4 Areas for Atletico Madrid's Koke to Improve in 2015/16 Season
One of the best all-round performers from La Liga last season, Atletico Madrid's Koke will have plenty of spotlight on him this season as he attempts to help his revamped team challenge at the top of the table once more.
Atletico have signed the likes of Jackson Martinez and Luciano Vietto to boost the attack, but the ammunition for those players will come from the same stars in the centre, with Koke arguably the most important name in the Colchoneros' lineup.
The 23-year-old is already a regular Spanish international and one of the best young 20-somethings in Europe, but we're looking for him to take another step up this season—so here are four areas of his game he can improve over the coming campaign.
Final-Third Contribution in Open Play
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For such an outstanding midfield player and a pivotal part of the team, Koke's impact in the final third is strangely restricted at times.
He may never be a goalscorer with regularity, and perhaps that's fine—he scored twice in la Liga last season—but he gets in position to shoot with great frequency and seems to lack conviction in his attempts, quite unlike his delivery in open play.
The image above, via Squawka, shows how Koke rattles off plenty of efforts in comparison to similarly offensive midfielders at top clubs in Spain (Tiago, Andres Iniesta, Isco and Ivan Rakitic) yet fails to trouble the more frequent scorers.
In addition, while Koke is tremendously talented with his passing, his ability to find team-mates running into space and with his set piece delivery, he doesn't clock up a huge number of assists in open play. Part of that is down to team-mates, of course, and Koke shouldn't be blamed—he ranked just outside the top 10 in key passes per game on WhoScored.com last season—but many of his 10 assists came from corners and free kick deliveries.
That's not a bad thing, as it's an important part of how Atletico attack, but for a player with the world at his feet, there should always be an element of progression and improvement, and we should want to see even more from Koke this year.
He should force the issue on himself; he should create more chances for an improved attack. He should lead Atletico to victory.
Yellow Card Count
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To play for Diego Simeone's team is to be aggressive, committed and, yes, sometimes overstep the mark in the name of disrupting the opposition.
That won't change, and there's no particular reason why it should; Atletico compete with Barcelona and Real Madrid on a weekly level, and they do things their own way. It works, the fans applaud it and the players who come in are expected to join in showing the same ambition and manner of work.
For Koke, though, his habit of breaking up counter-attacks by crudely chopping down opponents should be toned down a little. It's not that that his fouls or cards are worse than some of his team-mates'; it's because he accumulates so many bookings that suspensions are inevitable.
He was booked 14 times over the course of 2015-16, ending one card away from a two-match league ban. He was carded in both legs of the Supercopa and against Real Madrid on four different occasions over the whole year.
You can take a card for the team at times, sure, but Atleti as an entire team sometimes get carried away with fouls and aggression rather than playing the game itself, and Koke is no exception.
Responsibility for the Team
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Already one of Diego Simeone's most trusted lieutenants, Koke should now be showing himself so ingrained, so important, so vital to the team's connection—front to back—that he has to be the one the team is built around.
No longer should he be allowed to float from the left when the team is in possession, but instead he should be right in the centre of midfield where he can receive the first pass and get his side on the attack. Koke uses the ball extremely well, and his absence through brief injury last year showed just how much Atletico miss him with his vision and execution, especially in big games.
Simeone should be encouraging even more growth in this area by letting Koke be the man the team runs through, and Koke himself should want it.
He is one of the quiet leaders of the team, not a player to get involved with opposition and officials—like Raul Garcia, Juanfran or Gabi—but instead someone who will simply step up and be counted when the flow of the game is running against Atletico.
Nurture that self-belief and encourage its growth, and Atleti will be rewarded.
Make Himself Undroppable at International Level
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Since it became apparent that Spain's reign as the international dominant force was coming to an end, just a couple of games into the 2014 World Cup group stage, Koke became one of those at the forefront of the new-look team.
He played the full 90 minutes in the final match, a win over Australia, and has largely been a fixture in the starting XI under Vicente del Bosque since then in the Euro 2016 qualifiers, facing the likes of Slovakia, Luxembourg and Ukraine. In friendlies, though, he sat out the entirety of fixtures against much bigger opposition, Germany and the Netherlands.
The biggest improvement Koke has to make this season is to make himself an identifiable part of Spain's strongest XI—no small feat considering Thiago Alcantara will return this season, Isco has improved enormously over the last 12 months and the likes of Cesc Fabregas, David Silva and Andres Iniesta all still remain involved.
Koke can cope and compete with those players, no doubt, and his industrious nature and youth will eventually tell over some of the others.
To ensure he is one of the first names on the teamsheet when Spain take part in Euro 2016 next summer, though, he needs a huge season of improvement with his national team, and he needs to prove he can be one of the new faces to recapture the glories now expected of La Roja.
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