Darmian vs. Valencia
Manchester United seem to have pulled off a coup by signing the young and highly rated full-back Matteo Darmian from Torino. The club have needed some fresh blood in defence and what better way to ensure that than by signing an Italian? Darmian has impressed a lot of folks with his performances in Serie A but is he cut out to play in the Premier League already?
We compare the Italian’s scores for Torino with Antonio Valencia, the dependent wing-back that Louis van Gaal has used to a great extent this season. Using Squawka.com, we are only going to compare the average per game scores for each player for the games they played in the league, last season.
An Italian job or a con job?
It seems that Valencia uses his experience over all the years and even though he plays in a newish role for the team, he still comes out on top in terms of defence. He averages a defence score of 11.14 compared to the 10.23 from Darmian.
Passing is one of the key features in a Manchester United team and that is an aspect that Darmian has to work on. The young Italian averaged 15 forward passes last season compared to Valencia’s 27 and also in terms of completing passes, the Italian has to work hard.
Darmian had a pass completion of only 78% last season while Valencia was the much better passer with an average of 89%. It was Valencia who also read the opponent better but just slightly as he managed 1.78 interceptions per game while Darmian got in 1.33 interceptions.
Darmian does hold an advantage over the Manchester United player when it comes to clearances with an average of 2.39 compared to Valencia’s 2 per game. The Italian also has a better aerial duel win % with 57% compared to 47% for Valencia.
When it comes to running with the ball, something that Darmian should be good at, it is again Valencia who steals the limelight with a take on % of 58% compared to just 48% for Darmian and the most important stat of winning tackles is also surprisingly won by Valencia.
The Manchester United player averaged 2.16 tackles per game last season while Darmian only managed 1.85 tackles per game for Torino last season. From these stats, it is evident that although Darmian is a good player, he still needs to improve his game if he is to do well in the Premier League. Fortunately, time is on his side and that should help him get better in one of the toughest leagues in the world.