Football

Everton shouldn’t break defensive transfer record on 5 ft 8 ace for one clear reason – opinion

According to El Gol Digital, Everton are willing to pay €40m (£35.7m) to sign Atletico Madrid right-back Santiago Arias.

The Colombian international made 31 appearances for Diego Simeone’s side last term, scoring one goal and recording one assist following an €11m (£9.8m) move from PSV Eindhoven last summer.

Atletico could make a huge profit on the 27-year-old who Marcel Brands has openly praised in the past just a year on from signing him, if Everton make good on their intentions to offer the aforementioned sum of course.

The fans in the video below had some very strong words for Michael Platini who was detained over alleged corruption this week…

That is a lot of money for a right-back though; it would break the Toffees’ existing record initial fee for a defender which currently stands at the £27.2m that they spent on Yerry Mina last summer.

There is no way that the Merseysiders should pay that much for Arias, especially given the statistical comparison between him and the club’s current first-choice right-back Seamus Coleman.

As is common knowledge, the modern day full-back must be able to perform at both ends of the pitch – it is vital that they contribute to the attack as well as the defence.

Coleman’s two goals and two assists show that he does that part of the game well, and practically twice as good as Arias does seeing as he has doubled his goal involvement numbers.

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The Irishman also completes more dribbles per game than Arias, recording 0.7 compared to the Atletico man’s measly 0.3.

The acknowledgement of being effective at both ends of the pitch is evident in Coleman’s stats above, as he records a solid 2.4 clearances per game – a whole one more than the former PSV defender makes on average.

The only area that Arias outperforms Coleman in is tackles per game, where he makes 1.9 compared to the Everton icon’s 1.5 – is that 0.4 difference enough to warrant spending £35.7m on the 5 ft 8 man to replace the former Sligo Rovers right-back?

Not really, in all honesty.

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