Alvaro Negredo is a 27 year old 6 foot 1 inch Spanish International striker who has joined Man City from Sevilla for £20m subject to a medical.

Background

Alvaro Negredo has spent the last 4 seasons in the Primera Liga with Sevilla where he has been a consistent scorer.  Last season he was the top scoring Spaniard in La Liga with 25 goals and 4th top scorer overall behind Messi, Ronaldo and Falcao in a Sevilla team that finished 9th and scored half the goals that Barca did.  For 2 seasons prior to that he played for UD Almeria  where again he hada reasonable scoring record.

Nothing particulalry revealing in the quotes on signing just the usual stuff:

“I am happy to go to a big team.”

 He said: “I am happy to be spending another year with him.” ((Jesus Navas)

Sevilla president Jose Maria del Nido….said: “Manchester City are buying a great player, the top-scoring Spaniard in La Liga. This is a big deal for Sevilla….  and the player will sign the contract of his life.

“Everyone should be happy; it is a great deal for all three parties.”

Although the player is coming in after Tevez has left he’s not a similar type of player.  If anything he’s more like Dzeko in that he plays further up the pitch, holding the ball up rather than coming to it and is a finisher.  With his height he’s good in the air.  Interestingly he is left footed.

Stats  

 In the Champions league and the Europa League he played 17 times in the last 3 seasons for Sevilla scoring twice with 4 assists.  For Spain he has played 14 times over the last 5 seasons although many as sub (he’s only ammassed 586 minutes) and scored twice with no assists

Fantasy premier league perspective

Lets start with game time and position.  Its a little early in pre-season and City are without a number of key players at this stage to assess what formation and where if at all Negredo will play unfortunately.  Historically Pellegrini seems to have played a version of 4-4-2 which has been described as 4-2-2-2 with the 2 behind the strikers going out as necessary but the width provided by the full backs.  However,  there is obvious speculation that the Sporting Director ex Barcelona man Txiki Begiristain sees the club playing 4-3-3 in the Barca style.  Certainly Rodwells comments in the press that Pellegrini has them pressing high up the pitch ala Barca gives some credence to that.  If Pellegrini plays 2 strikers though or even 3 in a front 3 then depending on price Negredo has value potential

In my mind given Aguero’s quality (I believe last year was a blip)  he will definitely start and it’s just a matter of where Jovetic, Silva and Navas start.  Would Silva play on the left of the front 3 or would Negredo.  If there are 2 strikers would this be Jovetic or Negredo.  At the moment I dont think there’s enugh data to be sure of this question.  I’ll be watching City intently in pre-season.

What about his goal scoring record?  25 goals in La Liga is undoubtedly impressive.  His ratio of assists to goals is far less than the elite strikers such as Suarez or RVP but this does seem to be a consequence of playing in teams lower down the table. 

However his goal and assist return per minute still is pretty healthy.  Negredos last season was a return every 100 minutes (nearly every game obiously)  RVP’s last year was a return every 80 minutes.  Aguero did the same in the previous season although fell back to every 130 minutes last season.  Dzeko was every 91 minutes last season despite having a missing chances reputation.  Benteke was every 129 minutes.

An interesting www.whoscored.com blog made some interesting observations about him. In summary the points made were that his goal to shot conversion rate was poor compared to the elite strikers, he was prone to dry spells, he missed more big chances than any other player in Europs top 5 leagues last year and 60% of his goals last year came in the last 12 matches.  However 25 goals and returns per minutes are facts (look at Dzeko who would probably have similar stats but an excellent return ratio).  Some times this reults from a striker who takes  a lot of shots like Negredo.  Additionally strikers who shot from far out or are reliant on headers or both have these stats.  Its not clear if he’s affected by these mitigating factors.  However, the missing of clear cut chances though is worrying and does put you in to Giroud type country.

City have good fixtures to start and Ive ranked them as having the 2nd best opening 6 fixtures.  Here they are:

Newcastle H,  Cardiff A,  Hull H,  Stoke A,  Man Utd H, Aston Villa A

Given those fixtures some sort of City coverage is absolutely essenbtial in my mind.  Aguero is definitely the low risk but expensive bet at £11.0m.  Silva at the moment is the higher risk value bet at £9.0m where you are gambling that he will be back to his previous season best under a more attacking coach. Negredo’s value in amongst this is going to be crucial when we get a sense more of his position and game time prospects

Summary

Here we go in Summary.  Impressive scoring record and despite a ratio of goals to assists that is lower than ideal average, returns per minute were good last year.  Game tome and positional prospects need more pre-season studying.  He does have some stat issues though which are a little worrying.  No price as yet which will be crucial to the more established players like Aguero or Silva. 

I’ll be looking more at City in pre-season but his price and game time prospects will have to be good value to go past the established players of Aguero and Silva for him to be in my GW1 team.  However 1 City player definitely will be in it.

follow me on twitter @fantasyfoot20 or facebook  www.facebook.com/fantasyfootballgeek

stats from www.trasfermarkt.co.uk

Negredo article:  http://www.whoscored.com/Blog/i8si0a95f0ew8tcumd6nkg/Show/Player-Focus-Is-Alvaro-Negredo-the-Right-Calibre-for-City