Player Analysis: Chiquinho

Wolves made their second signing of the transfer window this week as Portuguese winger Chiquinho arrived from Estoril - how might he impact the team?

Name: Francisco Jorge Tavares Oliveira (Known as Chiquinho)

Nationality: Portuguese

Position: Winger

Date of birth: 5 February 2000 (21 years old)

Senior appearances: 37 (6 goals)

International caps: 1 cap for Portugal U21s

Previous club: Grupo Desportivo Estoril Praia (Estoril)

Wolves @Wolves

🇵🇹 #WelcomeChiquinho 🇵🇹

Wolves made their second signing of the January transfer window, purchasing Chiquinho from Estoril for just under £3m.

This has been something of a breakout season for Chiquinho, scoring 3 goals and making 1 assist in just over 800 minutes (9.3 ‘90s’) in the Primeira Liga. Alex Goncalves, Portuguese journalist and well known to Wolves fans, was particularly enthused by Wolves’ capture of the young winger.

Alex Goncalves @Aljeeves

Wolves are set to complete the signing of Estoril Praia winger Chiquinho early next week for a fee in the region of €3.5M. Chiquinho has been a revelation this campaign for high-flying Estoril.

Scott Sellars had this to say on the signing:

“With all young players, we have to be patient as he’s got to get used to playing in a new country and a new environment. But we will integrate him into the first-team group, and by learning from Bruno, the staff, and his new teammates, we hope he can make the kind of impact we believe he has the potential to achieve.”

It appears that Chiquinho will be sticking around, rather than be going back out on loan for the rest of this season like some may have expected. So what does he have to offer?

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Chiquinho is a wide player who can play off the right and left side. In his last appearance for Estoril he played on the right hand side. Whilst he understandably was doing a lot more defending than attacking he was still a threat down his side, winning a penalty as Estoril took a two nil lead into half time.

Chiquinho played on the right and won a penalty (last clip)

You can see in a couple of clips there that he possess great speed and can be a threat in behind opponents. He also seems comfortable to shift the ball inside too, which will help in the system and style Bruno Lage is trying to implement at Wolves.

He was also very unfortunate to have a goal disallowed as a team mate was offside in the build up of the attack.

Chiquinho’s goal is ruled out for offside

However, it’s a good first touch and a very nice finish! As mentioned, he was also required to help defensively a lot of the time - where he showed plenty of willingness to press, close down and track opponents.

Chiquinho worked hard to track back and support team mates

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Chiquinho has a goal every 279 minutes (just over 3 games) in the league, plus one goal in the Taça de Portugal against FC Serpa. Having scored 17 goals in 20 games this season in the league, Wolves are certainly looking for more goal threat from their attacking options.

Hwang Hee-chan started promisingly with four early goals but even before his injuries had not looked like scoring for a few games. Francisco Trincão, Daniel Podence and Adama Traoré have contributed just one league goal (in the most recent game) when they have generated six expected goals (xG).

Chiquinho’s 4 goals in all competitions this season

Chiquinho’s three league goals come having generated 2.35 xG. With the minutes he’s played, this is a fairly respectable rate to be finding yourself in goalscoring positions (0.25xG per 90) with room for improvement.

As @dbutleranalysis observed in his own analysis of our new signing:

While some of these shot locations show a winger able to get shots away in central positions, many of them show a player who's shooting from angles he has little chance of scoring from, or distances his ball striking limit his impact from

It’s certainly an area that can refine in his game where he can rush to get a shot off or prioritise power over technique. If he tidies that up, he becomes a very promising goal threat as his goals this season have all come in central positions in the penalty area.

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Amongst attacking players, Chiquinho had made the 5th most dribbles (7.93) per 90 minutes in the Primeira Liga. His success rate, 61.73%, is also higher than those at the top of the charts for that statistic. Wolves’ (and the Premier League’s) best dribbler Adama Traoré is currently completing 5.21 dribblers per game but with a higher success rate (72.6%). Good company to be in!

Chiquinho dribbling and accelerating

He possesses great acceleration and looks to be a very sharp turner. As a result, he seems most comfortable going 1v1 in wider areas and attacking space in quite a direct manner.

His acceleration allows him to pinch the ball in front of defenders and seems to win him plenty of free kicks…

His speed also helps him to win free kicks

This will be a familiar sight for Wolves fans, used to seeing Traoré and co regularly dragged down and clattered into by defenders too slow to beat them to the ball. However, that looseness with the ball can also be a problem for him when receiving under pressure.

Chiquinho can be careless in looking after the ball

With more players around him he has less space to draw players away from to try and push the ball into space like he may want to do. Consequently, defenders can pinch the ball away from him. In a couple of the clips, he doesn’t really appear to scan for the position of the defender or movement of his team mate and so he gives the ball away quite easily. This will be an area he will need to refine as Bruno Lage often asks his wide forwards to occupy central spaces where they are surrounded by more opponents from all angles.

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Wolves have moved early to sign Chiquinho. He’s only just broken into the Portugal U21 set up and is still very early in his senior career but they’ve obviously seen enough potential to get his signature before one of the big Portuguese clubs get there first.

Key for his development, to fine-tune some of the technical aspects of his game, will be to ensure he’s getting the right amount of support and minutes on the pitch. Adama’s future is still very much up in the air, so he may be able to get the minutes that Traoré has most recently had off the bench. When Hwang Hee-chan and Pedro Neto return however, that may place him a lot further down the pecking order.

In the short term, it may just allow him to settle in and adapt to his new surroundings as I wouldn’t say he is ready to be starting Premier League games on a regular basis anyway. Being amongst a large Portuguese contingent will no doubt help and having a leader like Conor Coady should also allow him to feel welcome and part of the group. Get the environment right and his talent should allow him to flourish.