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It is no secret that Manchester United are in the market for a holding midfielder this summer.
Their priority appeared to be Paris Saint-Germain’s Manuel Ugarte, but the €70 million asking price has put off the Red Devils, who have turned their attention to other stars.
According to reports, Burnley’s Sander Berge, AS Monaco’s Youssouf Fofana and Nottingham Forest’s Danilo are all on the shortlist of potential reinforcements.
If reports are correct, the cheapest option is Fofana at £21 million, followed by Berge at £30m, Danilo at £34 million and Ugarte bringing up the rear at £60 million.
But how do four players compare in terms of different aspects of the game? A comparison (via fbref.com) yields interesting results.
First, arguably the most important metric for a defensive midfielder, tackling, shows a clear winner – Berge.
His tackle winning ratio is 58.6%, more than 10% higher than the next best, Ugarte, who posts similar stats to the other two. However, Ugarte attempts twice as many tackles as Berge (4.55 tackles per game vs 2.27), suggesting that Berge is more conservative and tends to go in for those he has more chance of winning.
Despite this, Berge has easily the worst disciplinary record of the quartet, with 10 yellow cards in 2023/24 – double Ugarte’s number, although having played 50% more matches – and one red.
Ugarte was the best of the four in terms of interceptions last season at 1.86 per game, followed by Danilo at 1.75 per game, Fofana at 1.23 per game and Berge at a measly 0.69 per game.
Unsurprisingly, 6ft 5in Berge attempted far more aerial duels than the others (64 vs 14, 17 and 14), but surprisingly, his success rate was second best to Danilo, with all four players posting similar results.
The best passer of the four last season was Ugarte, whose pass completion rate was an incredible 91.2%. Second was Berge with 88.1, third Fofana with 81.2 and Danilo last with 77.7.
Fofana has the best attacking stats of the four. He scored four goals last season, with an xG of 5. The next highest was Berge on 1.8. Fofana also had the best assist rate. Ugarte very rarely joined the attack at PSG and did not score a single goal all season, although he did provide two assists.
Fofana also led the way for goal creating actions, with 0.33 per 90, with the other three all around 0.2.
Taking the stats overall, Fofana is probably the strongest all-rounder but in terms of pure defence, Berge’s stats hold up well against those of Ugarte and it is easy to see why United are considering the Norwegian as a like-for-like alternative to the Uruguayan.
However, the added height offered by Berge did not result in better aerial dominance and his lack of interceptions and disciplinary figures may be cause for concern.
At 26, Berge is also the oldest of the four, with Fofana the next oldest at 25 and the others both 23. That could allow more room for improvement in Danilo and Ugarte.
When matching the stats against the price point, Fofana must come out of the analysis as easily the best value for money, but whether he has quite the profile required by United remains to be seen.
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