Katie Zelem

Angel City made their first transfer of the summer transfer window, and it’s big one. Katie Zelem, the former Manchester United captain is coming to Los Angeles, and I’m excited. She’s a fantastic player, and ther’s a lot to like about this deal, and one or two things that maybe have me nervous.

Player Background

So for those that don’t know, Zelem is a Lioness, and was part of the England squad in the 2023 World Cup. Zelem is originally from Manchester, and played with United from age 8, but as they didn’t have a professional setup at the time, she went to Liverpool and made her debut with in 2014. In 2017 she moved to Juventus, before returning to United in 2018 for their inaugural campaign, helping them earn promotion to the WSL in their first season. In 2019, she took over as United’s captain, and she has kept the armband until her departure. It’s worth emphasizing the level of leadership that she is bringing. Christen Press, who spent a season at Man U, said that she’s “one of the best captains I ever played for.” She originally began as an attacking midfielder, but has since become more of a deep playmaker in a 4-2-3-1 that’s not so dissimilar from the Angel City setup.

Positives

There are a lot of impressive statistics for Zelem. I mean a lot. Last year she lead the WSL in the following categories: Key Passes (58), Corner Kicks (107), Shot Creating Actions (100), Tackles (tied with Tottenham’s Ash Neville with 72), and Tackles Won (50). She was also in the Top 10 in the WSL in: Passes into the Final Third (tied for 4th), Progressive Passes (3rd), xAG (2nd), xA (2nd), Shot Creating Actions per 90 (10th), Goal Creating Actions (tied for 5th), and Touches 5th. She also played every minute of the last campaign, and has played at least 1,890 minutes in each of the last three seasons.

She was the best player in England in lots of categories, but I think that it largely breaks down to three things. The first one I’ll start with is tackles. She wins the ball back a lot. There are obviously differences between the WSL and NWSL, but Zelem’s numbers do compare well. Zelem had 72 Tackles and 50 Tackles Won. Last year Kyle Strom led the NWSL in Tackles with 79, while Sam Coffey led in Tackles Won with 47 in the same number of games. The NWSL has the reputation of a more physical league, and at a listed height of 5’4”, Zelem does not have the most physically intimidating stature. But then, neither does Sam Coffey or Denise O’Sullivan (listed at 5’5” and 5’4” respectively), and they are both amongst the top midfield tacklers in the NWSL. So I’m not too worried in this regard, and I think that Zelem’s game will translate well. She is also more likely to win the ball higher up the pitch. She had 9 Tackles in the Attacking Third, 37 in the Middle Third, and 26 in the Defensive Third. For comparison, Coffey had 3 in the Attacking Third and 36 in the Middle Third, while Angel City’s best midfielder in this regard last year was Dani Weatherholt, with 5 Tackles in the Attacking Third and 22 in the Middle Third. I think that Angel City will benefit a lot from winning the ball closer to the opposition goal.

The second factor is her passing range. Her accuracy is actually not great; her 75.4% completion percentage was only good enough for the 43rd percentile in the WSL last year, compared to other midfielders. And it actually gets worse, going longer. On long passes, she only had 48.7%, which is the 32nd percentile. The positive here is that her Long Pass Attempts of 13.64 per 90 were actually in the 99th percentile. Last year, Le Bihan had the best numbers in this area with 8.42 per 90, and most of our more traditional midfielders were down below 5 Long Passes per 90. So to a large degree, I think that the threat of these passes is dangerous, regardless of whether they are completed. For example, if she wins the ball in midfield, and is immediately putting the ball out to Alyssa Thompson sprinting into space, then opposition defenders will be forced to stay back to be in a position to deal with that threat. So even if the pass is not completed, just consistently going for that pass is going to relieve pressure on the rest of the midfield and force the opposition back. She’s also in the 97th percentile of Medium Range Passes. On a similar note, she was 3rd in the WSL in Progressive Passes with 6.91 per 90. When you watch her video, Zelem always has her head up as she receives the pass, and looks very adept at creating time and space for herself to make the play she wants. Zelem is the type of player to make passes up the field that ask questions of the opposition. Sometimes they’ll have the answers, but if you keep them under pressure, then you will score goals.

