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2023-24 Performances


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5.5 Season Average Rating
Appearances
50
Clean sheets
12
Goals
3
Assists
5
Yellow cards
7
Red cards
1
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He always looked bit average in pace but from last season he looked quicker. Also what I mean with deceptive is, he doesn't look quick when he is running but he covers lot of ground and rarely gets beaten for pace. Then you see his interview, he ranks himself as fastest ManUtd player, stats shows that too. So he is quicker than what we see.

Credit to him, his mentality is just amazing. If he can improves hos crossing then he will be close to complete package.

Rashford also quoted him as one of the fastest - I think current Dalot beats current Rashford. Dalot is very powerful and strong, so his running is the same - he's not the happy feet Sterling type of runner, but he makes up a lot of ground. Watching him, I'd say he's easily one of the fastest in the league in terms of top speed at this stage. Last season, as you say, I would not have said the same. I even thought he looked heavy and slow at times.

Agree about his mentality. I see him as captain material and a mainstay in our defense. If he wans to, he can also transition into a very good DM, but his engine makes him a great modern fullback. His crossing is still a little erratic - needs more composure in the final third.
 
Gone from being someone I saw as a weak link to low key contender for player of the season.

He's cut all the rubbish stuff out of his game...well apart from the occasional mad decision making in the final third, but even that's now sprinkled with a lot more productivity/threat.
 
Above all else at the minute I love his passion. He does seem to want to do well for the club and if he can continue to improve on the pitch the he has cult hero potential.

Like Wan I think he will get better too with a settled centre back combination as we seen when Martinez was fit.
 
Gone from being someone I saw as a weak link to low key contender for player of the season.

He's cut all the rubbish stuff out of his game...well apart from the occasional mad decision making in the final third, but even that's now sprinkled with a lot more productivity/threat.
I feel like he's progressed a lot defensively too, I remember him being quite lost as a RB in defence, but he now locks down that side so well.
 
I feel like he's progressed a lot defensively too, I remember him being quite lost as a RB in defence, but he now locks down that side so well.

Yeah. Still don't think he's all that great positionally personally, but some of it is down to him clearly being told to play inside and then he can't be in two places at once if we get countered.

I used to see him as a liability there though. Even early this season there were a few times I thought he cost us really poor goals. Now I don't expect him to get beaten and can't really think of the last time he made a glaring mistake.

Also the weird cross field backwards passes to the other team seem to have disappeared and been replaced with him bringing the ball out of the back line himself and often picking out a decent pass at the end.
 
Frimpong. He's so, so, bloody good. We need a left back and a right back, Shaw is entering physical decline, and AWB is likely leaving at the end of the season.
Frimpong’s a right winger. Maybe if we want an Antony replacement.
 
Frimpong’s a right winger. Maybe if we want an Antony replacement.

He's not. He's just in a system that's very attacking. Given how high a line we want to play and how much we need progressive carries all over the pitch, him and someone like Todibo turn us into a dangerous team out of the back.
 
His form has been very good the last few months, a turnaround I didn't see coming. Certainly wouldn't say he's been excellent all season, plenty of defensive errors earlier on this season but delighted with him since xmas and buying a right back is no longer a necessity.
 
Jose signed Dalot in 2018 as one of the most coveted players in Europe. I've always liked him because he always puts in a shift when others are strolling around waving their arms. I've said it before and got abused, but I still don't consider him as a full back, well a defensive full back. He sometimes loses players at the back post. He can pass and is quick plus he has a good shot on him. I'd like to see him in the midfield sometimes. Put Casemiro's brain in Dalot's body and you'd have a world beater. Now AWB is fit and Luke Shaw isn't far away, Dalot may not get as much game time as he deserves.
 
