This could be a very cunning piece of business.
The headline summary of Cajuste’s time at Napoli is that it was a disappointment – that he never settled, never established himself in the first team, never really convinced. But the truth may be more than he wasn’t able to do the job that the manager wanted him to do, because the underlying stats from his one-season stay in Campania show a player who did a lot of good work.
A central midfielder, Cajuste is an aggressive ball-winner who generates a high number of turnovers and does a great deal of defensive work. While ‘underperforming’ for Napoli last season, he registered over three tackles for every 90 minutes he played, comfortably better than most midfielders can manage, and won plenty of battles up and down the pitch – his 54% one-on-one win rate is impressive, and heat maps show a player getting all over the midfield to close opposing players down.
That style of play may not have suited all of the four managers Napoli have gone through since Luciano Spalletti left after winning the Scudetto in the 2022/23 season, but he’s precisely the kind of player Kieran McKenna loves – hard working, willing to run himself into the ground for the cause, and an indefatigable presser who can land his tackles time and again.
His playing profile fits the mould, but he has another string to his bow which could elevate him above his rivals for a place in the side – he’s a powerful and dynamic dribbler who can confidently take on and beat players with the ball at his feet.
He’s dynamic off the ball as well, receiving passes upfield and offers more options going forward without conceding anything in terms of his ability to do the grunt work
Assuming Cajuste can play to his highest level, he could help Ipswich to build on what they have and begin to expand their game-plan slightly. He isn’t a talent of such enormity that he would transform the way they play, but he can represent the sort of incremental improvement that suggests that they haven’t lost their edge when it comes to recruitment.
This is a deal which ignores the narrative which suggests that he struggled in Serie A and instead looks at some highly impressive raw numbers, which say that he didn’t do so badly after all and is more than capable of improving the Suffolk outfit. |  |
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