Pace, passing and perfect profiling: What Malick Thiaw will bring to Newcastle United's defence.

A video and data-led breakdown of what the £35 million pound defender.

Design courtesy of Jamie Orrell

After 3 years of chasing the young German centreback, Newcastle United have finally signed Malick Thiaw (pronounced Mal-ick Tch-ow) for a reported fee of £35m including add-ons.

Why has Eddie Howe’s & the club's interest never really waned? Let’s break down what the 24-year-old will bring to SJP.

🚨 But first, a little advice about data and centre-backs.

Generally speaking, football data counts events that happen on and around the ball, which makes it an imperfect tool for analysing qualities like positioning, decision-making and anticipation.

So, while any decent analysis of any position involves putting the stats into context of what you see on a player's film, centre-backs especially need an increased share of traditional eye test scouting than most other positions on the pitch. Got that? Okay good.

Player Overview

So let’s dig into what the German international central defender (3️⃣ caps) will offer the first team squad.

Across his last 3️⃣ league seasons for Milan, Thiaw has split his time pretty evenly between RCB & LCB 🔽

The majority of these LCB minutes occurred last season, when Thiaw 🔴 returned to the Milan team after an ankle injury and bicep injuries disrupted his start to the season.

He’s how he performed vs. Schar 🔵 across those 21.9 games worth of 90 minutes.

When we dig back a bit further into the two seasons preceding this, where Thiaw 🔴 played chiefly as RCB, we get a more rounded view of his qualities vs. Schar’s 🔵 24/25 season.

✅ Stronger in the air
✅ Better on-the-deck defender
🤏 Slightly worse passing ability

I’ll try to highlight these differences in this analysis.

Before we delve deeper into these numbers, there’s another note I’d like to make. In his last 3️⃣ seasons, Thiaw has played 6,918 minutes in all comps for AC Milan/Schalke, while Schar has played a superhuman 12,489 minutes for NUFC.

That’s a real testament to Schar and the medical team at NUFC, only 11 players in the EPL (Bruno G being 1) have played more, but this disparity is a worry. “The best ability is availability”, and NUFC will hope for a little more luck here.

However, keep him fit, and Thiaw will bring a lot to the table:

🏃‍♂️ High top speed
✅ Good on script defender
❌ Medicore balance & post-mistake recovery
🆙 Great in the air
🏹 Strong passing, especially through the lines
🧑‍🤝‍🧑 A perfect partner for Botman?

Let’s go through these one by one.

🏃‍♂️ High top speed

Thiaw’s top speed is right up there for a CB, but his acceleration isn’t quite to the same standard. This foot race with Alexander Isak shows both themes, losing ground in the acceleration phase but able to keep pace with the Swede once up to top speed.

✅ Good on script defender

It’s this top-end pace that underpins his defending; he’s able to mop up stray balls and has good positional sense, especially when the game is structured or to script. He’s aggressive in the tackle and well-suited to the man-to-man pressing system that NUFC use.

❌ Balance & post-mistake recovery

However, there is a trade-off. Thiaw’s speed encourages him to try to win balls early, but if he misses, then his balance - especially through contact - sees him struggle to recover his bearings quickly.

It’s not awful - you can see him dealing with Lukaku in one of the clips - but he has a rash decision in him when he’s recovering from a mistake.

🆙 Strong in the air

One area where Thiaw is a clear upgrade on Schar is in the air. The lanky defender uses his height to get first contact on the ball well.

Using our HOPS model, Thiaw has a 72% chance of winning headers vs. the average professional, only behind Burn, Lascelles & Botman.

However, as the data suggests, he’s not truly dominant here and hasn’t scored a goal in 60+ appearances for AC Milan. It’d be interesting to see him in a set-up where he’s targeted with a running rather than a standing jump, but he’s more Matip than Virgil Van Dijk IMHO.

🏹 Strong ball progression, especially through the lines

As mentioned, Thiaw’s pace and aerial ability come without a significant trade-off in the passing stakes. While there is no doubt that Schar is a more aggressive passer, Thiaw is no slouch and completes a whopping 93% of all his passes.

This isn’t a case of the defender always choosing the easy pass, either. He’s used to playing under pressure, though his completion rate drops by 13%, which is the same as Schar's.

And he’s more than happy fizzing the ball through the lines into midfield and attack, in 24/25 Thiaw completed 6.02 Line Breaking Passes per-90, which is basically the same volume as Schar (5.86).

The key difference between the two is that Schar is also happy to dribble the ball up the field, whereas Thiaw is not. Probably, down to his balance issues. But again, when measuring the two’s deep progressions (moving the ball into the final third via a carry or pass), Thiaw (4.15) vs Schar (4.95).

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 A perfect partner for Botman?

Generally speaking, at NUFC, the team operates a Cover (LCB) & Stopper (RCB) roles at the heart of the defence. Where Burn or Botman act as the last line of defence, releasing Schar to attack the ball higher up the pitch.

By plotting a heatmap of their defensive actions, you can see this dynamic playing out across Botman and Schar for the past three seasons. Burn’s heatmap is very similar to Botman's, highlighting the systemic nature of the relationship between the CBs.

When we look at Thiaw’s defensive actions across his last three seasons when playing as an RCB, even in a different team, the heatmaps are strikingly similar. Thiaw will be coming into a role that will ask him to be active in the same areas of the pitch he’s used to.

Conclusion

It’s this that gives me confidence in his addition to the #NUFC. This stopper role should help Thiaw maximise his best qualities, while masking areas of his game that could otherwise be exposed on the last line of the defence.

After a couple of so-so seasons with Milan, it feels like another example of the club betting on Howe’s coaching and the strong systemic fit to bring more out of a player that, with a little polishing, could be a real gem for Newcastle United.