This article is part of Football FanCast’s In Numbers series, which takes a statistical look at performances, season-long form and reported transfer targets…
Antoine Griezmann was Barcelona’s big summer signing in the last transfer window.
The Frenchman arrived from Atletico Madrid and seeing how the Catalans had to fork out a hefty sum of €120m (£104.4m) to get their man, it’s safe to say that a lot is expected from him at the Camp Nou.
But so far, he’s experienced quite a rocky start to his new career at the Catalan capital.
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And granted, scoring three goals and assisting a further two in just seven La Liga games is by no means a bad record but some of his performances in important games, like the one against Inter Milan in the Champions League, should already be cause for alarm at Barcelona.
This is mostly due to the fact that, for one reason or the other, Ernesto Valverde sees Griezmann as a left-winger as opposed to a centre-forward, despite making his name as a centre-forward at Atletico.
But Valverde is adamant in maintaining this approach, at least for now as it seems, and it still remains to be seen whether the Blaugrana’s big signing will be able to adapt to this challenge and overcome it in the near future.
Further proof of how his performances clearly differ when his position on the pitch changes can be found in his latest display for his national team, France.
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The current champions of the world drew with Turkey in one of their Euro 2020 qualifiers and Griezmann was deployed in a more central role, as the team’s no.10, just behind the striker; a role that puts him in a more familiar position on the pitch and a role that offers him more freedom than what he’s getting at Barca.
Even though he was not at his brilliant best, the Frenchman was still the highest-rated player on the team with a 7.6 rating according to Sofascore.
He warranted that rating with his assist that gave France the lead and also by deploying six key passes and by having 75 touches on the night.
Apart from that, Griezmann also maintained 81% passing accuracy with a total of 43 passes and had five shots, two of which were on target.
All in all, the main takeaway from that game is that he was involved in all the proceedings on the pitch and even managed to impact the result directly by assisting Olivier Giroud for that opening goal.
The difference between that performance and the ones he has produced for Barcelona lately is still huge and game by game, Valverde’s decision to keep Griezmann out wide is becoming all the more baffling.