Billy Gilmour at Norwich Through the Data
Despite not making a senior appearance in the country he was born in, Billy Gilmour is regarded as the biggest youth talent to come out of Scotland in a long time. Born in the small town of Ardrossan in North Ayrshire, Gilmour was the son of an amateur footballer. Around these parts, people are usually supporters of one of two clubs, Celtic and Rangers. At around eight years old he joined the blue side of the divide, and he progressed at such a rate at Auchenhowie (Rangers training base) that he was training with the first team at just fifteen years old. By then, the bigger English clubs were circling, and interest from Chelsea — renowned for their Cobham academy — materialised into a move in 2019.
Fast forward three years and Gilmour has shown flashes of brilliance in cameos for Chelsea (most notably a FA Cup tie vs. Liverpool) and was loaned out to Norwich City last summer. The idea was to get him regular minutes in the Premier League, as the Canaries built a young and exciting side. In terms of playing time, you could call the loan a success. At the time of writing Gilmour has played 1,170 minutes (54.2% of minutes available) which far exceeds anything previously. However, things haven’t exactly gone smoothly. Daniel Farke — the manager that brought Gilmour in — was sacked in November as his side had a record-breakingly bad start to the season. It is, of course, hard for young players to establish themself in a side that didn’t win a league game until November. But even despite that, Gilmour has become a polarising figure. You wouldn’t have to look far to find a Norwich fan on Twitter slating the young midfielder. You wouldn’t have to look far either to find people — usually either Scottish or of a Chelsea bias — defending him.
I’ve decided to look a bit deeper into his loan at Norwich, and to try and determine whether it has just been a big waste of everyone’s time or if the hate is a loud minority and there’s been value in his time at Carrow Road (spoiler: it probably lands somewhere in the middle).
Gilmour’s Role
To determine the success of his loan, it is important to establish what his role is in this Norwich team. In the early months of the season — under Daniel Farke — the team often used a 4–3–3 formation. When Gilmour was in the side, he often operated in the middle of the midfield three, as sort of a lone pivot (think along the lines of Jorginho’s role in Italy’s Euro 2020 campaign). He would often be asked to sit deeper and receive the ball, turn and progress the play.
Things have looked better since the appointment of Dean Smith — although probably not enough to keep them up. The former Aston Villa manager also uses his favoured 4–3–3, but Gilmour’s role is slightly different. He isn’t always asked to be the lone ‘6’ in the side, often playing on either side of the midfield. Smith has also experimented with 4–4–2’s and 4–2–3–1’s, in which Gilmour has been used in the midfield two. As we can see from his season heatmap below (forgive me for using SofaScore), he has covered a lot of ground for Norwich, often in deeper areas and with a tendency to drift over to the right-hand side of the pitch in attacking areas.
Analysing His Loan Spell So Far
If we look at Gilmour’s numbers this season alone, you’d assume he was one of — if not the — top performers. One of the Scotland International’s most valuable attributes is his passing, and that has come through from a data standpoint this season. Gilmour ranks first (all stats per ninety) in Progressive Passes (4.36), Passes into the Final Third (4.43), Completed Passes (46) and second in Expected Assists (0.09) this season.
Gilmour is best suited as being the metronome to a team, the conductor at the heart of everything, playing a symphony that is a treat to the ears. Earlier this season on the PureFitbaw podcast, I said ‘If Scotland is a Solar System, Gilmour is the Sun’. It’s something we see an increasing amount when he plays for the National Team. It’s also probably the reason why his full skill set hasn’t been on show for Norwich this season. The Canaries average the fourth-lowest possession in the Premier League (42.5%). While Gilmour touches the ball more than any of his teammates per ninety minutes, when he does receive the ball he often finds himself having limited outlets to progress the ball to. With Scotland, he has a system built around him that means he has options out wide or to McGinn & McGregor, even with limited minutes at Chelsea he has a system around him that allows him time and world-class teammates who can find space. Unfortunately, these are not things he is afforded at Carrow Road. Norwich defend deep, meaning when Gilmour gets on the ball he doesn’t have options ahead of him. Take Teemu Pukki for example, while an excellent finisher, he is not someone that will look for the ball to hold up.