Jose signed Dalot in 2018 as one of the most coveted players in Europe. I've always liked him because he always puts in a shift when others are strolling around waving their arms. I've said it before and got abused, but I still don't consider him as a full back, well a defensive full back. He sometimes loses players at the back post. He can pass and is quick plus he has a good shot on him. I'd like to see him in the midfield sometimes. Put Casemiro's brain in Dalot's body and you'd have a world beater. Now AWB is fit and Luke Shaw isn't far away, Dalot may not get as much game time as he deserves.
When was the last time he missed a man at the backpost . Let's talk facts
 
Jose signed Dalot in 2018 as one of the most coveted players in Europe. I've always liked him because he always puts in a shift when others are strolling around waving their arms. I've said it before and got abused, but I still don't consider him as a full back, well a defensive full back. He sometimes loses players at the back post. He can pass and is quick plus he has a good shot on him. I'd like to see him in the midfield sometimes. Put Casemiro's brain in Dalot's body and you'd have a world beater. Now AWB is fit and Luke Shaw isn't far away, Dalot may not get as much game time as he deserves.
And Dalot isn't getting benched even if Shaw and AWB is fit. You can mark my words .
 
Not even on the bench for Portugal, nice!

Apparently they called up a bigger squad and some players will be left out either game, so he’ll probably be involved against Slovenia on Tuesday.

He’s played 90 minutes in all of our games recently so delighted with this.
 
Probably our most improved player under ETH. Him and AWB have both been quality recently
 
Not even on the bench for Portugal, nice!

Apparently they called up a bigger squad and some players will be left out either game, so he’ll probably be involved against Slovenia on Tuesday.

He’s played 90 minutes in all of our games recently so delighted with this.

Double nice. He's one of our most important players. No injury + little rest.
 
Not even on the bench for Portugal, nice!

Apparently they called up a bigger squad and some players will be left out either game, so he’ll probably be involved against Slovenia on Tuesday.

He’s played 90 minutes in all of our games recently so delighted with this.
Yes, very good news.

I was worried at first when I saw he wasn't in the matchday squad at all, and hadn't noticed there were a good few others missing as well. But seeing that he's just one of a few that's been given an extra rest is great news.
 
I don't understand the big drooling for Frimpong. Would he be happy to play second after Dalot? I don't think so.
Is he ment to play ahead of Dalot? Then why on earth would we prioritise such a signing to push out our best player this season.

Yes we need more than one player to compete on the right back, but Frimpong and Dalot? We should rather go for a player who can occupy left back and substitute on the right side.
 
He is starting to grow on me. Hopefully he stays consistent and can eradicate those basic errors from his game as he has a lot of useful attributes.

I really like the way he would go central to receive the pass from Onana's goal kicks vs Liverpool. I wonder if that was just to done to circumvent Varane and Lindelof's lack of press resistance, or if it's a tactic that Ten Hag will persist with once Martinez is back.
 
He always looked bit average in pace but from last season he looked quicker. Also what I mean with deceptive is, he doesn't look quick when he is running but he covers lot of ground and rarely gets beaten for pace. Then you see his interview, he ranks himself as fastest ManUtd player, stats shows that too. So he is quicker than what we see.

Credit to him, his mentality is just amazing. If he can improves hos crossing then he will be close to complete package.

He recorded the highest pace in our squad this season https://www.squawka.com/en/features/premier-league-club-fastest-players/

I've always looked at him as a very pacy player, so many times we've seen him catch up from behind. His physical traits in general is absolutely top notch, he bullies people of the ball as well.
 
AWB's ball skills have been quite good, which is the biggest surprise
Ye they have. I’ve always thought he’s been pretty decent at dribbling. The one where he ripped the city players apart was good with his dribbling. Ball was like glued to his feet
 
Nothing low-key about it. Right now he’s head-and-shoulders favorite for it.

I think Garnacho is a shout tbh. Even the much maligned Mctominay for the importance of most of his goals, but yeah I wouldn't argue with Dalot currently.
 
Has anyone noticed his cross field long passes lately..? Scholes-esque!
 
