Ihattaren: The vanished Eredivise talent that once exceeded the numbers of Tadic and Gakpo
Ihattaren made his debut for the PSV first team in January 2019 and then spent the rest of the season gaining experience, usually as a substitute, in games against sides in the bottom half of the table. However, in the following season at still only 17 years old, he was already playing regularly and his league record eventually stood at 3401 minutes played across the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons.
Approximately half of his game time was spent on one of the wings with the other half as an attacking midfielder. Moreover, he was among the most technically gifted players in the Eredivisie. He grew in his control of the game and began to stand out, especially with his passing.
His creative contribution is particularly well illustrated by the results of this advanced data model goal probability added (GPA), which maps all the touches a player has of the ball throughout the season and then calculates to what extent they increase the team's chances of scoring a goal. The analysis shows that only former Ajax star Hakim Ziyech gave more valuable passes to his teammates during the 2019/20 season. Ihattaren was even ahead of players like Cody Gakpo, Dusan Tadic, Steven Berghuis and Steven Bergwijn.
In his last season in the Netherlands, Ihattaren made almost four key passes per game, the most in the competition. In the final third, he played 19 different types of passes, a number comparable to the best creators in the world's top leagues.
He created the greatest volume of chances with penetrating passes from the middle of the pitch into the final third, and his favourite was also a perpendicular pass to the far post. Ihattaren also showed good technique with diagonal passes.
In addition to that his final pass was also of high quality. His 0.18 expected assists per game was a performance that puts him in the top five percent of players in his position in this regard.
He maintains discipline on the field
At the same time, an important part of Ihattaren's offensive contribution is his excellent movement and dribbling, especially his ability to take the ball into open space in front of him and thus move it to areas from where the team has a significantly higher chance of scoring. In an advanced data metric assessing the quality of his runs, he ranked on par with Ziyech, and the volume of their dribbles was similar. Both attempted approximately nine per game.
They are both much more creative players than they are goal-scoring wingers. However, Ihattaren still produced an average of three shots per game during his time in the Netherlands.
But the vast majority of his attempts on goal came either from outside the box or from a tight angle. He produced less than a fifth of his shots from central areas.
He also did very well in the moments when he was required to get involved defensively, getting involved in tackles and pressing the ball. Moreover, he was one of the most disciplined attacking players.
Along with a high number of unnecessary shot attempts and inefficiency in finishing, Ihattaren's weaknesses also include a rather mediocre success rate in one-on-one take-ons as well as aerial ability. However, he makes up for his shortcomings with his other skills.
The great talent, whose form brought him a move to Juventus, played his last game in the middle 2022 due to injury. And that was in the Ajax youth team. He is therefore certainly not the player he was in the past and he quite possibly won't be again. However, if the coaching team led by Jindrich Trpisovsky can reawaken his passion for the game, he has all the ability to shine again. How realistic this scenario is, however, no one can know for certain.