Villarreal transfer linked with teammate of Cristiano Ronaldo

According to a report from Gialnuca Di Marzio of Sky Sport Italia, Villarreal has contacted Juventus over fullback Mattia De Sciglio. This rumor absolutely baffles me, if I’m honest. First and foremost, De Sciglio is a player who was once one of the most promising young fullbacks in the world but is now 27 and just never lived up to the potential. Second, De Sciglio is supposed to be a replacement for the injured Alberto Moreno, per the report. While De Sciglio has played on the left before, he is primarily a right back. Third, this particular Juventus defender has never played CB in his life, and HELLO, we need a CB. Fourth, De Sciglio is currently dealing with a bicep injury and according to Transfermarkt his ‘return is unknown’

So I don’t see this going anywhere whatsoever. But, just in case you’re curious, here are the numbers:

footballslices.com

If you come away from this chart saying he’s a solid defender who does well in link up play (though not necessarily the final ball) I think you are tracking correctly. The problem is that of these 2200 minutes in Serie A over the last two seasons, only about 470 of them happened last season. This is a player who missed 26 matches to injury last season between the bicep problem mentioned above and an abductor tear. He also injured his abductor in 18/19 and had two other muscle related issues that season, missing a total of 9 matches. In 2017-2018 he missed 23 matches due to injury.

I’m not very excited about replacing a left sided injury prone player with a right sided injury prone player, are you?

This one probably won’t happen, and it definitely shouldn’t.