Over the past few days, there has been some transfer noise regarding Morgan Sanson from Marseille. Here is a lowdown and comparison of Sanson compared to Villa's current midfield.
Obviously he is no match for our skipper, Jack Grealish, but he could be filling the gap for Ross Barkley if we cannot get him on a permanent deal. I have some suspicion that Ross will be heading back to Chelsea, unless Frank Lampard gets the boot, then things could change.
Anyway, here are some stat comparisons on our grafting John McGinn, Sanson had a higher average in Goals and assists per 90mins (gls 0.21, Ast 0.17) to McGinn (Gls 0.12 ast 0.12). What’s interesting is McGinn covers more ground compared to Samson, He makes most of his in the Mid 3rd and Att 3rd whereas McGinn covers from def 3rd up to Att 3rd and McGinn’s Dribble success is 15.3% higher than Sanson last season. To finish off, Sanson’s Pass completion rate is 80.0% whereas McGinn is 75.6% last season.
Considering the European experience Sanson has, I think he would be a great addition if Barkley doesn’t stay, he also would be helpful for squad rotation and depth for the next month or two. I think personally if villa are going to succeed and stay in the top half of the table more depth is required for healthier rotation to keep the injury rate down.
Transfer news and national papers noise is currently quiet as of this morning hopefully some inquiries will start on Monday.
I also have asked around the Marseille fans thoughts, here is the thoughts of @MarseilleView on Twitter:
He was a promising young player when we signed him but has been not really progressed into top class midfielder. He is a box-to-box mid, has good pace and makes good runs across the pitch. At times though he does a lot of running and not much else that's very effective. He can hit a good pass but we don't see it too often. He is capable of contributing with goals and at times has shown nice shooting technique. His main flaws are a lack of consistency, in-game intelligence and physicality (he goes to ground far too easily and is a bit lightweight for a central midfielder). He does have quality and recent departures from Marseille like Ocampos or Zambo have shown that players who don't excel here can go on to succeed elsewhere (the pressure at Marseille is immense so its a very hard environment for most players to settle). He's certainly good enough for a mid-table PL team, definitely not top 6 though. Not sure if he's best suited to PL due to physical side of the game but he'll suit the pace of it.
(All Stat information is acquired from fbref.com).
James Pearce-Smith
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