Full name: Joseph Mattock
Club: Leicester City
Date of birth: 15/05/1990
Place of birth: Leicester, England
Height & Weight: 181 cm, 78 kg
Left-footed
U15, U16, U17, U19, U21 International
IDEAL POSITION: Left back
STRENGTHS:
Complete and solid player, always available to give his best. Calmed and with pace, knows how to act with and without the ball. Good body: balanced and quite strong, however he still needs to continue developing. Quick, aggressive in the cover, selfless. Elegant, has a very good technique and lot of criteria with the ball. Excellent aerobic and anaerobic capacity, can go up and down through the touchline during the 90 minutes of each game. Likes to sum to offenssive situations and knows when to do so, normally causes lot of damage and helps his side´s wing. Intelligent, his crosses are commonly dangerous, has a great ball touch. Knows how to use his body, especially in defence. Can be used to give exit to the ball from the back positions, he assumes the role with effectiveness and doesn´t get nervous. Can play also as a winger, however I think in this position his performances are lower. Closes very well the spaces when defending. Difficult to be passed by opponents. High intensity in all his games, his individiual deffence is outstanding. With offensive and strong mentality. Gives depth to the team, can arrive to bottom line with relative ease. Concentrated and showing great attitude in the field. Excellent team player. Good tackling, also can able to do tactical fouls. Clean and neat with the ball.
WEAKNESSES:
Needs to improve when doing the offside line, sometimes he is in excesive back position inside the pitch. Also in some moments he has excesive confidence and can lose balls that can cause a dangerous counterattack, nevertheless normally he doesn´t risk it. Has to prove that he can give an outstanding performance regularly. Has to continue developing his body and get a bit stronger. Maybe in some moments needs to be heavier in his way of playing aswell.
COMPARISON: Christian Ziege/Wayne Bridge
ADDITIONAL INFO:
- He had a great performance representing England in European U17 2007, where he helped England arriving to the final. They lost the match against Spain but in my opinion, Mattock showed he was the best left back of the tournament.
- Made his debut with England U21 with only 17 years, on 12 November 2007, becoming the second youngest player to represent England U21, behind Theo Walcott.
- Important Premiership teams as Everton, West Ham or Aston Villa have shown interest in signing up him for this season. Some of them offered up to 2,5 million pounds.
- He got injured in the preseason (ligament damage) so he will lose the first matches of the season with Leicester.
EVALUATION/POTENTIAL: 8,9/10
Excellent team player, with high quality -both individual and colective- and great game understanding. Still needs to develop but he is a great gem and has many things to become a superb player. Also plays in a position where is very difficult to find an awesome player. Personal predilection.
Written by Joan Peris, 1 September 2008. hoeman5beta@hotmail.com
Recommended links:
Description of Joe Mattock at "Perlas del Fútbol" (Written in 04/07/2007, Spanish)
Joe Mattock report by Steve Claridge
Joe Mattock in Wikipedia
Leicester´s profile
Joe Mattock report in checheche.net (Spanish)
Pics: www.thesun.co.uk, fr.sports.yahoo.com (Empics)
