25th Sep 2024 • Written by Garrett Schreiber

Daichi Kamada: Victim of the System

For a player heralded upon his arrival as “the perfect fit for Oliver Glasner’s Crystal Palace”, Daichi Kamada has found himself at the centre of much criticism from fans at his Premier League performances. 

However, the fault of this should not lie on Kamada, but rather the lack of change made to Glasner’s system despite a massive change in the available personnel.

Crystal Palace as a whole has looked stagnant and uncreative through the first few games played, especially when compared to the form the team had at the end of the 23/24 Premier League season, where the team won 6 of their last 7 games. However, it makes sense when taking into account the loss of key players, yet the fault still largely falls on new signings, with Kamada likely taking most of this criticism.

Daichi Kamada, in his time working under Oliver Glasner at Frankfurt, played as a central, mainly creative midfielder. He excelled offensively with through balls, dropping farther back to help in the build-up, and scored mainly when making delayed runs into late crosses or to finish rebounded shots.

Kamada tends to fit the role of a second striker in this system with the option to also be deployed deeper in the midfield as a playmaker. This immediately makes him an odd figure in the Crystal Palace squad, with seemingly no natural spot for him to -operate, either next to Eze or deeper as a holding midfielder. 

Daichi Kamada and Eberechi Eze celebrate Palace's second goal against QPR (Getty Images)

It is put even more at odds when you consider the man that he is replacing within the squad - Michael Olise.

Olise’s first instinct when getting the ball was always focused on taking on his man. He became so renowned for his dribbling and his crossing ability that he suddenly had an immense gravity to him, with players trying to suffocate his space and strip him of the opportunity to take the ball down the pitch. This opened up space for Eze to operate more easily in behind Mateta, giving Palace a large amount of options when pushing forward.

When the two player profiles are compared, nearly no parts of their game overlap. Kamada is another right footed player, something in excess in Palace’s attack, whereas Olise left a massive lack of left-footed attackers in our roster when he left for Bayern Munich. 

When Oliver Glasner took Kamada as a starter, it widely changed the way that the team was capable of playing on the front foot.

With no Olise to create space, Kamada and Eze’s similar tendencies to drop deeper in build-up have presented the squad with an issue going forward - congestion in the front line.

The entire offense stagnated, with Glasner’s system making wingback crosses the main offensive game plan, despite Palace’s wingbacks being less offensively talented than those of Glasner’s previous teams. Filip Kostic averaged 0.46 goal contributions per game in his worst season under Glasner, while Tyrick Mitchell averaged 0.14 goal contributions each game in his best season, a glaring difference in quality.

Tyrick Mitchell and Daichi Kamada (Getty Images)

Ismaila Sarr has often seemed to provide much more of a spark due to his pace and tendency to run in behind, which would create extra space for both Mateta and Eze to operate. 

It seemed that Sarr would have been a more natural fit alongside Mateta and Eze due to the diversified skill set that he brought to the table, yet Glasner stood by Kamada against Chelsea, putting him in the starting lineup. 

While Sarr seemed the more natural fit as the right-sided attacker, largely because his skillset mirrors Olise’s more than Kamada, Glasner started Kamada once again against Chelsea. Once again, the attack was mostly stagnant.

With another forgettable performance, he was eventually pushed out of the starting lineup against Leicester City with a change to a 3412 formation, with Nketiah and Mateta creating a striker partnership up top. 

Despite being left out of the lineup, Leicester was the game where Kamada finally showed creative ability and positive play. Taking off a center back in Clyne, Kamada joined the midfield with more support than ever before, with both strikers and Eze being in front of him with the support of Wharton and Hughes on the defensive side of the ball.

This finally allowed Kamada the freedom and space he needed to play the game he is used to without clogging space for Eze and still having enough attacking support with Mateta and Nketiah.

While he wasn’t awe-inspiring this game, he did make more meaningful impacts than he was able to create in his previous Premier League games. In fact, it was Kamada with a long pass into Nketiah that eventually led to Sarr getting fouled in the box, getting Palace a penalty kick and saving a point at home.

Kamada was never the problem with the Palace offense, his misuse was. Now with a more natural position available to him at times, Palace fans could really start to see Glasner getting the best out of his former Frankfurt player.

0 comments