of Wimmer in the pecking order and Rapid’s first-choice centre-back is young Leo Greiml. Despite being just 20 years of age, Greiml has already played more than 4,000 minutes of senior first team football for Rapid Vienna, gaining experience in both the Europa League and the Champions League in that time. Amassing so many minutes at such a young age is usually indicative of a talented player and, whilst still “raw”, I’d argue that that’s certainly the case with Greiml – I can’t imagine it’ll be too long until we see a few clubs vying for his signature.
Perhaps the most obvious observation to make when watching Greiml is how strong he is in the tackle, both in terms of aggression – he loves nothing more than to absolutely fly into a challenge – and quality. So far this season he is averaging 10.52 defensive duels per 90 and boasts a 74.4% success rate. In his last outing for Die Grün-Weißen, a 3-0 loss to 2nd-placed Sturm Graz, he managed to win 14 of 15 defensive duels. To put this into context, Ogbonna is engaging in 3.52 defensive duels per 90, considerably less than Greiml, and still has an inferior success rate of 65.22%. Greiml is also averaging an impressive number of successful defensive actions (14.68) and possession-adjusted interceptions (9.16) per 90, only confirming what an aggressive and competent young defender he is.
Should Antonio start tomorrow night then we can expect to see a decent battle play out between him and Greiml who, despite his slender frame, is surprisingly strong and pretty decent in the air. One thing that will be fascinating to watch unfold is their two styles playing off against each other. Antonio has become a master of leaning into his man before using his strength and pace to spin his defender, whereas Greiml likes to get close to his man, jostling them from behind when they’re receiving the ball and often nicking it away with a reaching foot. This should make for an intriguing match-up, as both the defender and the attacker prefer to get touch-tight. That said, Antonio represents a different calibre of opposition than Greiml is used to, so this is arguably a greater test of his ability than Antonio’s.
For all his defensive qualities, however, Greiml’s passing isn’t the best and this is an area that a) he will likely need to improve to attract Europe’s bigger clubs, and b) we might look to capitalise on. So far this season Zouma has a pass success rate of 95.7% and Ogbonna 92.31%, both of which are considerably higher than Greiml’s 79.96%. This gulf in class becomes even more apparent when you look at forward passes – Zouma (16.68) and Greiml (15.57) make a similar number of forward passes per 90, but whilst KZ completes a staggering 92.71% of them, Greiml’s success rate is only 67.5%. With this in mind, if we apply pressure from the front then we can force him into making some stray passes. This would allow us to regain possession in the middle of the park more easily – particularly if Rice starts in midfield – and start dangerous attacking moves while they’re on the backfoot.
Taxiarchis Fountas, 26, ST
Whilst Greiml is undoubtedly their most valuable asset, it’s likely that Fountas will be the player that causes us the most problems. Usually slotting in just behind starting striker Ercan Kara, Greek attacker Taxiarchis Fountas has started the season well, scoring seven goals and laying on two assists in 17 games this season. These early-season returns show glimpses of the kind of form that led to him first appearing on our radar last year after a very successful 2019-20 season in which he got 19 goals and six assists from 27 games.
The 26-year-old has bags of pace and will be looking to make runs in behind Kara who will attempt to use his strength to hold-up our centre-backs. This is why we have identified him as their primary threat, as I think our defenders will find it more challenging to pick up Fountas’ runs than to nullify the threat posed by Rapid’s more orthodox striker, Kara. The level of threat posed by Fountas will depend on who Moyes decides to start at the back, and Dawson’s lack of recovery pace could prove to be problematic should he find himself out of position and caught in a footrace with Fountas. Ultimately though, we should have enough quality and pace between Diop, Zouma, Dawson, and Ogbonna to keep an out-of-form Rapid Vienna at bay.
Marco Grüll, 23, LW
Rapid’s terrible form this season has made writing this article pretty difficult, but one of the few bright sparks has been Marco Grüll who has impressed out on the left-flank with eight goals and two assists from 18 games so far. Much like Fountas, Grüll has pace in abundance and he’s constantly looking to burst down the wing on the break, often opting to knock the ball beyond his opponent and beat them for pace. Given that Coufal is a doubt for the game and could do with a rest this would be a decent test for Ben Johnson with our pacier right-back option, Fredericks, still out injured.
One facet of Grüll’s game that could make life even more challenging for the player tasked with marking him is his two-footedness. This ambidexterity is enough to keep even the best defenders on their toes, as it makes a player more difficult to read whilst also giving them twice as many options on the attack. Grüll does like to whip the ball into the box, often from the byline, averaging 2.79 crosses per 90. For context, that’s more crosses per 90 than both Bowen (1.61) and Fornals (2.01), and only slightly less than Cresswell (3.04). Interestingly, Grüll averages more shots than Bowen and Fornals too, affirming the notion that he has a number of methods by which he could cause us problems down that left-hand side.
To make matters more tricky, Grüll absolutely loves to take on his man, averaging 5.77 dribbles per 90 and beating his man almost half of the time. To put this into perspective, Grüll is averaging more dribbles than Bowen (4.57) and is only trumped by Benrahma (6.67), an attacker who we all know to be particularly dazzling with with the ball at his feet. These dribbling metrics are complemented by his pace and directness, with Grüll averaging more progressive runs per 90 (2.85) than any West Ham attacker bar Vlašić (2.93), though the Croatian’s sample size is obviously far smaller. All in all, we can expect Grüll to be one of Rapid Vienna’s more dangerous players but ultimately we should have enough strength in whatever line-up we field to overcome the underperforming Austrian outfit.
West Ham Predicted Lineup: Fabianski; Johnson, Dawson, Diop, Masuaku; Kral, Noble; Yarmolenko, Lanzini, Vlašić; Antonio
Callum’s Predicted Score: 3-0
Jack’s Predicted Score: 4-1
All rights reserved. Jack Elderton. 2020. Statistical input taken from Wyscout & Fbref (Statsbomb).
Jack Elderton 