Gilmour has, however, developed other areas of his game while at Norwich. He creates 2.69 shots per ninety which leads the Norwich squad and is valuable to a team in their position, who average the least amount of shots per game in the Premier League. While the clip below is from the FA Cup, it shows the value of Gilmour’s ability — especially from set-pieces. The header may have some sort of luck with how it goes in, but the technique to whip the ball in at the near post indicates his quality.
Perhaps the biggest area of development — especially when you consider the amount of it Norwich as a side have to go through — is the defensive side of the game. Gilmour is averaging 4.03 tackles & interceptions per ninety in the league this season and has shown more than a willingness to put in the work, with an incredible 23.4 pressures per ninety. If you look at Gilmour you could easily mistake him as undersized, as not being able to hold his own in more physical scenarios. That, though, would be a misconception. Despite his five-foot-six and skinny frame, Gilmour is not afraid to put himself around (in typical Scottish fashion). While his loan here may be looked at with suspicious eyes at the end of it if there is one thing he will have gained is an experience in extremely difficult situations, where any possession is extremely valuable, and an emphasis on defensive solidarity and awareness is placed. This should only help him further in the future. Especially if he is to take over Jorginho’s role at the base of Chelsea’s midfield, where being defensively aware in your positioning is vital. In the context of other young midfielders, Gilmour does rank among the best. As can be seen in the visual I posted back at the turn of the year, Norwich’s number eight is one of the most valuable under 23 midfielders in Europe’s top five leagues for Tackles & Interceptions & Progressive Passes. To rank alongside talents such as Maxence Caqueret – who is often touted as a target for Champions League clubs – shows that Gilmour’s underlying numbers are extremely promising. Perhaps playing in Tuchel’s Chelsea side is the environment he needs, allowing him to thrive with world class talents around him.
Overall Thoughts
There is a definite combination of Gilmour struggling to adapt to his situation, and Norwich using a young player incorrectly here. The problem for Gilmour is that if he was to go to a possession heavy side, which would suit him more, then he would likely have had to go to either a less competitive league (i.e. a loan to Rangers) or drop down a division (i.e. a promotion-chasing team in the Championship).
This look at Gilmour’s Norwich spell has been brief and just scrapes on its value to both the player and the club. In all honesty, the true value of the loan to Gilmour won’t be known until he goes back to Chelsea (or is loaned out again next season). Norwich this season has not been an easy situation to be in, especially for a young player, and if the club does end up being relegated it won’t be down to Gilmour’s loan. But even loans that look unsuccessful on the surface can have value. Gilmour will likely have developed resilience and an understanding of a different situation and type of football, one that is not as ball-dominant, and one where mistakes are much more critical. It’s easy to forget that this is Gilmour’s first full season in senior football. He is already an established and key member of Scotland’s most successful side in 20 plus years. He has still had lots of good moments in a side that doesn’t tend to get many, and the focus on the defensive side of the game will help him once back at Chelsea. This loan has also likely improved him in ways that are hard to quantify, having the mental pressure of starting in a senior side is an underrated part of development, as is the added pressure of playing for a side fighting for every point. Gilmour will likely go back to Stamford Bridge a much more resilient and confident player, even if it is bittersweet and he leaves Norwich as a Championship club yet again.
For Norwich, it’s an experiment that has probably gone slightly worse than they expected it to, but it’s hard to determine what the expectations were for Gilmour this season. Norwich — while they did some interesting business in the summer — were always going to be one of the more likely candidates for relegation. Daniel Farke’s commitment to playing his way of football was commendable but ultimately left Norwich in a place that is hard to come back from. That particularly rung true for Gilmour, who often looked like a deer in the headlights under Farke, tasked with being at the base of a midfield that was being overrun more often than not. Things have improved under Dean Smith, but probably not enough to stay up. Again, this probably parallels with Gilmour’s situation. He has looked better under Smith and has been given a slightly different role which has allowed him to progress the ball well. But there is still that feeling that Norwich fans expected more from the former Rangers midfielder, that this extremely highly rated youth player from the Champions League winner would be more effective. 1,700 words later and I still find myself on the fence. In reality, there were probably more effective loans out there for Gilmour, and Norwich ended up having too many issues to make his stay at Carrow Road as fruitful as it could have been.
