The Premier League season has finally come to an end and most teams can now take stock of what the season meant for them. Manchester United got back into the Champions League, Liverpool failed in their quest to challenge for a top 4 finish while Chelsea won the title with relative ease, this is the time clubs spend to calculate what their move will be in the summer and how can they make the teams stronger and finish better next season.
Two clubs did spend a lot of money this season to improve their attacking options, Manchester United and Arsenal spent a bucket load of money on two players, Alexis Sanchez and Angel Di Maria but the focus was also on the strikers the two clubs got. While Arsenal got Danny Welbeck from Manchester United for a fee of £16 million, United did something more interesting by signing Radamel Falcao on loan from Monaco and while the deal for the Colombian star seemed like a brilliant bit of business for Manchester United, it didn’t end up going as well.
Falcao struggled to get a grip into the team and only scored 4 goals all season for the Red Devils, he was ultimately sent back to Monaco at the end of his loan period as United didn’t want to sign him on a permanent basis but Welbeck didn’t have a great season as well and only scored 4 goals as well, so who was the better player amongst the pair?
The permanent signing or the loanee?
Thanks to Squawka stats, we can compare the two strikers and just what they provided their clubs this season. While Welbeck and Falcao scored the same number of goals in the Premier League, it was the English man who had more shots on goal compared to Falcao. Welbeck had 58 shots compared to the 37 for Falcao but Falcao had the better conversion ratio as he scored 4 goals in fewer shots than Welbeck.
The two players also played an almost equal number of games with Welbeck playing one game less compared to Falcao. Welbeck though was a more team player, he created 29 goal scoring chances for his teammates compared to the 18 chances created by Falcao. His successful passes are greater than Falcao’s with 430 successful passes compared to the 340 successful passes for Falcao. Welbeck even has more key passes than the Colombian with 26 key passes in his 25 games compared to just 14 key passes in the 26 games played by Falcao.
Welbeck wins the battle easily when it comes to successful take ons with the English striker completing 39 take ons with Falcao registering just 13 take ons. The only stat that Falcao does better than Welbeck is in the assists column with the Colombian registering 4 assists to the 3 by Welbeck. Of course Welbeck still has more time to settle than Falcao and next season could be crucial for Welbeck but for now he has won the battle against the Colombian.