Alvaro Morata vs Diego Costa – A Statistical Comparison
Chelsea are set to be one of the busiest clubs in the transfer market as even after winning the league title last season, Antonio Conte has decided to make wholesale changes to his squad this summer. He has asked club’s top goal scorer Diego Costa to quit the club this summer and is in the search of a player who can replace him.
Romelu Lukaku has slipped away from Conte’s hands while Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Andrea Belotti are looking tougher and tougher to lure to London this summer. But one player who is still in with a chance to arrive at the Bridge is Real Madrid star Alvaro Morata. So how can the versatile attacker replace his Spanish counterpart at the home of the English champions? Morata played almost 12 hours of football less than Costa but here is a statistical comparison of the seasons of both the players in their respective leagues.
With 20 goals and 7 assists to his name, Costa was more productive than Morata, who scored just 15 goals and 4 assists. But when converted to ‘per 90 minutes’, Morata rules the roast. With a pass completion of 78% and a shot accuracy of 63%, the Real Madrid man created 1.14 chances per game, registering 0.87 key passes per game.
Costa, who had a passing accuracy of just 75%, created 1.23 chances per game, and 1.02 key passes per game. His shot accuracy is however, a lowly 53%.
Morata had a successful take-on rate of 53.66% compared to just the 41.22% from Costa, proving that he is a more mobile forward. And surprisingly, Morata was also more effective in the air, winning 50% of his aerial duels, while Costa won just 24.83% of his aerial duels, which is astonishing.
The 24-year old was also more effective in general, winning 48.92% of his total duels. He is a slightly more hard worker than Costa, who won just 40.94%of his total duels. The Chelsea man is more intelligent with his hold up play and he won 2.69 fouls every game on an average.
Morata, who is not easy to mark, is not too far away, winning 2.28 fouls per game. It is hard to separate the two Spanish strikers and Conte will hope that Morata can fire up the Premier League in his first season, to try and justify his decision to kick Costa out of the club this summer.