With it now finally, and I mean finally, announced that Bosnian fullback Amar Dedic is officially a Newcastle United player, there has been some uncertainty around whether the 24-year-old (happy birthday to him) will have enough quality to positively impact the squad.
That uncertainty mainly stems from his rather underwhelming performance at St James' Park last season in the Champions League which saw him injured after 60 minutes in a 3-0 defeat for the Portuguese side.
But, whilst it is difficult not to let that anecdote cloud the mind when pondering the implications of Dedic's arrival on Tyneside, we all know that we simply can't judge the man off one singular affair.
With that being said, I thought it might be a decent idea to ease the mind of those who may be feeling concerned and point some positive energy toward those of you who are unfamiliar with his game by taking a look at exactly what he will bring to Jaissle's ranks.
Dedic & the overlapping threat
Perhaps the thing that will excite the Geordie faithful the most is Dedic's dual threat when joining attacks. By that I'm referring to his ability to both overlap and join the midfield in an inverted role during build up.
Tino Livramento notoriously leaves a rather hefty chunk to be desired when striding beyond the halfway line, some may call it nosebleed territory, and thus has drawn some critics for not quite posing enough of a creative threat.
But Dedic doesn't have that same problem. One look at the Bosnian's heatmap shows an illustrative brush stroke stretching far up the right hand side and a glance at his chance creation statistics, which place him in the top 35% of all fullbacks, suggest a man who has no regards for the well-being of his opposing wingers lung health.
With that brought to light, what we can expect at the very least is some exciting crusades beyond Murphy or Elanga. That may at times leave a little bit of defensive vulnerability, but we'll talk about how he limits that a little more later.
Aggression, intensity & a high press animal
Now all of that talk of that potential attacking threat, whilst an intriguing prospect, may have left some of you a little worried about the defensive side of the game.
Now I'm not going to sit here and pretend playing 90 minutes in a low block every week is going to get the best out of Dedic, the more traditional fullback role simply isn't his strongest suit, but that doesn't mean he is completely void of defensive contribution.
In fact, Dedic is best suited to a front foot, intense, man for man pressing system which allows him to be aggressive and get tight to his man high up the pitch... insert Jaissle ball here...
Dedic does also possess some very adept recovery pace which makes up for some of his defensive frailties, even though those gaps won't be quite as easily forgiven in the Premier League as they may have been at Benfica.
To put it simply, if you're expecting Dedic to be as solid as a rock you're probably set up for a rather long and painful season. But I wouldn't worry too much as what he does do well defensively, he does very well.
Tactical familiarity & versatility
As we know by now Dedic is being brought in because he is a Jaissle disciple, by that I of course mean that he played under the German during his time at RB Salzburg and was a big part of his success there.
What that means is Dedic is more than sufficiently clued up on how the gaffer likes his teams to play already, meaning there shouldn't be a particularly big learning gap other than getting to grips with the physical nature of English football.
But it isn't just the tactical familiarity that will serve him well in the immediacy when joining the ranks. Perhaps more importantly HE CAN PLAY BOTH SIDES... halleluljah!
Our squad has been crying out for fullback cover for goodness knows how long now and, with Livramento currently injured who can also play both sides, we now have some resemblance of cover.
Dedic, Tino, Hall, Burn (only on desperate occasions, I promise) as established senior options and Shahar, Charlton, Miley, Pivas all as youngsters who can keep developing and step in to cover in cup games and what have you.
I think I may have just talked myself into believing Dedic is the perfect signing with all of that...
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