The progression of Eduardo Camavinga in the 20/21 season(THREAD)

Camavinga is an 18 year old CM who burst on the scene last season for his performance aged 16 against PSG. Camavinga is a product of the Rennes academy and has already been given 2 France caps and is the youngest goal scorer ever at international level in French history.

Last year Camavinga was a mainstay from the jump for Rennes mainly playing as the RCM in their 4-4-2. Putting in many great performances last season. These performances however mainly showed how good he is at defending since that was his main function in the system...

..Which showed since he put up the most tackles in the league at the age of 17. On the ball Camavinga was quite safe with his passing but would still show off how good his passing range was along with rare dribbles,showing he did have technical ability that needed to be let free.

This has been facilitated by a change in the Rennes system in the 2020/21 season. Rennes have switched to a 4-1-4-1 with N’Zonzi sitting in DM with Camavinga in RCM, taking away some of his defensive duties and allowing him licence to get forward and express himself.

This license to get forward more and to express himself has shown in how he plays. He’s become much more willing to show for the ball and receive,take people on,more final 1/3rd passes,create for the team,take on shots sometimes and has become better at not losing the ball.

With this new freedom to get forward more and become more involved in the Rennes attack, his SCA P90 and KP have gone up as would be expected to 2.05 and 0.84 respectively. His favoured method of doing these is by passes in open play as opposed to dribbles or set piece passes.

More specifically his KP/SCA come from the right hand side of the pitch with the vast majority of passes being on the ground.This output can definitely go up and can become more varied in the way he does it which I expect to happen as he becomes more comfortable further forwards.

Camavingas dribbling has always been good he just didn’t do it very often last season. But this year his volume has gone up a lot showing many times how good he is in tight situations, he’s very good at getting a slight touch on the ball as a defender lunges so he can win a foul.

When it comes to shooting he still doesn’t do it a lot even though he has some good finishes in the past. IMO he needs to be better at making space for the shot and knowing when he can or can’t shoot. His 1 goal this season he showed good ability to create space for the shot.

In this forward role his defensive output has gone down but he’s still putting up good numbers. Showing his usual combativeness when tackling and no real change in how he likes to defend, rather than cutting passes out he’ll typically prefer to aggress the player and tackle them.

Last season Camavinga showed all the qualities to be an elite 6 who with more experience would be able to dictate tempo and help his team control a game. Now he’s showing attributes to go on to be an elite 8 and being able to effect a game in the attack not just a defensive one.