It is never easy to live up to the price tag that is thrust upon you and that could be considered the case for two of the biggest names in World football. Angel Di Maria made a big money move from Real Madrid to Manchester United at the start of the season and while a couple of decent performances in his infant United career might have shown that he could become much better and adjust to the Premier League, he has struggled to perform at the club in recent games and has been hauled off and substituted in the last 2 games.
While Di Maria can still claim first season syndrome, Mesut Ozil has been facing the same problem from the second half of last season. He drifts in and out of games and hasn’t really hit the high notes that was expected from the German World cup winner, while both players had great spells at Real Madrid, they still have not shown their respective fans what they are made off and here we try to find out just which player has provided more for their team this season.
Germany beats Argentina, again
The stats don’t lie, even though Mesut Ozil has played less games than Di Maria this season, all the attacking stats are in favour of the German. Using Squawka to compare the two talented attackers with the parameter of looking at just 90 minute averages, the first telling stat is that the pass completion % of Mesut Ozil is greater than that of Angel DI Maria.
While Di Maria and Ozil both play in attacking roles, Ozil scored 87% as a pass percentage while Di Maria only has a 78% pass completion rate for Manchester United in the Premier League this season. If the argument to prove Ozil’s greater pass completion is due to the fact that he plays more sideways or back passes, that also fails as Ozil averages 30.38 forward passes per game for Arsenal while Di Maria is almost 10 passes down with 21.5 forward passes per game, thus showing that not only is Ozil more attack minded but he can make complete the pass as well.
The creativity of Ozil again shines in terms of key passes with the German providing 2.15 key passes and creating 2.54 chances per game while Angel Di Maria lags behind the German with 1.85 key passes per game and 2.25 chances created per game.
In terms of taking on opponents and beating them, you would expect Di Maria to obliterate the stats comparison but it is Ozil who again leads the Argentine with 58.18% successful take ons with Di Maria lagging behind with 41.67% successful take ons per game, in fact the only stat that Ozil seems to lag behind is in terms of interceptions with Di Maria making twice as many interceptions per game when compared to Ozil.
While Di Maria might have been a costlier buy, it seems Ozil, even in this injury hit season is a better attacker for his respective team.