The third factor is her set piece delivery. Corner Kicks were one of those categories in which Zelem led the WSL, which seems like not that important a stat. But when you look at Zelem’s production, you start to see how important that is. Last year she had an even 100 Shot Creating Actions, and 46 of those were from Live Ball Passes, while 44 of them were from Dead Ball Passes. Same with the ones that actually led to Goals. She had 11 Goal Creating Actions, with 4 of those coming from Live Ball Passes, and 5 of them from Dead Ball Passes. Her offensive contributions from live ball situations are good for a Defensive Midfielder, but her set piece delivery is elite. I don’t think that this has been a weakness of Angel City’s exactly. Emslie has taken most of them, and I think that her delivery has looked pretty good, but it has not translated into goals. I’ve heard other people say that they think Press should be taking them, now that she’s returning. But I think turning set pieces over to Zelem allows both Emslie and Press to be in the box, and I think that they’re both adept at finding space there. It’s been the conundrum with Emslie this season; she’s been both Angel City’s best creator and best finisher. I’m hoping that Zelem’s addition will allow Emslie more opportunities to put the ball in the net.

Concerns

I won’t say negatives here, because I honestly don’t see any negatives in signing a player of Zelem’s ability, but I do have concerns. And those concerns are all summed up by the fact that Angel City has already had a world class deep-lying playmaker in Amandine Henry, and that didn’t work out, or maybe more so that I think she was never really used properly. This is not to say that they’re the same player. Zelem likes a tackle a lot more than Henry does, and she is also 6 years younger. I think that Henry struggled with the amount of running that Tweed wanted from her, especially when she was played as a solitary defensive midfielder. But there are comparisons.

In her final season at Lyon, Henry was averaging 64.7 Passes per 90, and this year, in the time she spent at Angel City, she averaged 46.9 Passes per 90. At Man United last year, Zelem had a staggering 71 Passes per 90. It’s true that United pass the ball more than Angel City (on average they had 563 Passes per game last year, while Angel City are averaging 480.9 this year), but it’s not just that. In the three games that Henry started for Angel City this year, she had 8.2% of the total passes on average, and the central midfielders as a group had 21.05%. That’s maybe inched up to 22% since Henry left. Last year for United, Zelem had 12.6% of the team’s passes, and the central midfielders had a 27.76% share of the passes. So United do pass the ball more, but Zelem was definitely the engine of that team. What’s more, the United players looked for Zelem. She received 49.5 Passes per game from her teammates, while Henry at Angel City received 33.4 Passes per game.

Conclusions

Zelem is a great player, and I’m excited. She was actually at the top of my wishlist of players for this transfer window. Her talent and leadership are undeniable. But she can only be great if she’s in the right situations. The scenario I described regarding long passing only works if we have forwards higher up the field. If the whole team is back defending within 20 yards of goal, then Zelem’s passing range is nullified. And if she sees the ball as much as Henry did, then we she will also look a lot more average. Same with her tackling ability. It doesn’t matter if she wins the ball higher if the team immediately passes the ball backward. But if she’s given the license to play the way we know she can, I think that Angel City will be a better team.

There is reason to believe that things will be different with Zelem. I don’t think that Henry ever fit in with the team, and never seemed settled. On the other hand, Zelem is already good friends with Emslie, and played before with Press, and as I understand it, she spoke extensively with both of them before joining, so I think that she will fit in better. Also, it was reported by The Athletic that Zelem had conversations with both Becki Tweed and Mark Wilson about what her role would be, and a big part of that was getting the ball to the Angel City forwards in scoring positions. That, of course, means that the other players need to be getting Zelem the ball first. But I think that it’s encouraging to see the technical director, head coach, and player all on the same page. I think my fear is that at no point in Angel City’s history have I seen us utilize our central midfield well. And I thought that would change with Ertz, and then Henry, but it really didn’t. So I’m kind of in a “I’ll believe it when I see it” state of mind now.

There are a few other details to mention. Manchester United is really a mess right now. Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the new minority owner and head of football operations for United, has stated that his focus has been on sorting out the men’s team (which he refers to only as the first team). As part of that, he is renovating the men’s training facility, and has given the women’s facility to the men’s team while this happens, relegating the women’s team to portable structures in the parking lot. Unsurprisingly, this has led to a lot of United players deciding that now is the time to move on, with Zelem and Mary Earps being the two most sought after players, as both of their contracts expired this summer, and of course, the fact that they are Lionesses. So there were teams from all over the world that were interested in signing Zelem, but she opted to join Angel City, and I think that speaks very highly of our staff and team. I’m also going to write more about Angel City’s general transfer policy at the end of the window, when all is said and done, but getting a player like Zelem as a free agent is a great move.

One last gripe: the Angel City social media teased Zelem’s arrival, but then went on to do other things for three days. If you’re going to release something like that, I really think you need to announce the signing within 24 hours. Three days starts to make people feel like the deal is off. But I am very glad that we got the deal over the line, and I look forward to seeing her at BMO soon.

All stats in this article are from FBRef.