Liverpool have announced the £40m signing of AS Monaco man Fabinho, but how does he compare against N’Golo Kante and Nemanja Matic?
Those two players are among the best defensive midfielders in the Premier League, and the Reds are bringing in a man of similar quality.
Kante blew the competition away during his title winning run with Leicester City, while Matic has been a big player in the division since re-signing for Chelsea in 2014 from Benfica.
But can they keep up with the skills of the Brazilian, who has had another standout campaign in Ligue 1 for Monaco?
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For a star, the Brazilian blows his competition out of the water when it comes to areal duels won. If you want someone to impose themselves in the air, Fabinho is your man. He smashed 2.48 of them per game, while Kante won a poor 0.44 and Matic an improved 1.44.
Fabinho also puts in more blocks, which shows he can anticipate play well and responds accordingly. Again, Kante is the worst with just 0.12, Matic follows in with 0.31 while the new Liverpool man leads those charts on 0.35.
Surprisingly for a defensive midfielder, the ex-Monaco man is also good up at the other end of the pitch and scored six league goals last season. You wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Chelsea’s man hit the back of the net zero times while United’s blocker could only grab one.
But where Fabinho falls below the performance levels of the other two is with tackles and interceptions. Kante, who is a hero of a player, leads both these metrics. He won 2.21 per game, while Fabinho came in second with 1.81 and Matic third on 1.03.
In terms of interceptions, the Frenchman makes even more of these and leads the way with 2.41. Sadly, Matic is second on this ranking with 1.67 while the new Anfield kid can only managed 1.48.
So what does this tell us? Well, it says that he’s an excellent player who outranks two of the best performers in the league on a number of important aspects. At 24-years-old he still has time to improve as well and you can be sure that he’ll be up there come the end of the season.
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All of the stats were measured using this comparison matrix from Squawka and go off the 2017/2019 league campaign.