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Amad Diallo Ivory Coast flag

2024-25 Performances


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6.0 Season Average Rating
Appearances
19
Goals
3
Assists
5
Yellow cards
1
Always fit, can play multiple positions. He should stay.

Good teams have players like him.

Who are you comparing him to?

His availability and positional fluidity shouldn't be the primary reason he gets to be a starter, the quality he brings to the table should be the main determining factor.

Dalot is an average player who has coasted in this United team for a number of seasons now because somehow the club and the fanbase do not believe we can do better.
 
What was the 2nd time?
That depends on what you think was the 1st. ;)

Not sure I can describe it prooerly or remember which was first, but there were at least two times I noticed Amad forgot to fall back early enough, and we were badly exposed behind Mazraoui. One was before One of Onana’s supersaves, the other (which I think was earlier) petered out without a finish, but was a matter of a metre or so before it became a huge chance for them.

Still, not shabby for a kid doing his denut as WB.
 
You must have missed the first goal

I think he will convince the manager to use him in AM, but he showed that he can play wingback very well with his pace, dribbling and found a good cross for Rashford to finish. These are some of his best attributes

Playing further forward and inside will enable him to start his attacks further up the pitch than he did for the first goal and be more of a threat to the opposition keeper. But he was fantastic at wingback as well.

"Fantastic" is a bit of a stretch. He wasn't able to run up and down, constantly owning that flank, due to physical limitation. He spent majority of his time defending than attacking, which is a waste of his most excelled attributes. ANd the worse thing is, he played there to accommodate a lesser attacker.

But anyway, probably that's where he'll be. And I don't really care, if it means the attack will progress smoothly.
 
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These stats can be misleading , as clearances are no good to us for a player like Diallo , sky sports put up his touch map in or around the 70th minute . He had 6 touches in the opposition half which is of zero benefit to us.
He was just filling in I guess , I can’t see him playing that position unless for rotation / injury purposes
 


A winger which follows the LB is how Amorim sees his RWB. Thats not too different from normal Winger.
 
Really hope we tie him down to a long contract soon. It's a bit worrying that he only has this season and a one year option left.
 


A winger which follows the LB is how Amorim sees his RWB. Thats not too different from normal Winger.

This would hold true if we were able to dominate possession and spend most of the game in the opposition’s half. However, in the last match, he often dropped deeper than Casemiro and Eriksen, essentially operating as a right-back for significant portions of the game.
 
Watching the game I was just wondering what Amad will be doing getting the ball in the areas Zirkzee, Garnacho etc did, he simply can't play wing back. He'll activate our attack playing in that right half space role.
Very few players are quick, very good dribblers, passers, intelligent and ball strikers.
Teams usually play them as the main man in the team. He's easily our most gifted forward.
 
It's not so much the key passes, which I expect Amad will do very well when he gets in the right positions. More just the normal progressive passing that helps the team move forward and get on the front foot rather than back to the central defenders. Nothing wrong with passing it back when needed, but against Ipswich it definitely happened too often IMO. Perhaps that was due to teammates not making themselves available (it's a bit hard to tell sometimes on television), but at the time it felt like Amad was just playing too safe a lot of the time.

Ultimately, if Amad is going to play that role regularly, the two things that I definitely want to improve is him progressing the ball better (whether through passing or carrying it) and he himself getting into attacking positions more often. Considering this was the first ever time he's played that position and the first time the team has played that formation, it's something that could easily just improve with time. But right now I tend to think both he and the team would be better off with him closer to the opposition goal in one of the #10's.

I think you're being too harsh on Amad there and it's more to do with the bolded. In the first half, both wide CBs in Mazraoui and Evans were sat far too deep and narrow. Mazraoui obviously had a good game and improved much better in the second half but Amad was often receiving the ball in his own half with the Ipswich players pressing him high; Dalot's was in the same shoe on the other side. Positionally (when receiving the ball) he was closer to a full back, which make sense seeing he was RWB. However most of the game Eriksen, Casemiro and Bruno were rarely seen in the middle of the pitch so you can't really expect Amad to receive the ball way behind the halfway line and then front up an opposition player and 'progress' either with dribbling, which would be very risky or passing with little passing options. I think he was conservative with his passing out of necessity. It's also damned if you do and damned if you don't because Amad recognised we had difficulty building from the back so he gave Mazraoui an easy passing angle every single time. He could have 'easily' sat high and wide but 1) Amorim didn't want this and 2) it would have been to the detriment of the team.
 