Has anyone noticed his cross field long passes lately..? Scholes-esque!

There was one with his left (weeker) foot against liverpool, a nice 30-40 yard parallel, from one fullback to the other. Loved that, as it showed how confident he is to even attempt that, let alone, do it.
 
If this team gets going, he'll be even better.

Dalot, Martinez, Garnacho, Mainoo, Hojlund are a very good start for a rebuild. 5 players who could be vital next year.
 
Brentford 1:1 Man Utd
Best of a pretty bad bunch although weak as piss in the air.
 
Really bad today after having had a good run of form. Hopefully just a one off as he’s been one of the few bright spots this season.
 
He was the best outfield players amongst the worst.

Only player that tried to actually win and keep possession for us.
all other defenders simply kicked the ball to the opposition all the time
 
Wasn't online for quite some time so my response to this is not taking in consideration yesterdays match:

just wondering how you two feel now?
More or less the same. He is definitely one of the better players in our team this year, no question about it, but when taking into account how we play and how our results look like, this praise gets a bit hollow. Don't get me wrong, I certainly wouldn't criticize him nowadays and I am actually happy, that he stabilized himself to a degree that I think, it might actually make more sense to improve at LB (as Shaw is older). But for me personally, I don't see the spark with him. Might be that I am a bit harsh, but he certainly didn't win me over. There just too few highlights in his game (based on my expectation level which obviously is subjective and not necessarily fair). For me personally, I think, he gets too much praise for things, that should be standard. I think, that is connected with a fanbase that is desperate to identify rays of sunlight at a cold ass morning in the mountains after a long night.

Is Dalot still on a run of anomalous good form?
I don't know. He definitely stabilized his performances and he is growing into a physical presence which is very nice to see. As I stated before, his physicality is top notch, his technical level is very good so I think, all ingredients of a very good, even world class player are there. Question is whether intelligence and/or instinct is up there which I am still a bit hesitant to answer yes. I hope his development continues like that, I have no issue with a player like him in our first team, my main issue always was having two very similar players (skillset wise) in Shaw and Dalot in the team because I think, that is not enough attacking fire power. I thought, Shaw would be a mainstay in the team so it would have made sense to cash in on Dalot to generate funds for different areas. As of now, the equasion is on its head, as you said, there aren't obvious candidates out there to bring in for reasonable money so lets stick with Dalot as he is young and promising and bring in somebody for LB to fade out Shaw.

Is he still just a decent player shining in a shite team, therefore the praise and comments are out of context/doesn't mean much?
I don't see the shining, you know. He is decent to good. Has more and more good scenes over a match and the moments of BS get fewer. I think the whole team is just in shambles, nothing seems to work so it definitely isn't the most fair thing to evaluate players quality being in that team. I think, our approaches are just a different in that regard - you praise in the context of "at least him can hold his head high", I don't praise nor criticize him as I think he mostly doesn't warrant both.
 
More or less the same. He is definitely one of the better players in our team this year, no question about it, but when taking into account how we play and how our results look like, this praise gets a bit hollow. Don't get me wrong, I certainly wouldn't criticize him nowadays and I am actually happy, that he stabilized himself to a degree that I think, it might actually make more sense to improve at LB (as Shaw is older). But for me personally, I don't see the spark with him. Might be that I am a bit harsh, but he certainly didn't win me over. There just too few highlights in his game (based on my expectation level which obviously is subjective and not necessarily fair). For me personally, I think, he gets too much praise for things, that should be standard. I think, that is connected with a fanbase that is desperate to identify rays of sunlight at a cold ass morning in the mountains after a long night.

