Leeds United £10m summer risk goes under spotlight and shows early evidence of serious progression - YEP 13/9/22

Leeds United’s £10m summer signing from Bayern Munich Marc Roca goes under the spotlight after a promising, progressive Premier League introduction.

By Graham Smyth

If Marc Roca's first thought is 'give me the ball' then Tyler Adams' is 'give it to Marc Roca.'

The American's tally of 58 passes to his Spanish team-mate is the most from one Premier League midfielder to another, so far this season.

Adams is not alone in having that thought. Diego Llorente and Robin Koch are both now well-established as international ball-playing centre-backs yet have been content to give the ball to Roca on 37 and 26 occasions respectively, in order to start Leeds attacks.

Roca's second thought, one that often occurs simultaneously with his first, is how to get it forward.

That progressive mindset and his ability on the ball have combined to make him one of only three midfielders to have completed 40-plus passes into the final third so far this season.

In the top flight he ranks third for completed progressive passes with 44, behind only João Cancelo and Trent Alexander-Arnold.

And just six games into his debut Premier League season, Roca is already making a mockery of the £10m Leeds shelled out for him as part of their two-pronged £30m solution to Kalvin Phillips' £42m departure.

Although the man Marcelo Bielsa transformed into a defensive midfield destroyer proved he could be the same one-man wrecking crew in the top flight that he was in the Championship, Leeds and Jesse Marsch believed they could do more with two men positioned ahead of the back line.

The early evidence is promising, defensively, with Roca's 1.8 interceptions per 90 minutes just shy of the 1.92 racked up by Phillips last season. Adams is also chipping in an interception per 90 of his own.

Phillips made 3.62 tackles per 90 last season and although Roca is some way short with 2.4, Adams is up at a full four tackles for every 90 minutes played to date.

Only two men have made more tackles in the Premier League than Adams. Only two have made more pressures. The nuisance factor he has brought to games, all over the pitch, has quickly made him a favourite with Whites supporters.

But when Leeds have the ball he's happy to let Roca shine.

And the Spaniard has shone, electing not just to sit deep and pull strings but staying on the move to link play with one-touch passing or getting heavily involved in the opposition half.

Operating with a minimum of fuss, Roca has shown no visible signs of struggling to adapt to the pace or intensity of the English game - his time in Germany likely forming a handy step between LaLiga and the Premier League.

Athleticism and physicality were the only real aspects of his game holding question marks for LaLiga and Bundesliga experts in the summer yet ever since his pre-season debut he has looked robust and has progressively improved his match fitness. No one had any real concerns over his technical ability, it was simply his lack of playing time over the course of his two seasons at Bayern and the unknowns over his adaption to the frenetic, rumbustious nature of football on these shores that posed a risk for Leeds with this particular summer transfer.

The 455 minutes of Bundesliga and Champions League football played last season have already been trumped by 485 in the colours of Leeds, though, and if his passing range is the silk glove, his willingness to fly into tackles is the iron fist.

Throughout those minutes he has demanded the ball, received it and almost always looked to play it forward. Stand-in left-back Pascal Struijk [35] has been the most common recipient of a Roca pass, with Adams [30] a close second but beyond those two it is attackers Brenden Aaronson [29] and Jack Harrison [28] who have received the ball from him most often.

It didn't take long - just four minutes and 10 seconds of Premier League football - for Roca's natural instincts to become clear.

Receiving the ball from Robin Koch deep in his own half, his fourth touch as a Leeds player took the ball out of his feet and opened up the pitch. His fifth was a raking ball over the top that almost put Patrick Bamford in on goal.

Since that win over Wolves, in which he also showcased his reading of the game to intercept and a knack for accurate first-time passes into forwards, there have been other examples of his long-range delivery putting Leeds on the front foot, but it hasn't all been Hollywood stuff.

Against Southampton he asked for calm as Rodrigo dropped deep, took the ball off his countryman, passed it and moved into space to get it back and build a move forward in a structured way.

When Chelsea visited Elland Road he looked in trouble for a moment as Mason Mount hassled him, only to spin beautifully away from the challenge and move the ball forward to the left flank. He picked a nice angle and drove towards the box to draw a foul from Raheem Sterling and a free-kick from which Leeds scored.

Thirty-six seconds of work against Barnsley showed his prowess as an orchestrator, with a big switch to the right followed by an interception and a turn of the corner to take two players out of the game, before a pass into Sam Greenwood's feet and a big switch to the left.

It was when Phillips properly embedded himself with the England team that his selfless runs to create space for others and his direction of where the next pass should go became a national treasure and not just one enjoyed by Leeds. Roca has that in his game too, particularly in his own half when he’s taking the ball off centre-backs, giving it to a full-back and moving to take a marker away in order to open up a bigger space.

Finding men out wide has been also theme for Roca, as it was for Phillips in Bielsa's system. At Brighton there was a beautiful volleyed pass directly into the run of Rasmus Kristensen and at Brentford a little drag back gave him the time to feather the ball over the top to spring Struijk into the final third.

The game at Brentford saw him at his most attacking, with balls into the box from the left wing position, attempted shots, a pass fired into Joe Gelhardt's feet that helped create a chance and a first goal, albeit a consolation in a heavy defeat.

Watching his 2022/23 body of work shows a player who does not take unnecessary risks in possession. He is happy to go back, if needs be, happier still to play the simple ball out to a full-back but happiest playing forward, fitting the profile for Marsch's verticality with passes into feet in central positions.

The competition for signing of the season is already fierce – Adams has started like a house on fire, Aaronson has looked top-flight-ready since the whistle went to start the campaign and Luis Sinisterra is a serious goal threat – yet Roca is more than holding his own in that competition and perhaps enjoys a slight advantage given he cost so much less than they did.

Time will tell if he, alongside Adams, can give Leeds a midfield worthy of midtable comfort but what is already clear is that he's comfortably worth more than what they paid for him. And at 25, with time to get better, he could be a seriously progressive signing.