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"Fantastic" is a bit of a stretch. He wasn't able to run up and down, constantly owning that flank, due to physical limitation. He spent majority of his time defending than attacking, which is a waste of his most excelled attributes. ANd the worse thing is, he played there to accommodate a lesser attacker.

But anyway, probably that's where he'll be. And I don't really care, if it means the attack will progress smoothly.

Amad had 2 key passes and 2 successful dribbles in 90 mins against Ipswich

The much hyped up Frimpong, when he was actually playing well last season, which he isnt really this season had

1.8 key passes and 2.3 dribbles on average per 90 mins

This season he has 1.5 key passes and 1.3 successful dribbles per 90 mins
 
I think you're being too harsh on Amad there and it's more to do with the bolded. In the first half, both wide CBs in Mazraoui and Evans were sat far too deep and narrow. Mazraoui obviously had a good game and improved much better in the second half but Amad was often receiving the ball in his own half with the Ipswich players pressing him high; Dalot's was in the same shoe on the other side. Positionally (when receiving the ball) he was closer to a full back, which make sense seeing he was RWB. However most of the game Eriksen, Casemiro and Bruno were rarely seen in the middle of the pitch so you can't really expect Amad to receive the ball way behind the halfway line and then front up an opposition player and 'progress' either with dribbling, which would be very risky or passing with little passing options. I think he was conservative with his passing out of necessity. It's also damned if you do and damned if you don't because Amad recognised we had difficulty building from the back so he gave Mazraoui an easy passing angle every single time. He could have 'easily' sat high and wide but 1) Amorim didn't want this and 2) it would have been to the detriment of the team.
It's definitely possible, and in fact I expect it was a contributing factor. But Dalot actually did manage to progress the ball quite a bit in the first half, sometimes just with a pass and other times by carrying it past one player and opening space to then pass into. He actually seemed to be our outball while Amad, De Ligt, Evans and to a slightly lesser extent Mazraoui mostly just passed it sideways to each other until it got to Dalot on the left. That's kind of what I'm expecting whoever plays as our wingbacks to do as a bare minimum as things settle into place.

Of course, perhaps Dalot did have options to pass to while Amad didn't (due to either our players on that side not moving as well or the opposition players on that side covering better). In the second half Dalot didn't seem to be able to do it either.
 
It's definitely possible, and in fact I expect it was a contributing factor. But Dalot actually did manage to progress the ball quite a bit in the first half, sometimes just with a pass and other times by carrying it past one player and opening space to then pass into. He actually seemed to be our outball while Amad, De Ligt, Evans and to a slightly lesser extent Mazraoui mostly just passed it sideways to each other until it got to Dalot on the left. That's kind of what I'm expecting whoever plays as our wingbacks to do as a bare minimum as things settle into place.

Of course, perhaps Dalot did have options to pass to while Amad didn't (due to either our players on that side not moving as well or the opposition players on that side covering better). In the second half Dalot didn't seem to be able to do it either.

I'm hoping this will all change when we play with more mobile CMs and CBs who are more comfortable on the ball. It was driving me nuts the way we seemed completely incapable of getting it to our midfielders other than via the wingbacks. When your build up play is that predictable it's always going to get shut down once the opposition figure out what you're doing.
 
This would hold true if we were able to dominate possession and spend most of the game in the opposition’s half. However, in the last match, he often dropped deeper than Casemiro and Eriksen, essentially operating as a right-back for significant portions of the game.
I think the last match can’t be the template for how Amorim wants us to play. He needs to start somewhere, and defensive structure is the normal place to start when rearranging a team’s play. So this was what Amad looked like as a beginner WB in a team with defensive structure as main focus and two days of training.

I’m very interested to see what Amad could do in the no 10 role, by the way, but also interested in how he could function in an Amorim style WB position. I think what we saw on Sunday is just 10% of that, after all.
 
Best player on the pitch alongside Onana. Just appreciate the fact that we do have 2 talented young wingers. Yes they aren't perfect but Garnacho carried us last season and so far Diallo is playing great. Excited to see both of them develop further and we'll see how well Antony/Dalot can play as a backup in this role to judge whether Amad is better as a no 10.
 
