Tom Bayliss
Bayliss’ 58 minutes in the win at Preston on 12 September offer a particularly good example of why his passing figures stood out in the first article. He completed 29 of 33 passes, or 87.9%, but the direction and destination of those passes make the return more interesting. Ten of 11 forward passes, all five into the final third and all three long passes, were successful.
That is the sort of accuracy that can help us sustain an attack and make the work of winning possession worthwhile. He also won four of five duels and both aerial contests, alongside eight recoveries. For someone whose season figures show a lower volume of defensive involvement, this was an encouraging combination of ball use and effective work in the contests.
The Sheffield United defeat on 10 October was a weaker example. Across 94 minutes, Bayliss won four of 12 duels, a success rate of 33.3% against his season figure of 54.0%. He completed 25 of 32 passes, or 78.1%, so his passing accuracy remained respectable, but there were ten recorded losses, no shots and zero xA.
The difficulty is that we didn’t get enough attacking output to balance the contests he was losing. His strongest argument for a place is the security and forward passing we saw at Preston, supported by enough defensive work to make the combination function. Sheffield United showed how much harder that argument becomes when the duel success drops and there is little recorded attacking contribution alongside it.
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