I don't know. He definitely stabilized his performances and he is growing into a physical presence which is very nice to see. As I stated before, his physicality is top notch, his technical level is very good so I think, all ingredients of a very good, even world class player are there. Question is whether intelligence and/or instinct is up there which I am still a bit hesitant to answer yes. I hope his development continues like that, I have no issue with a player like him in our first team, my main issue always was having two very similar players (skillset wise) in Shaw and Dalot in the team because I think, that is not enough attacking fire power. I thought, Shaw would be a mainstay in the team so it would have made sense to cash in on Dalot to generate funds for different areas. As of now, the equasion is on its head, as you said, there aren't obvious candidates out there to bring in for reasonable money so lets stick with Dalot as he is young and promising and bring in somebody for LB to fade out Shaw.


I don't see the shining, you know. He is decent to good. Has more and more good scenes over a match and the moments of BS get fewer. I think the whole team is just in shambles, nothing seems to work so it definitely isn't the most fair thing to evaluate players quality being in that team. I think, our approaches are just a different in that regard - you praise in the context of "at least him can hold his head high", I don't praise nor criticize him as I think he mostly doesn't warrant both.

I didn't watch the game last night so can't comment too. The lines not bolded are fairly self explanatory and I can't really disagree. The bolded ones are where we can't agree to disagree I suppose.

My praise/analysis is definitely not just simply 'he's doing well in relation to the team', it's more 'he's doing well objectively despite the team'. Your 'neutral' stance doesn't really hold when you, yourself (in other words) have said he's very replaceable, we (the people who have praised him) have lowered standards by judging him out of context because the team is shite, that his form is not really here or there, that what's he doing now is fairly standard etc. It comes more from, 'the grass is greener on the other side' perspective imo. Again, that's fine but I think we both have our bias and of course I would argue my one is more 'truer' objectively speaking :D

As for the similar skill set wise issue, that make sense on paper but have you looked at the individual offensive influence (so not just G+A stats) of the current fullbacks of the Liverpool, City and Arsenal teams? You don't really because short of TAA/Robertson (who have both regressed in their importance to their team because of injuries/age/different roles) individual seasons, the sum of the parts of the team is still contributing massively. I've said it before, anything Dalot is doing right now is nothing short of what the current top 4/5 crop is doing right now; I'd go as far to say, he'd be an improvement on more than half.

This 'need' to see an attacking full back can only ring true once the foundation of the team is there really. Frimpong in a back four or five in this team is not going to change our results, which I believe is your biggest issue of judging this particular player's performance.
 
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My praise/analysis is definitely not just simply 'he's doing well in relation to the team', it's more 'he's doing well objectively despite the team'. Your 'neutral' stance doesn't really hold when you, yourself (in other words) have said he's very replaceable, we (the people who have praised him) have lowered standards by judging him out of context because the team is shite, that his form is not really here or there, that what's he doing now is fairly standard etc. It comes more from, 'the grass is greener on the other side' perspective imo. Again, that's fine but I think we both have our bias and of course I would argue my one is more 'truer' objectively speaking :D
I think if you read my posts over time then I you will see a trend where I warm up a little towards him. So while I may not be an enthusiastic supporter, I am certainly not a hater at all. Even if I participated a lot in this thread - lets face it, half of it are dialogues between the two of us. I was never really against Dalot, I want to maintain that - my position was, that he was at a level where he was easier to replace than say Shaw while at the same time more money could have been recuperated with a Dalot sale. As I said earlier, this has changed, I'd rather get rid of Shaw now than Dalot.

But this doesn't automatically mean, that I am super happy with him. For me personally, he is on a positive trend but he is a bit of an inbetweener. It isn't a situation where you could say "no matter who we will come up against, Dalot will keep him quiet" and he also isn't one to make a statement like "Lets see how team XYZ deals with the threat of Dalot" about. That is what I mean, he is a stable performer but what is the thing that really goes onto the marketing flyer? Every team needs stable performers of course but we also need the other ones. And if we invest the time to develop players, I think we should be sure that they can reach a very high level. If Dalot develops those capabilities, I am the last one to question him but as of right now, from what I see and what experience I made with young United players, the chances for him staying the level where he is at aren't that much lower than the chances of him stepping up a level or two.

