Graham Potter reportedly had reservations about bringing Martin Baturina to West Ham United before the Croatia international completed his £20 million move to Cesc Fabregas’ Serie A upstarts Como.
Potter, it is believed, felt that Baturina lacked the physicality needed for Premier League football.
And who knows? Maybe the former West Ham United boss had a point, per Claret and Hugh. If Thursday night taught us anything – Aston Villa beating Bologna 3-1 and Crystal Palace cruising past Fiorentina – the gulf between Italy and England is a considerable one indeed.
One thing the respective competitions do have in common, though, is the width of their goalposts. With Football Muse crunching the numbers and concluding that Baturina is the third-best XG over-performer in Europe’s top-five leagues, is there an argument to suggest that the Como creator could have overcome his physical deficiencies with those considerable technical qualities?
Or, a la Xavi Simons at Tottenham, would the transition have been too big an ask for a diminutive, 5ft 8ins playmaker?
Martin Baturina has shone in Como after West Ham United snub
Martin Baturina reacts during Dinamo Zagreb v FC Salzburg: Group E - UEFA Champions League
Photo by Igor Kralj/Pixsell/MB Media/Getty Images
Baturina has scored six Serie A goals this term from an ‘expected goals’ tally of just 1.2. Only a pair of Harrys are keeping him in bronze medal position.
Wilson, putting together his very own Goal of the Season competition at Fulham, has roughly four more goals than he realistically should have given the respective chances that have come his way. Unsurprisingly, Kane sits at the top of the tree; 31 goals in 26 Bundesliga games, from an XG of 26.
Now, Baturina has been called the ‘new Luka Modric’ by some Croatian experts desperate for a natural heir for the Ballon D’Or winning legend. That he is over-performing his XG so extensively speaks volumes about the quality of his long-range shooting – a glorious curling effort against Bologna the prime example – but, at the same time, it also exposes the out-of-possession differences between Serie A and the Premier League.
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When rescuing a last-gasp point for Como against the Rossoblu, Baturina was allowed to cut inside and shoot despite the presence of two Bologna defenders in front of him. In the Premier League, it is hard to imagine he would have been afforded such space and time.
In that sense, comparisons can be drawn with Xavi Simons.
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Simons scored 10 Bundesliga goals from an XG of five at RB Leipzig last season. But, since making a £60 million move to Tottenham, he has hit the net only once. Furthermore, Simons is averaging only 1.4 shots per game in England, compared to 2.3 in Germany.
It would probably be an exaggeration, then, to suggest that Baturina would be producing Como-esque numbers at the London Stadium had Graham Potter not been spooked by what he felt was a worrying lack of ‘athleticism’.
“In a quite astounding piece of transfer manoeuvring, the Hammers were close to stealing the player tagged ‘the next Modric’,” Claret and Hugh wrote in June, when Baturina was still at Dinamo Zagreb.
“West Ham were unable to offer any such assurances [over playing time], and manager Graham Potter is understood to want a more athletic presence in midfield.”
That pursuit of a ‘more athletic presence’ led West Ham to Mateus Fernandes.
Fernandes is a frontrunner for the Hammer of the Year award, having taken the Londoners by storm following that £40 million transfer from Southampton.
Impressive XG statistics or otherwise, Baturina over Fernandes is not a decision many at West Ham would take in hindsight.
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