Young Spanish centre-back seems to fit the bill for the Swans
The latest player to be linked with a move to SA1, Amat is a 21-year old centre-back who spent this season on loan at Rayo Vallecano (from whom we signed Michu), playing 28 games in all competitions. He only scored once, but it's worth mentioning and here's why:
Wowzers. Sign him up? Let's see.
A product of the Espanyol youth system (where he signed on as a seven year old), and after appearing for the "C" and "B" teams he made his debut in La Liga aged 17. He's gone on to make fourty-one appearances for Los Blanquiblaus but they decided a loan spell would aid his development, and so at the beginning of the season he moved from a Catalan club in the shadow of Barca, to a Madrid club in the shadow of both Real & Atletico - Rayo Vallecano.
One thing to note is that Amat picked up 12 yellows in his 28 games this season - that's almost Cheick Tioté standard! Hopefully added experience will see him mature and stop picking up so many, as it's frustrating watching a player consistently miss games through suspension. His pass accuracy this year was 81.1%(825/1017 completed) and if you compare that to Chico's 89.3% or Ash's 86.3% it's clear there's a bit of a disparity, however 21 is young for a centre-back to be a first team regular. I'd also say that any player who signs for the Swans would almost automatically see their pass success rate increase dramatically as they adjust to the style of football we play.
| In action for Espanyol |
The Espanyol man won 1.4 aerial duels per game (38 in total) and again this pales in significance to Chico & Ash, both of whom had around double that figure. He makes 2.3 tackles per game (Chico has 3.3 while Ash has 1.2), and 2 interceptions to boot (Chico 3.5 & Ash 3), both pretty impressive figures, and also makes a pretty tasty 5.6 clearances per game (although again this is far from the 8.7 & 10.3 managed by Chico & Ash respectively). It seems that we have two particularly tasty centre-back's at present and using them as a yardstick is making Amat look bad, so I'll try to desist from now on.
He only gets dribbled past once every 0.6 games, and that's a very encouraging statistic for a young centre-back, while he makes on average 37.7 passes per game - about 20 less per game than the Swans centre-backs average but again, any player who joins will see their statistics (in terms of passes at least) improve. One interesting stat is that he plays 6.6 accurate long balls per game - double Chico's average and a little more than the 5.7 Ash averages. It seems he's adept at picking out a man up top or out wide, and with the Swans preferences for outlying wingers it could be that we'd see him pinging the ball out to the wing Ashley Williams stylee.
Here's some funny stats. Spot the Spaniards. Ash averages 0.1 dribbles per game, Chico 0.3 & Amat 0.6. In turn, that would account for the fact that Ash is only dispossessed once every 0.1 games too, whereas Chico & Amat both average once every other game (0.5). Amat matches the Swans' boys in turns of turnovers too (giving the ball away through poor control) - his 0.2 per game is equal to Ash's, and better than Chico's (although only slightly at 0.3).
It seems he's a pretty tidy footballer, and if he's available for the £2million asking price that's rumoured then it would be a very prudent signature. He's likely to hold his value at the very least for that money, but I'd say if he's performing well in La Liga at 21, a move to a possession-based footballing team in a different league could well benefit him. Huw Jenkins has reportedly been meeting agents this week in a bid to get Swansea's summer shopping underway, so it shouldn't be too long until we learn of some firm targets. Until then we're all left to speculate on what may be, but I'd say he seems a very decent prospect.
I'm still sold by the goal. How about you?