Hot Prospect: Boubacar Kamara
At 21 years of age, Boubacar Kamara has established himself as the holding midfielder in the Olympique de Marseille midfield, making 36 appearances in all competitions under the previous coach André Villas-Boas and current coach Jorge Sampaoli.
Since joining the Marseille youth set-up in 2015, his development at centre-back and now at defensive midfield has come on leaps and bounds. His performances in the latter position have attracted attention from major clubs such as Manchester United, Chelsea FC and Arsenal FC.
Marseille’s season has not panned as out hoped for after finishing 2nd last season to the champions Paris Saint-Germain in a season stopped prematurely by the COVID-19 pandemic. This season they have pursued a battle for 5th position against Lens, Rennes and Montpellier.
4th position to seal Europa League football at the very least would be the ultimate hope for the new president, Pablo Longoria, but if Les Phocéens do fail to clinch a European spot, Kamara could be available for a knock-off price.
Kamara’s role in Marseille’s side
This season Kamara has been deployed in a variety of tactical setups: A 4-3-3/4-3-1-2/4-2-3-1/4-4-2/3-1-4-2. In the 4-3-3, he has been deployed as the lone #6 with two central midfielders ahead and as the deepest of the three midfielders in the 4-3-1-2. In the 4-2-3-1, he has been paired with another midfielder to sit as a base in front of the defence while also playing in a midfield two partnership in the 4-4-2.
More recently, a 3-1-4-2 has been the choice under new coach Sampaoli where he has been deployed as the deepest midfielder, to shield the back three. A glimpse of the tactical setups are shown below:
In the 4-3-3, 4-3-1-2 and 3-1-4-2, Kamara has been deployed as the lone #6, playing deepest out of the midfield three with the principle idea of shielding the centre-backs. With some tweaks, Kamara has been deployed in a double pivot in games to provide extra solidity to the defence as well as the ability to roam forwards with the other midfielder in the two-man pivot staying deep to provide protection. An example of this can be seen in the heat-map below:
In this home game, Kamara was paired with Pape Gueye in the midfield pivot and with Gueye being more defensive-minded in comparison to the likes of Kevin Strootman and Mickaël Cuisance, this has allowed Kamara to play a little higher up the pitch, picking up the ball in higher areas, picking out the eye of the needle passes and ultimately recycling play to sustain Marseille attacking moves.
When playing as the lone #6 in the 4-3-3, 4-3-1-2 and 3-4-1-2 the Frenchman's ability to roam from his position is naturally limited with his primary role being defensively minded. Here, Kamara would occasionally drop into the defence to create numerical advantages, break up play in the centre of the park in transitions and use his long passing to pick out team-mates on either flank or those running in behind the opposition's defence.
In-game traits
When coming up against opposition teams with two strikers (namely Stade Brestois) Marseille had difficulty building out of defence, with Gaëtan Charbonnier positioned ready to press the CB without the ball and Irvin Cardona already pressing the CB with the ball in a four at the back set-up for Marseille.
Here Kamara would occasionally drop deep in between the 2 centre-backs to create a 3v2 numerical advantage, outnumbering the two Brest strikers, allowing Marseille to build out of defence better:
When playing in the 4-3-3 set up earlier in the season, Kamara as the lone #6 was commonly left alone in midfield with the likes of Strootman and Morgan Sanson pushing higher up the pitch due to the attacking natures of their game:
...and in other games the 2 central midfielder's would play higher up, leaving him to screen and track runners from the opposition on his own:
In other cases, his natural centre-back instincts come into play. Here he can be seen to sense the forthcoming danger as Hiroki Sakai is dragged out to Neymar, with Juan Bernat attempting to run around on the overlap. Kamara reads this attacking play and intercepts the pass before the move develops:
Here again, Kamara’s ability to spot developing danger comes to the fore. In the example below you can see his ability to cover the centre-back (Álvaro González) who has been dragged out by the forward and the right-back (Sakai) who has been dragged out wide by the full-back:
Another notable strength of Kamara is his 1v1 defending. He is not very easily passed when it comes to 1v1 dribbles, a notable example being that of Neymar in the league came on Matchday 2 and in the Champions League tie v Manchester City where he shuttled out Sterling's attempt to use his dribbling and pace to get by him down the line:
As mentioned earlier, a key asset to Kamara's game is his passing with a 90.1% short passing completion rate, 91.1% medium passing completion rate and 72% long passing completion. His ability to switch play to relieve the pressure of the opposition press and the ability to pick out a long pass behind the opposition's defence to stretch teams is an asset to his game that is developing at a sharp pace:
Another illustration of his long passing was his range and completion rate v Nimes Olympique in December where the Frenchman completed 14/15 long passes:
As well as this, Kamara's dribbling is well established for a footballer who has played at centre-back for the majority of his career to date. Here he can be seen receiving the ball under excessive pressure with Manchester City applying a high press. But his ability to drop the shoulder, and drive out of tight situations and feed a team-mate is a noticeable asset to his game.
Kamara's ability to play out of high pressing situations as well as picking out the correct pass has been on display numerous times this season too. Examples of these can be seen below:
Another aspect of Kamara's game is his tenacity in duels. Here he dribbles and bypasses Neymar's attempted challenge but is met by Idrissa Gana Gueye's timely lunge in which wins the Senegalese international the ball temporarily, but the young Frenchman battles back, displacing Gueye and drawing a free-kick out of Ander Herrera.
However, a possible downside to this is his, at times, over-eagerness to lunge in for challenges. An example of this was in the game v Paris Saint Germain where Kamara lunged in to confront a Neymar dribble, he was then nutmegged and the developing move led to a big chance for Pablo Sarabia which was fortunately saved by Steve Mandanda to spare Kamara's blushes.
Metrics Analysis
As mentioned earlier, Kamara's ability on the ball is unquestionably good; he has the ability to pass with either foot, can pass long or short and is able to dribble and progress the ball well.
Below is a graphic that displays the total pass completion (%) against the progressive carries an individual makes per 90 minutes. Here, Kamara ranks above the average in their total pass completion at 85.9% with his number of progressive carries per 90' falling just shy of the average at 3.78 per 90'.
In examining Kamara's defensive duels, both his tackles + interceptions and his aerial duel success % stand out. Both statistics can be seen in the two beeswarm plots below where the further to the right a data point is, the more proficient a player is at the statistic measured. In both plots, Kamara is seen as above the median with his aerial prowess being one of the best in Ligue 1.
Possession adjusted (pAdj) is a method used to take into account possession values when approaching defensive statistics such as tackles and interceptions. It takes into account teams who occupy the ball a lot as well as those that sit back and defend for large parts of the game, adjusting them to a standard to make more useful comparisons off.
Final thoughts
Kamara has been on the radar of several top clubs in the Premier League, with the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United both linked with the young Frenchman. There is clear evidence of the vast amounts of talent Kamara has, but the main question will be whether he has what it takes to make the step up to play in the Premier League.
His aerial prowess at defensive midfield mixed in with his passing and dribbling ability with the ball alongside his defensive skill out of possession makes him one of the most well-rounded players in the league this season.
With his current contract running until 2022, there will be no shortage of interest in the 21-year-old come this summer. There are evidently areas to his game where improvements will be seen over the remaining games of the season and in the forthcoming years, whether it be at Marseille or elsewhere.