I personally think he's a little bit wasted at RWB. Because he will spend a significant portion of the game (especially against good opposition) at the RB position, which isn't his strong suit and he's not a danger to the opposition either. It might work against lesser teams that sit back, for purposes of overloading, but it could still backfire on the counter attack.

I think one of Mazraoui or Dalot is better suited to provide the width down the right. And that Amad should be fighting with Bruno for one of the two spots behind the striker, with Garna and Mount fighting for the other one. I eventually see him taking over from Bruno, if he continues developing at this pace.
 
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Best player on the pitch alongside Onana. Just appreciate the fact that we do have 2 talented young wingers. Yes they aren't perfect but Garnacho carried us last season and so far Diallo is playing great. Excited to see both of them develop further and we'll see how well Antony/Dalot can play as a backup in this role to judge whether Amad is better as a no 10.
Garnacho is really not all that. Some of you guys need to give your head a wobble.
 
His first touch in the opposition box was the assist, his 2nd and 3rd/final were in the 92nd minute. He went a full 90 minutes without touching the ball in the opposition box.

Playing him at wingback is a hate crime. He doesn't have the legs to get up and down the line like that, which means his time in the areas he's actually good at is totally non-existent. I thought he actually did an admirable job given his limitations, but to describe his performance as anything other than "diligent at best" is not being able to see the wood for the trees.

Get him back behind the striker.
 
For some reason, I just thought about a skillful attacking player that often played as a wingback. Cuadrado.
 
His first touch in the opposition box was the assist, his 2nd and 3rd/final were in the 92nd minute. He went a full 90 minutes without touching the ball in the opposition box.

Playing him at wingback is a hate crime. He doesn't have the legs to get up and down the line like that, which means his time in the areas he's actually good at is totally non-existent. I thought he actually did an admirable job given his limitations, but to describe his performance as anything other than "diligent at best" is not being able to see the wood for the trees.

Get him back behind the striker.

I don't understand why people are saying this? How many additional touches in the box do you think he would have got otherwise?

Diallo is one of our better players out wide, when the ball is played to feet, he holds it well and makes a good decision generally.

He got an assist from wing back, so this wasted theory is nonsense.

We barely got to their box as a team, so him being behind the striker would make no difference until we can build up properly as a team.

How many touches was he getting in the box when he was playing RW?
 
I don't understand why people are saying this? How many additional touches in the box do you think he would have got otherwise?

Diallo is one of our better players out wide, when the ball is played to feet, he holds it well and makes a good decision generally.

He got an assist from wing back, so this wasted theory is nonsense.

We barely got to their box as a team, so him being behind the striker would make no difference until we can build up properly as a team.

How many touches was he getting in the box when he was playing RW?
I mean this is easy enough to google for you. He had 3x as many in the Leicester and Southampton games this season, 4x as many vs PAOK. Vs Brighton he only had one more, but more than half of his touches where in the opponents half, compared to only 22% in this game.

And I'm sorry, but one assist in the first 90 seconds of the game and then nothing for 91 minutes isn't making good use of him. It's not a theory, he was wasted. Having our best close quarters dribbler and one of our better passers in between the lines at rightback all game (which is where he actually was) is one of the reasons we struggled to get into the box. He's one of our better players out wide in the opposition 3rd, but we basically never got him there.

This is the area Amad is at his most dangerous, look at how many times he managed to get there and play a pass. Compare that to Leicester. We actually had only 3 fewer touchers in the opposition box vs Ipswich than Leicester, but Amad made up 47% of our touches in the opposition box vs Leicester vs 21% vs Ipswich.

Do you understand now?
 
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For some reason, I just thought about a skillful attacking player that often played as a wingback. Cuadrado.
Cuadrado was an extremely powerful athlete, Amad is nippy and very difficult to knock off the ball but he's not a man you want making box to box sprints all game.
 
I mean this is easy enough to google for you. He had 3x as many in the Leicester and Southampton games this season, 4x as many vs PAOK. Vs Brighton he only had one more, but more than half of his touches where in the opponents half, compared to only 22% in this game.

And I'm sorry, but one assist in the first 90 seconds of the game and then nothing for 91 minutes isn't making good use of him. It's not a theory, he was wasted. Having our best close quarters dribbler and one of our better passers in between the lines at rightback all game (which is where he actually was) is one of the reasons we struggled to get into the box. He's one of our better players out wide in the opposition 3rd, but we basically never got him there.