That is the difficulty when discussing things, it is always important to know each others context. Because just because I consider a player to have this or that potential, it doesn't automatically means that he cannot be important to United. Its two different things for me and I guess I have to do a better job to explain my position.

As for the similar skill set wise issue, that make sense on paper but have you looked at the individual offensive influence (so not just G+A stats) of the current fullbacks of the Liverpool, City and Arsenal teams? You don't really because short of TAA/Robertson (who have both regressed in their importance to their team because of injuries/age/different roles) individual seasons, the sum of the parts of the team is still contributing massively. I've said it before, anything Dalot is doing right now is nothing short of what the current top 4/5 crop is doing right now; I'd go as far to say, he'd be an improvement on more than half.
I see your point. I'd still maintain that most of our competitors wouldn't switch their options for Dalot because even if he has his upsides, they aren't as big to make the switch worthwile. But that is a little academic I guess, maybe the key difference here is that I don't really follow the whole league or the development of specific players other than ours. When I try to evaluate the current quality of a player, I compare them to the greats I have seen. Which would be Evra, Walker, Alba. And compared to that, Dalot obviously looks different than when compared to I don't know Ben White in this season. So if Dalot is one of the leagues best fullbacks this year, I applaud him but I also think to myself that it probably is a bad time for fullbacks these days. But I think, this is an important point for me - because when you for example say something like "Dalot is one of the best this year" then I really have to contain myself and remind myself that I shouldn't be triggered by that alone because the statement might be true, it just doesn't have the same meaning I read into it.

This 'need' to see an attacking full back can only ring true once the foundation of the team is there really. Frimpong in a back four or five in this team is not going to change our results, which I believe is your biggest issue of judging this particular player's performance.
I am not sure, if that should be worded as absolute as you did here. I mean, sure, every player will benefit from being part in a functioning unit. But on the same side, every player has to add something to this unit to make it functional. We simply don't know what would change if we had Frimpong in the team. I agree, it might make absolutely make no difference, we might even get worse. But it is impossible to say for sure. And theoretically, having at least one capable attacker on the right side, let alone two if one of wingers finally decides to turn up, definitely has the chance to change the outlook of our matches as it makes containing us more difficult for the opponent.
 
While writing my reply to the user, I wondered where to rank Dalot with his predecessors. I know it is difficult to do because with Dalot it is a lot about potential while with his predecessors we know how it panned out but still. Where would you see Dalot compared with United last right backs:

AWB: Dalot has the higher ceiling overall, AWB though, to me, has the clearer edge as he is a really good 1v1 defender. A decision would be really hard for me, most of me would want to pick AWB but I'd hope to be reasonable enough to pick Dalot.

Darmian: I actually think those two are a bit similar. I'd certainly pick Dalot as he is a bit stronger but overall I think they are pretty comparable with Dalot being the better variant of the duo.

Valencia: Dalot is on a trajectory to get a similar build to Valencia but I think he misses the explosiveness that Valencia had. I'd probably take Valencia over Dalot.

Rafael: I thought Rafael would become a great right-back. He had that fire in him. Turned out he wasn't all that and maybe I was a little less skeptical about things as well but I probably would take Rafael over Dalot (based on what thought of his potential back then and what I think of Dalots right now).
 
While writing my reply to the user, I wondered where to rank Dalot with his predecessors. I know it is difficult to do because with Dalot it is a lot about potential while with his predecessors we know how it panned out but still. Where would you see Dalot compared with United last right backs:

AWB: Dalot has the higher ceiling overall, AWB though, to me, has the clearer edge as he is a really good 1v1 defender. A decision would be really hard for me, most of me would want to pick AWB but I'd hope to be reasonable enough to pick Dalot.

Darmian: I actually think those two are a bit similar. I'd certainly pick Dalot as he is a bit stronger but overall I think they are pretty comparable with Dalot being the better variant of the duo.

