Here’s our FPL new player profile Ferran Torres article where we focus on new Man City signing Ferran Torres. We look at his stats and assess his prospects for the new season.
FPL New Player Profile Ferran Torres of Manchester City
Ferran Torres is a 20 year old 1.84 metre Spanish Under 21 International who plays primarily as a right winger. He has been transferred from Valencia to Manchester City for £24.5m.
Despite his young age he’s played 97 times for Valencia and 6 times for the Spanish Under 21 side.
Manchester City Director of Football Txiki Begiristain:
“We have followed Ferran’s progress closely and have been very impressed.
“He is young and still developing, but his technical qualities are exactly what we are looking for in a winger. He is quick, direct, can create space with one movement and is capable of producing match-winning moments.
“I feel this is the perfect place for him to develop and with Pep in charge he can take his game to the next level.”
The Stats
Here’s Torres Stats from the last 3 seasons with Valencia:
I guess you could say they are consistent. Consistently very ordinary!
These stats would have put him 35th in my season end midfield player rankings article behind the likes of Doucoure, El Ghazi, Saint-Maximin and Ross Barkley. Hardly a vote of confidence. Whatever he was bringing to Valencia it certainly wasn’t goals and assists and some pretty ordinary underlying stats say that wasn’t bad luck.
Now there’s obviously a big difference between playing for a Valencia side that scored 46 goals in 38 games finishing 9th in the table than playing for a Man City side that finished 2nd in the table scoring over double that with 102 goals from the same amount of games.
Still he’s hardly like to feature significantly in the sports you can bet on markets when it comes to getting my anytime goal scoring odds for my ranking articles next season.
However despite my dismissive comments he apparently is widely regarded as one of Spains best young players so the transfer, especially at the price, represents something of a coup for Manchester City.
Playing style and position
Torres played 44 games in all competitions for Valencia this season with 36 of them on the right wing so you’ve got to assume that’s his natural position. His style is that of an assist based player who’s strength is in his dribbling. That dribbling will be useful for City in transition and breaking the press of opponents who have the temerity to do so.
His prospects
He will face fierce competition for his favoured position from Mahrez, Bernardo Silva and even Phil Foden all of whom played various amounts of games in the RW position. Pep did play 4-2-3-1 which gives additional attacking positions but it’s still going to be some task to break though into the team this season.
Any player with Pep faces gametime doubts even if it is for only rest related rotation. Given the competition for his favoured position and his age I can see him being eased into the team and being a squad player used mainly in the domestic cups and easier Champions League games rather than a serious Premier League starter. For that reason he is at best a wait and see player rather than someone I would think will be a starter in our fantasy premier league teams come GW1 September 12.
Interestingly, according to a report Guardiola has already been annoyed with Torres after the player criticised his former club for letting him go. It’s reported that Guardiola thought the player should be looking forward and concentrating on his Manchester City career rather than looking back and getting involved in a spat with his former club. Although fairly trivial, I can’t imagine this has enhanced his new season prospects.
I’d personally be surprised if he comes anywhere near my GW1 team.