Do you understand now?

I have just checked... Leicester he had 5 touches.. Ipswich 3 and Southampton 9. 3 against Brighton and 3 against Fulham. He actually got the most touches he has had this season in this game. So I am not sure where you are getting your stats from.

https://www.statmuse.com/fc/player/amad-diallo-309/game-log

No.. we have played Amad Diallo in alot of games this season and we have continuously failed to get into the opposition third.

Your logic... he has 3 more touches in the area in a few games so playing in RW is wasting him and a hate crime... Acting as if he is been told to play CB.
 
I have just checked... Leicester he had 5 touches.. Ipswich 3 and Southampton 9. 3 against Brighton and 3 against Fulham. He actually got the most touches he has had this season in this game. So I am not sure where you are getting your stats from.

https://www.statmuse.com/fc/player/amad-diallo-309/game-log

No.. we have played Amad Diallo in alot of games this season and we have continuously failed to get into the opposition third.

Your logic... he has 3 more touches in the area in a few games so playing in RW is wasting him and a hate crime... Acting as if he is been told to play CB.
I have no idea where "statmuse" get's their stats from but whoscored literally have an event map

wkyEx01.png

You can have a look yourself and see how realistic 5 looks...

He actually got the most touches he has had this season in this game.
I mean look at where they were compared to the Leicester game and tell me if you think him having all those touches there is a good thing or not.

jLCAoVg.png



Even if you want to use statsmuse, he averages a touch in the box every 11 minutes in the league this season prior to Ipswich, and a touch every 30 minutes vs Ipswich. He's was seeing 3x less of the ball in the box than he usually does.
 
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I have no idea where "statmuse" get's their stats from but whoscored literally have an event map

wkyEx01.png

You can have a look yourself and see how realistic 5 looks...


I mean look at where they were compared to the Leicester game and tell me if you think him having all those touches there is a good thing or not.

jLCAoVg.png
You have to account for laughably bad Leicester were against us as well.

My take is this:
  • It's one bloody game under the new manager. Implementing a system takes time. If gifted players are willing to put in a shift to help with that transition then it's a positive, not a negative.
  • With Casemiro and Eriksen being old farts, in a hotly contested away game like that, we clearly struggled to build up play as we've done all season in these sort of games and I saw Amad - arguable the most technically gifted player we have aside from Mainoo - dropping deep in wide areas as a decent outlet. It doesnt' mean that his position forever, but I thought in the circumstances it helped us.
  • For all we know, putting him in the front three might have seen him terribly isolated - maybe the manager will try that soon and we'll see.
  • All in all, I thought he had a very good game - taking attacking and defensive aspects into account. The other wing was where we struggled much more.
 
You have to account for laughably bad Leicester were against us as well.

My take is this:
  • It's one bloody game under the new manager. Implementing a system takes time. If gifted players are willing to put in a shift to help with that transition then it's a positive, not a negative.
  • With Casemiro and Eriksen being old farts, in a hotly contested away game like that, we clearly struggled to build up play as we've done all season in these sort of games and I saw Amad - arguable the most technically gifted player we have aside from Mainoo - dropping deep in wide areas as a decent outlet. It doesnt' mean that his position forever, but I thought in the circumstances it helped us.
  • For all we know, putting him in the front three might have seen him terribly isolated - maybe the manager will try that soon and we'll see.
  • All in all, I thought he had a very good game - taking attacking and defensive aspects into account. The other wing was where we struggled much more.
Amad's numbers vs Leicester were in no way an outlier though, it's about bang average of where he's been all season regardless of the strength of the opposition. So I'm not sure you can claim that as the reason.

I thought our buildup was completely dreadful in honesty, Amad was tidy, but didn't really contribute much in getting into the opposition half. .

Given how much of the ball Garnancho had in the final 3rd I find the isolation argument extremely unlikely. Plus, better Amad be isolated up top where he can hurt teams occasionally than being left 1v1 with the winger where if it wasn't for a wonder save (and a bit of a shit finish) from Onana we'd have conceded.

I can forgive it as a purely "we had nobody fit to start in that position because of all of our injuries/international duty" choice, because I counted 8 players who would probably have been a better fit in the back 5 not fit to start, but people spinning this as a generally good thing or something we should be viewing as a potential option for anything other than absolute worse case scenario are sniffing too much glue.

