Scouting: Jules Kounde and Pau Torres
United's Current Defence
Manchester United's defensive woes this season are quite well established. United ended up conceding an xGA (Expected Goals Against) of ~42 goals (the fourth-best, behind Brighton!) whilst conceding 44 goals in total (the sixth-best) in the Premier League. If United want to challenge Manchester City, Liverpool, and Chelsea the next season, United need to sure up the defence. I have already highlighted the need for an elite defensive-midfielder earlier and how it would go a far way in solving this issue, but the red devils do need to add another top-level center-back sooner rather than later to be considered a consistent challenger for major honors in Europe.
If we try and profile a center-back partnership, it usually (and broadly) comprises of two different styles of players. One center-back is what we will call the "aggressor". The aggressor is the one who more often steps out of the backline to intercept passes, put pressure on forwards, and win long aerial balls. The second defender is what we will call the "sweeper", who stays behind (apart from offside traps) to cover for other defenders. We have seen multiple partnerships that fit this system, like Rio Ferdinand (sweeper) & Nemanja Vidic (aggressor), and more recently Ruben Dias (sweeper) & John Stones (aggressor).
If we try to fit the main center-backs at United into this system, we would attribute Harry Maguire and Eric Bailly to be the aggressors and Victor Lindelof to be the sweeper. Given that Harry Maguire is United's captain now, my preference would be a center-back in the mould of a "sweeper".
What are we looking for?
Manchester United, like most teams in Europe, play with 2 center-backs. They like to hold possession and play out of the back through short passes whilst occasionally playing long balls over the opposition high line, trying to use the forwards' pace to get in behind. Lindelof/Bailly usually plays on the right while Maguire plays on the left. This poses an issue for United while trying to progress the ball - all three defenders are right-footed, which means it is not natural for them to play balls to the left half of the field. Lindelof's weakness against physical strikers and against long balls plus crosses is also well-publicized, and so are Bailly's persistent injury issues.
Another issue this United team faces very often is that the two DMs - Fred and McTominay - are not good enough at receiving the ball and feeding it to the attack-minded players. This means it is up to the defenders to progress the ball, and this burden is majorly shouldered by Maguire and Shaw. Having another CB who can do this would add another dimension to their play and would make the team less predictable.
Evaluation
So here are some qualities which should be looked at in a defender for Manchester United:
- Preferably a "sweeper"
- Comfortable in possession
- A good ball progressor
- No persistent injury issues
- Aerially strong
- Recovery pace
Having established our judging metrics, I wanted to take a look at the two center-backs who have been linked with United the most - Sevilla's Jules Kounde and Villarreal's Pau Torres.
Looking at it, both Torres and Kounde are excellent ball progressors. It can be observed that Torres does it with his ball-carrying ability while Kounde just edges him in progressive distance via passes. It's fair to say either of them would slot in comfortably in United's defence and perform the role really well.
This viz shows the quantity of passes/carries -
This is where Maguire really comes into his own, and this can be validated both in stats and with the eye test. His ability to break the first opposition line with the ball at his feet and pass it into the likes of Rashford or Shaw or to any of the midfielders is one of his most underrated qualities and he is one of the best in Europe at it. However, we can once again see that Torres and Kounde significantly outperform the other United center-backs. Either of them would help Maguire immensely, as he wouldn't have to shoulder the responsibility to progress the ball alone.
Note: Both the visualizations above only use defenders, for a fair comparison.
Now let us look at their defensive metrics. It should be said, however, that judging a defender - especially a center-back - is probably one of the most difficult things to do using statistics. These numbers depend on a lot of factors, and should absolutely not be the sole metric for evaluating defenders. To make the numbers fair, I have used Statsbomb's definition to manually calculate Possession-adjusted (Padj) stats: Statsbomb: Introducing Possession-Adjusted Player Stats.
Maguire is pretty much United's best CB all things considered (given Bailly's stats will definitely be skewed due to him playing much lesser games than anyone else) and Pau Torres ranks bottom across almost all metrics. What this suggests is that Pau Torres is the "sweeper" in the Villarreal defence, and a quick look at his and Raul Albiol (his CB partner) validates this. Similarly, if we have a look at Kounde and Diego Carlos (his CB partner at Sevilla), it can be observed that Kounde is clearly the "aggressor" and Carlos is the "aggressor" in that partnership.
Verdict
Both Pau Torres and Jules Kounde are excellent & well-rounded center-backs and have great careers ahead of them. In my opinion, if United had to choose between signing either of them, Pau Torres edges it for me due to the following reasons -
- Left-footed - this is a big reason, as being left-footed allows Maguire to play as the right-sided center-back, and it allows United to exploit space and passing options better.
- Price - Torres is priced at £45m while Kounde at £54m according to Transfermarkt. With signings at other positions also quite important, saving an extra £15m-£25m could be crucial, I guess.
- Age - With Torres being 24 (as opposed to Kounde who is 22), he is entering the prime of his career and would slot straight into United's defence.
- Statsbomb
- FBRef.com
- Transfermarkt.co.uk
- Understat.com
- Whoscored.com
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