Fantasy premier league players to pick – New player profile – Ander Herrera

Manchester United have signed the 24 year old Spanish midfielder Ander Herrera for £29m from Atletico Bilbao after triggering his buy out clause

Fantasy premier league players to pick – New player profile – Ander Herrera

Background

Manchester United’s central midfield problems have been as well publicised as Chelsea’s lack of a striker.  Signing Fellaini last season didn’t solve the problems.  They have been linked with Vidal, Kroos and Fabregas unsuccessfully.  However, United have now triggered the buy out clause of the 24 year old 6 foot Spanish midfielder Ander Herrera.  The player was on the fringe of World Cup selection but ultimately not selected.

Of the United CMs, Michael Carrick had a poor season compared to previous seasons.  Cleverly and Fellaini were hardly a success either and Fletcher was injured for the vast majority of the season.

Herrara isn’t yet up to the quality of Kroos, Vidal or Fabregas who have been linked with United but he does have the potential to improve.  Improving young players is Van Gaal’s speciality.

Here’s his stats:

In the Europa League he’s played 17 games with 2 goals and 3 assists.  He’s yet to play for the full Spanish team but has played 15 games for the under 21 team and 5 games for the under 23’s scoring 4 goals in total.

Overall in the league games hes returned a goal or assist every 400 minutes approximately.  Thats a goal or assist every 4.5 games assuming 90 minutes which is hardly inspiring.  Last year he was better than his overall average although he primarily played as a number 10.  Here he scored a goal or assist approximately every 230 minutes or 2.5 games.  Considering he played as a number 10 primarily thats not very impressive.  Ramsey for example returned a goal or assist every 90 minutes approximately last season.   His yellow card record is pretty poor.  Last season it was a YC every 4.7 games.  His career ratio though is worse at 1 every 3.5 games.  If he did his career average over the season that would mean 11 YCs and could mean a suspension depending on timings.

Fantasy premier league perspective

Gametime wise he should be fairly safe given the problems in central midfield this season for United.  As I said earlier, neither Carrick, Fellaini or Cleverly have covered themselves in glory last season.  I expect him to line up from the beginning of the season.

Given that United have Rooney, Kagawa and Mata its unlikely he will play as a number 10.  More likely he will play in the double pivot 2 of 4-2-3-1 or in the midfield 3 of 4-3-3. Thats not the end of the world given the form of Ramsey and Yaya Toure from this position this season.  They have played box to box roles sucessfully from a fantasy premier league perspective.  However there’s nothing in Herreras scoring and assist record that would suggest that he can become a goal scoring central midfielder.

In terms of formation it’s possible that Van Gaal could use the 3-5-2 or 3-4-1-2 system as it’s sometimes called.  This seems unlikely given it’s a fix for the situation in the World Cup rather than a typical Van Gaal formation.  In addition CB’s are hardly Uniteds strong area at the moment.

In terms of key passes per game, tackles per game  and assists last season  he’s way ahead of any of the midfield competition above at United.  In fact his 5 assists were more than the above 3 midfielders and Fletcher added together.

His best attributes seem to be his ability to create chances and his tackling.  That again points him towards the double pivot in 4-2-3-1 or the midfiled 3 of 4-3-3.

Its possible he could get licence to go forward if Carrick becomes the sitting midfielder.  This could give him some goal scoring potential but it’s not something has any data to back it up that screams out for him to become a starter for GW1.

I’ve yet to do a fixture ease schedule for the new season but the United schedule is certainly very kind.  Here’s their first 6 fixtures:

August 16: Swansea (H)
August 23: Sunderland (A)
August 30: Burnley (A)
September 13: Queens Park Rangers (H)
September 20: Leicester City (A)
September 27: West Ham (H)

So if there is any potential, establishing it in the pre-season is important.  We’ll be monitoring the pre-season games of the premier league teams.

Summary

• Gametime should be secure given Man Utd’s midfield issues last season
• More likely to play as a CM rather than an AM due to existing United players
• Pretty ordinary goal scoring and assist record
• Monitor position and scoring potential in preseason as United have an easy start so important to establish potential

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Fantasy premier league players to pick

Fantasy premier league players to pick

Stats from transfermarkt.com