His assist was good, but it's also not a coincidence it happened before he'd actually had to track back so was still high up the pitch. He didn't make another meaningful impact until we threw everyone forward in stoppage time to try and score.

Obviously it's his first match and you can't really draw anything from it, and I'm not opposed to having an attacking player play in that position. But that shouldn't be Amad, literally anyone else but him.
 
I mean look at where they were compared to the Leicester game and tell me if you think him having all those touches there is a good thing or not.

I think its a good thing. It shows that we are playing a system actually.

when you look at the Leicester heat map, it doesn't really show what position he is playing.

I would rather see players get touches in the positions they play
 
Cuadrado was an extremely powerful athlete, Amad is nippy and very difficult to knock off the ball but he's not a man you want making box to box sprints all game.

Cuadrado wasn't powerful, he was skinny and fairly easy to push around, though he was feisty. But my comment was solely about a very skillful player that plays wingback.
 
Cuadrado wasn't powerful, he was skinny and fairly easy to push around, though he was feisty. But my comment was solely about a very skillful player that plays wingback.
As a general point on skilful wingbacks - Cuadrado is a great example. Marcelo, maybe? Depends how loose you are with the difference between a wingback and a fullback.

On Amad specifically — I think he’s too good in tight spaces and on the half turn to waste in a wingback spot.
 
I think its a good thing. It shows that we are playing a system actually.

when you look at the Leicester heat map, it doesn't really show what position he is playing.

I would rather see players get touches in the positions they play
This just isn't true though, because if you look at Garnacho's map from Ipswich it's very similar to Amad's for Leicester, attacking players touch maps are slightly more diffuse than defensive ones. It's pretty obvious which position he's playing in both matches. He's the right sided attacker in one and right fullback in the other.

You could put Onana there and all his passes would be "in the position they play" but it still wouldn't be a good idea.
Cuadrado wasn't powerful, he was skinny and fairly easy to push around, though he was feisty. But my comment was solely about a very skillful player that plays wingback.
Cuadrado was a powerful runner. We're not talking Lukaku style power here, we're talking Jordi Alba style sustained speed up and down the pitch kind of power. Cuadrado had that in absolute buckets, Amad just isn't that type of player (and that's not a slight on him, he's got loads of tools someone like Cuadrado doesn't. His ability in tight spaces alone demands a place in the attacking part of the pitch).
 
As a general point on skilful wingbacks - Cuadrado is a great example. Marcelo, maybe? Depends how loose you are with the difference between a wingback and a fullback.

On Amad specifically — I think he’s too good in tight spaces and on the half turn to waste in a wingback spot.

To me it makes more sense to have him as one of the AM but the conversations I was reading in the previous threads made me wonder about who recently played as a wingback and was both largely an attacker and very skilled. I only have Cuadrado.
 
This just isn't true though, because if you look at Garnacho's map from Ipswich it's very similar to Amad's for Leicester, attacking players touch maps are slightly more diffuse than defensive ones. It's pretty obvious which position he's playing in both matches. He's the right sided attacker in one and right fullback in the other.

You could put Onana there and all his passes would be "in the position they play" but it still wouldn't be a good idea.

Cuadrado was a powerful runner. We're not talking Lukaku style power here, we're talking Jordi Alba style sustained speed up and down the pitch kind of power. Cuadrado had that in absolute buckets, Amad just isn't that type of player (and that's not a slight on him, he's got loads of tools someone like Cuadrado doesn't. His ability in tight spaces alone demands a place in the attacking part of the pitch).

I tend to not use powerful runner in that context. Valencia was a powerful runner in the sense that it was straight line speed with powerful steps and he was immovable while running. That doesn't match with Cuadrado who was a shiftier, weaker runner but to be fair to your point his short distance acceleration was powerful, so I can see the distinction you make with Amad.
 
I tend to not use powerful runner in that context. Valencia was a powerful runner in the sense that it was straight line speed with powerful steps and he was immovable while running. That doesn't match with Cuadrado who was a shiftier, weaker runner but to be fair to your point his short distance acceleration was powerful, so I can see the distinction you make with Amad.
Yeah, I'm happy for you to describe it however you like as long as we're both on the same page. Maybe stamina or stride length that is a factor in it too, it's a special type of fitness/physicality to be able to get up and down the pitch box to box and still be able to explode to top speed for 90 minutes.