Manchester United’s spending spree hasn’t come to an end for the season yet, reports have been flying in that United are on the verge of completing a few more transfers before the end of the January transfer window and while the camera has been fixed on David De Gea’s future at the club, there is hope that the Spaniard will stay and they are trying hard to sign a few defenders to fix a defence which hasn’t look the best throughout the season.
Call it Van Gaal’s insistence to play a 3 man central defensive partnership or the fact that Manchester United’s central defenders are just not good enough, the team might be getting the results but they certainly have not look silky smooth at the back and De Gea has been the one who has often kept them in games.
The player who is being tracked to come to Manchester is Nicolas Otamendi, the Argentine defender who has been playing for Valencia this season after a short loan spell at Atletico Miniero. Otamendi has fit in quite well at Valencia and even scored a goal to defeat Real Madrid at the start of the year. Just how well does he compare to the current crop of Manchester United defenders? Let’s see,
A player for the future but for the now?
Otamendi was loaned out to Miniero because Valencia had a few issues regarding their Non EU player quota at the club but since he has come back he has played every minute of Valencia’s league games and has been very consistent for Los Che.
He is part of a defence which has only conceded 17 goals from 19 games which is the 3rd best defensive record in the league after Barcelona & Real Madrid, expectedly. While the United defence hasn’t done any worse, they have one of the best defensive records having conceded 21 goals from 22 games. The problem with the United defence has been the lack of fit players, all throughout the season their defensive players have gotten injured.
Jones, Smalling, Evans and Rojo have all been injured and as such haven’t been able to make a stellar partnership in the centre of the defence. Although Otamendi leads the La Liga in terms of defensive actions that can be attributed to the fact that he has been able to be fit and play consistently for Valencia.
In fact if we look at all the other stats like blocks, he is the only one from the 5 (Evans, Rojo, Smalling, Jones & Otamendi) who leads in this stat with 1.28 made per 90 minutes while the next best is Smalling with 0.89 per 90 minutes.
In terms of interceptions made per 90 minutes he is third best behind Phil Jones who makes 4.01 interceptions and Rojo with 3.39 interceptions per 90. Smalling even leads the Argentine in terms of aerial duels won with the Argentine coming second in that stat.
It seems that Otamendi is a good defender who is consistent and thus has been able to provide a lot of cover and help to the Valencia defence but he still needs a bit of time to develop and grow, he is not the finished article yet and instead of spending a ton of money bringing the Argentine to United, they should probably invest in a central defender who has more experience than Otamendi.