Manchester United defender Harry Maguire is almost as good as Liverpool centre-back Virgil van Dijk despite his disappointing start to the season, according to a recent study.
The England international has only made five appearances for Erik ten Hag‘s side so far this campaign, starting for the Reds on three occasions. He has been dropped to the bench in recent weeks with Lisandro Martinez and Raphael Varaneforming a solid partnership at the heart of defence.
Esports and sports betting platform Midnite compared all the defenders at the ‘big six’ clubs since the start of their Premier League careers and unveiled some interesting findings.
According to their research, Martinez only wins 50% of his tackles, Varane has the fourth worst interceptions per game, while Maguire is still ‘one of the best’.
It also states that despite coming under intense scrutiny, Maguire’s defensive statistics are just as good as Van Dijk’s, who is widely regarded as the best centre-back in the world.
The study found that Van Dijk has made 206 tackles with a 69% success rate in his 202 Premier League appearances, making 221 interceptions. However, Maguire – in four games more – made 254 tackles, with an almost identical success rate of 67%.
MARTINEZ
- Lisandro Martinez has the following offensive skills. He has 1 goals and a total of 0 shots on goals. This results in a goal conversion rate of 20%. He had a total of 4 big chances.
- Lisandro Martinez has a total of 0 assists, 16key passes and he created a total of 6 chances.
- Another important metric to measure the players performance is the pass completion rate in general and more importantly the pass completion rate into the opponents box – because this is where most goals are made.
- Lisandro Martinez has a pass completion rate of 38% for passes into the box.
- Expected goals, expected goal build up and expected goal chain value are only visible to our logged in users.
- Lisandro Martinez has a total of 15 blocks, 71aerial duels and a total number of 68 tackles.
