Joe Bell

Joe Bell is a 23-year old (DOB – 27/04/1999) defensive midfielder who plays for 2020/21 Danish Superliga champions, Brondby. A Bristol-born man, ...

Another example of a similar sort can be seen in the following image below, where his cover shadowing is wrong and that allows the Randers player to play the ball through him as he steps forward as well without giving him the time to react. He is currently in a very good setup at Brondby that can accelerate and aid his development to the next level. Teams that play with high possession will definitely suit him where he has the ability to play in possession for them and needs to iron out some flaws in his defensive transition game which can be done with the right coaching. This can be seen in the image below where he steps out but doesn’t position himself in the right way nor does he reach the ball-holding player to make a challenge. Due to his lack of speed, at times Bell can be caught upfield where after that he doesn’t have the intensity to track back and defend the ball. We can see an example of that in the image below where he receives the ball from his teammate and a Randers player look to pressurize him from behind. This means that when he receives the ball it makes it very difficult for him to progress the ball forward. He finds that a Randers player is out to press him and he immediately has a solution to it by going past the player and giving him a small dummy using his body orientation. This drags the opponent player with him and opens a space in the centre of the pitch onto which his teammate (no.25) drops to receive the ball. For example in the above image when the right centre-back had the ball, Bell was kept in the cover shadow and also had a player close to him waiting to press him if received the ball. He has a good range of passing where he can break lines of defence with through balls, with both his feet and also can play it long and play the ball over the defence as well. We can see that in the example below, where he receives the ball from his teammate.