Who should Liverpool sign? Kalidou Koulibaly vs Diego Carlos

Koulibaly vs Carlos

Liverpool fans will be well aware of the quality that Koulibaly possesses. In fact I would go as far to say he is the only defender I’ve ever seen Salah struggle against. His raw pace and power make him physically dominant but it’s his aggressive style that really gets to many attackers.

Diego Carlos compares very favourably in this aspect though. Despite being slightly smaller in stature than the Senegalese powerhouse, he is remarkably strong and eats up ground to make recovery challenges on a regular basis.

One area that the Brazilian actually surpasses Koulibaly though is his ability on the ball. Diego Carlos is a Rolls Royce of a defender who can carry the ball or pick out incisive forward passes, whereas Koulibaly is much more traditional in that he’ll look to either clear his lines or pick a simple pass out.

According to WhoScored, Diego Carlos has a 82.3% pass completion rate averaging 4.3 long balls per game, compared to Koulibaly who has 87.6% pass completion rate and averages 4.5 long balls per game. This is reflective of how much more ambitious Diego Carlos is in possession whilst Koulibaly is more likely to play it safe or go long.

Both players excel especially at aerial duels. Although Carlos doesn’t thrive on the physical battles quite so much as Koulibaly, he surprisingly comes out ahead statistically in this area. Again looking to WhoScored for the figures, Koulibaly wins an average of 2.3 aerial duels per game, whereas Diego Carlos wins a slightly higher average of 2.7 aerial duels per game.