Thread: David Alaba’s rumoured move to Chelsea FC

There are currently strong links with David Alaba to join Chelsea after his agent has opened talks with Chelsea over the move for his client in January for a free transfer. Let’s analyse the player...

In this thread I’ll talk about:
-Attributes Alaba possesses
-Attributes Alaba needs to improve on
-How he’ll fit at Chelsea
-My opinion

Attributes Alaba possesses:
Let’s start with Alaba’s best attribute and that’s his ability on the ball. Last season Alaba had a passing accuracy of 91%. His short passes stood at 94% and his long passing stands at 80%. He also completed 8 progressive passes P90.

Compare that to VVD’s 4 last season and Silva’s 5 and you can see he is a serious ball playing CB. Alaba passes with great weight on the ball. Every pass there’s a purpose behind it. Not to mention his range of passing is crazy good as well. He’s no doubt T5 in this aspect itw.

He also has a fantastic first touch on him which I think is an extremely underrated attribute in a CB. He only miscontrols only 0.32 times P90 and gets dispossessed 0.14 P90. He’s clearly very comfortable when building out the back. He’s also very fast. He can cover space well.

He’s also a good player when coming up against 1v1 type players. He uses his pace and power very well in 1v1s and can anticipate the movement of the opposition player. We also have to mention how versatile Alaba is. He can play both LCB and LB as well as DM. Very useful.

It’s also important to mention his experience in the game. Alaba has play in massive CL games as well as winning the competition twice. He is a winner no doubt and knows how it feels like. We’ve seen how important it is with Silva as well and having Alaba we get more of it.

Alaba is also a great free kick taker. He shows great power in his freekick as well. It’s been a while since we’ve had a player who you can back to score direct free kicks since Alonso took it consistently. He’s also a great dictator when playing out the back. Almost like Silva.

One last one is that he’s a very good dribbler. He loves to dribble the ball forward and even go on runs with it to help progress the team forward.

Attributes Alaba needs to improve on:
For me most of Alaba’s defensive attributes are in need of improving. It’s very poor for someone labelled a “world class defender”. He has moments where he lacks in concentration a lot. These can be cutting a passing lane to stop a goal.

It can also be something like losing his man. When playing deep he tends to make more of theses mistakes because it requires him to think more with more runs to track and more balls to get rid of for example. It’s definitely concerning.

He also does ball watch A LOT. Like I mentioned before he doesn’t track his runner because he ball watches so much. For someone who is so experienced he does it a lot. It is also down to his poor positional awareness.

Alaba isn’t a player that is good in the air as well. He won 44.9% of his aerial in the Bundesliga last season and this season he’s won 62.5% whilst Thiago Silva has 66.7% in the PL this season.

Alaba is also VERY limited with his right foot. He uses his left foot pretty much all the time and even when he should clearly use his right, he uses his left. This makes him predictable.

How he’ll fit at Chelsea:
Alaba can play as a LCB at Chelsea. He has great ball playing ability and would be unreal with Silva in build up although his defensive side of the game will be a massive target. He will have the pace to cover space but not defensive intelligence.

He can also fill in at LB. His best position is probably LCB but at LB he does all the things we need him to do at LB. Perfect player to give Chilwell competition or even play over him. Will suit our system as well and will allow us to sell Emerson and Alonso.

Seen a few people mention Alaba at DM and for me he isn’t a good one. Lacks positional awareness and a massive decline from Kante. He does want to play in the midfield so this could be a possibility but I’m not a fan personally.

My opinion:
For me this transfer is a must but we should try and avoid giving him a massive contract to avoid ruining our financial structure. He is demanding a lot of money and if we are going to give it to him we should give him a big joining fee rather than the contract.

This is so it doesn’t affect future negotiations with players over contracts. Talking about the player now, I think he’s a great player that’s been VERY off form this season. He seems very unlike himself on the ball at times. Just his weight of pass seems off.

Not to mention how poor he’s been defensively. This could may well be the contract situation playing on his mind. He is a player with real quality and adds much needed defensive depth. He shouldn’t be THE CB we are after for the next 3-5 years. We need another one.

Overall it’s a signing that should get done if possible. Very good player once his head is in the right place and could brings us closer to the title. Get it done!

End of thread!

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