Xavi Simons moving to Tottenham represents an exciting addition to the Premier League. This is a player long regarded as one of the top young talents in Europe – and he showed glimpses of that ability despite it being a more difficult season for RB Leipzig.
There are those top-line numbers. Ten goals and seven assists in the Bundesliga, even as Leipzig missed out on Europe for the first time since their elevation to the top division. He ranked in the top 10 for goals from open play and big chances created.
But it was another statistic, the fact that Simons also ranked among the top 10 players for possession won in the final third, that really cuts to the heart of what can make him so good. The scatter charts below highlights just what a rare combination that this is.
It is why Simons remains so attractive. Thomas Frank and Tottenham have been eyeing a No 10 all summer, pursuing Morgan Gibbs-White even before James Maddison suffered a serious injury. They have energy in midfield but combining that with craft is the key.
There are some gifted players around, individuals able to provide that spark, but finding those capable of doing the work out of possession, playing at high intensity, is difficult. They are at a premium. Simons has demonstrated that ability from the outset.
Javier Rabanal, his coach at PSV, did not know what to expect when a teenage Simons turned up in Eindhoven on loan from Paris Saint-Germain. Despite his reputation as a child prodigy, he had made only a handful of senior appearance for the French club.
"Nobody really knew," Rabanal tells Sky Sports. "But what surprised us, at first, was his capacity to defend, to press after the ball was lost. He was really aggressive going after ever lost ball. He wanted to be the first to press, to really put all his energy into it."
Rabanal attributes that to Simons' background - and it is a cosmopolitan one. A Netherlands international, partly of Surinamese descent, he moved to Spain as a child and was part of Barcelona's famed La Masia academy long before he was a teenager.
He was eventually snaffled away from Catalonia by PSG but those principles of pressing were already ingrained. "This is something that is really appreciated at Barca," explains Rabanal. "He was so aggressive. Everybody recognised him as a potential top talent."
That season at PSV was pivotal in his career, leading to him winning his first caps for the Netherlands. Rabanal recalls the 2022 Johan Cruyff Shield game against Ajax in front of 52,000 in Amsterdam when he scored to seal a 5-3 win. "He was really dynamic."
Rabanal, assistant coach to Ruud van Nistelrooy that season, adds: "It was against Go Ahead Eagles away that he scored two goals [in a 5-2 win] and after that he started playing. He was in the team all season, as a winger or inside as a No 8 or a No 10."
There was an assist for Fabio Silva "with the outside of the foot" that stood out as particularly special. Then there was the final game of the season away to AZ Alkmaar when PSV needed a result to be sure of qualifying for next season's Champions League.
"Xavi scored twice even, the second of them when we already playing with 10 players. That goal showed what he was all about because he could have gone down but he preferred to score than fall." He got his goal to finish as joint-top scorer in the Eredivisie.
Such performances earned him a loan move to Leipzig, where he scored eight goals in his debut season and impressed enough for the German club to make him their club-record signing midway through the last campaign, even as the team was faltering.
Speaking to Marcel Schafer, Leipzig's sporting director, he described Simons as "one of the best players in Europe" and it was easy to see why the player saw it as the right move at the time. Leipzig have a reputation for a high-intensity brand of football.
"He was very clear about his personal career plan." Ironically, paying a fee for Simons that could have risen north of €80m with performance-related add-ons was a deviation from Leipzig's long-held strategy. They overstretched and it changed Simons' plan.
The result is that even at 22 this is a player whose own ambitions can no longer be matched by Leipzig - and this is where the opportunity comes for club and the player. Spurs offer Champions League football. He offers creativity in the final third.
He has already shown his quality in different environments and in different positions. On the pitch, he is an asset in and out of possession, a scorer and a creator. "He scores goals but he is not selfish," says Rabanal. "If he has the chance, he wants assists too."
Off the pitch, his desire to leave Leipzig is unlikely to raise too many alarms at Tottenham. "He is a really professional worker, doing the extra work in the gym, the extra work with his own physiotherapist," adds Rabanal. "He is always focused on playing football."
If there was a concern at Chelsea, it was that Simons is a talent who benefits from the team being built around him and that would not be possible with Cole Palmer around. At Tottenham, there is a vacancy for a match-winner. Xavi Simons could be that man.