Valencia: Dalot is on a trajectory to get a similar build to Valencia but I think he misses the explosiveness that Valencia had. I'd probably take Valencia over Dalot.

Rafael: I thought Rafael would become a great right-back. He had that fire in him. Turned out he wasn't all that and maybe I was a little less skeptical about things as well but I probably would take Rafael over Dalot (based on what thought of his potential back then and what I think of Dalots right now).

Valencia
(gap) (Dalot potentially, imo)
Rafael=Dalot

(gap)

AWB
Darmian
 
I think if you read my posts over time then I you will see a trend where I warm up a little towards him. So while I may not be an enthusiastic supporter, I am certainly not a hater at all. Even if I participated a lot in this thread - lets face it, half of it are dialogues between the two of us. I was never really against Dalot, I want to maintain that - my position was, that he was at a level where he was easier to replace than say Shaw while at the same time more money could have been recuperated with a Dalot sale. As I said earlier, this has changed, I'd rather get rid of Shaw now than Dalot.

Agreed on the bolded but I wonder how much is that down to the persistence of the likes of myself (as you've observed, your posts here are mostly between you and I :D) and the almost unanimous praise he has been getting lately.

But this doesn't automatically mean, that I am super happy with him. For me personally, he is on a positive trend but he is a bit of an inbetweener. It isn't a situation where you could say "no matter who we will come up against, Dalot will keep him quiet" and he also isn't one to make a statement like "Lets see how team XYZ deals with the threat of Dalot" about. That is what I mean, he is a stable performer but what is the thing that really goes onto the marketing flyer? Every team needs stable performers of course but we also need the other ones. And if we invest the time to develop players, I think we should be sure that they can reach a very high level. If Dalot develops those capabilities, I am the last one to question him but as of right now, from what I see and what experience I made with young United players, the chances for him staying the level where he is at aren't that much lower than the chances of him stepping up a level or two.

He's kept Saka (away), Salah (away), Foden/Doku (away), Kudus (home), Bailey (home and away) all pretty quiet this year off the top of my head. And I don't mean in a 'Lindelof, didn't make any mistakes' way, I mean he properly contained them in some shape or form. You can check the threadmarks in this thread to verify yourself to see the general comments from otehrs. Understand and agreed on your hesitation of young Utd players but that's not a reason to evaluate what you see right now rather than keep a shorter leash.

Dalot has definitely had some big brain farts, mostly in the Champions League, which honestly is really unfortunate because his overall game is still the same i.e solid and progressive for me. His form is quite similar to Onana's trajectory, although I'd argue Dalot's fundamentals are way stronger and more consistent since coming into the team.

I see your point. I'd still maintain that most of our competitors wouldn't switch their options for Dalot because even if he has his upsides, they aren't as big to make the switch worthwile. But that is a little academic I guess, maybe the key difference here is that I don't really follow the whole league or the development of specific players other than ours. When I try to evaluate the current quality of a player, I compare them to the greats I have seen. Which would be Evra, Walker, Alba. And compared to that, Dalot obviously looks different than when compared to I don't know Ben White in this season. So if Dalot is one of the leagues best fullbacks this year, I applaud him but I also think to myself that it probably is a bad time for fullbacks these days. But I think, this is an important point for me - because when you for example say something like "Dalot is one of the best this year" then I really have to contain myself and remind myself that I shouldn't be triggered by that alone because the statement might be true, it just doesn't have the same meaning I read into it.

