This January Callum Goodall and Jack Elderton have gotten together to profile one player a day from a list of players that West Ham could sign throughout the transfer window.
Callum Goodall is a data and recruitment specialist who you may know from his radar charts and megathreads on Twitter where he has produced an excellent scouting series taking a look at players that West Ham could, or should, invest in. We’re lucky to have him for now before he’s snapped up by the club itself.
Jack Elderton is a player performance analyst specialising in roles and tactics who has taken over production of the recently renewed KUMB Podcast. Here you can find Cal and Jack talking in more depth about West Ham’s form, tactics and transfers each week alongside our match reporter Chris “Wilko1304” Wilkerson.
Listen back to the latest episode here.
Pervis Estupiñán is a young Ecuadorian left-back playing for Villarreal in La Liga. He has started nine league games this season.
Pervis Estupiñán began his career at one of Ecuador’s most successful clubs, LDU Quito, before his sparkling performances in the Ecuadorian Serie A earned him a move to Udinese at just 18. Estupiñán arrived in Italy for just £450,000 alongside Rodrigo de Paul and Seko Fofana in a stupidly successful transfer window for the Pozzo family. And this was back when the buy-to-loan operation at Udinese was ginormous with Luis Muriel, Piotr Zieliński, and Bruno Fernandes having all just followed the well-travelled route through Northeastern Italy.
The first of Estupiñán’s loans would take him to the third division in Spain and to Granada’s reserve team, Granada Recreativo. After impressing there, he was transferred over to Watford before being loaned back out again to UD Almería in the Spanish second tier. This would be the first season in which Estupiñán found himself as a constant first-team choice before moving again in the following season to newly promoted Segunda División club RCD Mallorca. He initially struggled to nail down a place in the Balearics but left a big impression when he did, scoring three goals and providing two assists as Mallorca secured a promotion play-off spot. And in a perfect turn of fortunes for both club and player, Estupiñán would perform brilliantly in the play-off matches as Mallorca saw off Albacete and Deportivo de La Coruña to nab promotion to La Liga.
This was enough for the Segunda División winners, Osasuna, to move for the young Ecuadorian. Note here the absurdity of Watford not giving him a shot and opting to stick with José Holebas and Adam Masina… Watford’s mistake would be Osasuna’s gain and the newly promoted club would have an incredible first season back in the top flight, finishing 10th and just four points short of a Europa League spot. Estupiñán featured more than any other Osasuna player returning one goal and seven assists in a stunning individual season.
Incredibly, without ever appearing for Watford, Estupiñán had outgrown them. And when Villarreal came calling there was only going to be one outcome.
Since his £14.76m transfer in September 2020, Estupiñán has appeared 55 times in the yellow of Villarreal but hasn’t been able to string together the same kind of form that he produced at Osasuna. Though with Unai Emery seemingly rolling a dice every week to decide whether Alfonso Pedraza, Alberto Moreno, or Estupiñán will start at left-back, this is hardly surprising.
Defensively, Estupiñán is sound enough. Though his defensive duel success rate of 63.2% is inferior to Aaron Cresswell’s 69%, he is far more engaged as a member of the defensive unit. This season Estupiñán has engaged in 7.82 defensive duels per 90 and has managed a fairly impressive 9.8 successful defensive actions, 2.5 more than Cresswell. This is largely due to Estupiñán’s energetic nature and constant pressing; his 7.12 possession-adjusted interceptions make for exciting reading when placed next to Cresswell’s comparatively meagre 3.99.
During Moyes’ second spell at the club, Cresswell has been one of the most productive players at West Ham but his influence has tended to come from deep. Prior to his back injury, Cresswell was attempting 10.9 progressive passes per 90 and boasted an impressive success rate of 83.8%. In comparison, Estupiñán has attempted 8.42 progressive passes per 90 with a significantly lower success rate of 72.5%.
That said, what Estupiñán might lack in passing ability he more than makes up for with his crossing and confidence in taking on his man. His cross completion rate of 29.4% is considerably better than Cresswell’s 17.9% and when a cross isn’t on, Estupiñán is more than capable of dribbling past a defender and using his electric pace to dart to the byline. While Cresswell is yet to complete a single successful dribble in the league this season, Estupiñán is beating his man as regularly as Jarrod Bowen.
Though Estupiñán has only laid on two assists in all competitions in the last 18 months, the underlying numbers paint a more positive picture. In the same period Estupiñán has recorded an xA of 4.19, well above the two assists he has been credited with, which would suggest that Villarreal’s attackers should be making a little more of the chances he is creating. And if 4.19 xA doesn’t sound that exciting, Cresswell has recorded an xA of just 0.09 per 90 so far this season, less than Estupiñán’s 0.15 despite Cresswell having the added benefit of being a set-piece-taker.
It would be remiss of anyone to assume that because Estupiñán’s assists total has dropped since that incredible 2019-20 season that he’s no longer the player he was. Still only 23, there’s huge room for development in his game. And with Emery’s constant rotation at left-back, you do begin to wonder whether he would relish the opportunity to nail down a first-team spot again. He’s certainly no stranger to moving!
Jack’s rating: B-
This would be a wonderful bit of recruitment if we were looking for an upgrade on Masuaku rather than a long-term replacement for Cresswell. You can imagine Estupiñan very much enjoying playing at wing-back when we play a five and being capable of deputising more successfully at full-back when required.
Callum’s rating: B
A young, energetic full-back that poses a threat going forward is exactly what we need as Cresswell reaches the latter stages of his career. My main concerns are the potential fee and the fact that his marauding nature sometimes results in him being caught out of position.
Jack Elderton 