Melbourne City have an odd connection with Bolton Wanderers, with Aaron Mooy, Scott Jamieson, Luke Brattan, ex coach Warren Joyce and now Craig Noone have been involved for both clubs.

Noone is a fair bit different to most of the Wingers that Melbourne City possess (and plays a little bit counter to the “City Way”) in that he’s a move the ball forward type of winger.

Firstly, and this might seem like a small thing, he passes the ball forwards.

This is important for a number of reasons, firstly, City were maligned last year for slow movement with the ball once they’d moved it out wide, Noone makes fewer passes of the ball than either of City’s main two wide threats last year, Berenguer and Wales, but he tends to make a lot more forward passes when given the opportunity to make one. Some of this definitely comes down to game plan, but these figures include a seasons at Cardiff where the game plan was much more conducive to on the floor football. This would be a marked change from a City wide player.

The other thing that will likely make him stand out from the current crop of wingers is his propensity to dribble as demonstrated here against Blackburn last year off a corner from Luca Connell

It’s usually fast, simple dribbles and then an attempt to release the ball, his success rate is ~70% which compares favorably with Berenguer and is better than both Lachlan Wales and Daniel Arzani. The comparison with Arzani isn’t a bad one, because while unlikely to reach the heights the young flyer did when he was at Melbourne City, Arzani and Noone have a few things in common, firstly, they dribble the ball a lot and secondly, they have a high ratio of dribbles to passes.

And while expecting Craig Noone to come in and replace the verve and pace that Arzani brought to the team a season ago is unrealistic, it wouldn’t be hugely surprising to see Noone offer a substantially different look to Melbourne City’s wide play this year.