That's fair, I can't give you objective reasons to make you change the way you feel but we've covered this before when comparing with other players. Walker was 27 when he went to City after proving himself to be a good to very good fullback at Spurs for only a season or two. Also Walker is not some attacking juggernaut and his role is closer to what Dalot is doing now. So going back to my previous post, nobody really criticises/analyses in depth Walker's attacking influence because his role is mostly secondary as his teammates provide the rest. It's surprising you've brought him up as an example then. Alba and Evra played in dominant teams that used them to the max where their influence was on par or below everyone else because of the quality of their team mates. Walker, Alba and Evra in this team again is not going to transform or change much of what we've seen. It's all on ETH for me. We've got counter attacking players that can exploit other teams but we've playing this suicidal high press, deep defence, no midfield bs. It's not conductive for any player.
 
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While writing my reply to the user, I wondered where to rank Dalot with his predecessors. I know it is difficult to do because with Dalot it is a lot about potential while with his predecessors we know how it panned out but still. Where would you see Dalot compared with United last right backs:

AWB: Dalot has the higher ceiling overall, AWB though, to me, has the clearer edge as he is a really good 1v1 defender. A decision would be really hard for me, most of me would want to pick AWB but I'd hope to be reasonable enough to pick Dalot.

Darmian: I actually think those two are a bit similar. I'd certainly pick Dalot as he is a bit stronger but overall I think they are pretty comparable with Dalot being the better variant of the duo.

Valencia: Dalot is on a trajectory to get a similar build to Valencia but I think he misses the explosiveness that Valencia had. I'd probably take Valencia over Dalot.

Rafael: I thought Rafael would become a great right-back. He had that fire in him. Turned out he wasn't all that and maybe I was a little less skeptical about things as well but I probably would take Rafael over Dalot (based on what thought of his potential back then and what I think of Dalots right now).

Again, these are subjective opinions but what you've said about AWB and Darmian is basically blasphemy to me. You say you don't watch much of other players in the league but without being condescending here I'd question how much of Utd have you watched this season or in general?

AWB had a really good debut season and periods of form under Ole but it's clear as day that his overall footballing intelligence is lacking. He's a very capable ball carrier and passer but it's almost always in circumstantial instances i.e when a single opposition player is pressing him, he has an 'easy' outlet to pass or when the ball/play is in movement or transition as he has good instinctive awareness. However, when the ball is set, when there are pressing traps, when the time calls for more nuance both with (e.g passing between lines, pass choices, press resistance, angles etc) and off ball (e.g reading off the ball runs, keeping opposition offside, runs off his blind side etc), he is markedly bad. There's not really a debate when it comes to defensive nous or overall consistency over the two imo. I've been impressed with AWB at times and I've kept willing him to find that 'intelligence' but time and time again, he's shown he just doesn't have 'it'. See his part in the Brentford goal for case in point. Now I understand I may be harsh and it's unfair to extrapolate Dalot's form of this year compared to AWB's injury hit seasons of the past 2-3 but Dalot's overall peak and awareness is ahead for me. They're not really comparable at all if you actually want a team to play progressive, attacking and expansive football so for you to personally 'prefer' AWB when you've been criticising Dalot's lack of attacking output and how we are a such a poor team, is a bit contradictory.

Darmian had a good period of initial form under LVG and I think had good defensive and even some attacking instincts. It's stereotypical to say but he just had that Italian defensive reading of the game. You can tell he had some thought and nous to his play but he just wasn't athletic enough to really be dominant or effective on his own terms. He's closer to the Lindelof of right backs and in no way comparable as a 'variant'. It's like saying Lindelof and Van Dijk are similar players because they are both standoffish, are comfortable with the ball and like to read more of the game than make sliding tackles/get really aggressive shoulder to shoulder. On the surface that is true but VVD is twice as athletic (aerially, pace) with a way more composed and stronger mentality to play on his own terms with passing and dominating opponents. The difference between Lindelof to VVD is closer to the gap between Dalot and Darmian than those two are similar imo.

As for Valencia and Rafael, I don't really have a strong opinion because I thought they were both good players in their own times but Dalot is more rounded and therefore I would take him. However, that's unfair to compare as he's come 10 years later playing a much different game i.e playing out from the back, inverted etc.
 
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