Manchester United are on the cusp of signing Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo.
The saga has lasted for weeks but there was a breakthrough on Friday when United’s £71 million bid was finally accepted by the Bees.
The Cameroonian had the first part of his medical on Saturday and reportedly completed his tests yesterday.
United’s stars are clearly excited by the impact he can make at the club as Leny Yoro has already claimed to be very happy with the deal and expressed how much he was looking forward to playing with him.
Triple threat
The Athletic have gone into detail outlining just how a successful signing Mbeumo could be for the Red Devils.
The American outlet explained that Liverpool have found success in recent years by analysing statistics and assessing the value players bring to attacking moves.
The premise is, “a player can only score a goal if they shoot. But shooting often ends a spell of possession, and a team can only score if they have the ball. Sometimes it is more advantageous to play an extra pass or beat an opponent with a dribble. Ideally, your best attacking players should be capable of doing all three of those things.”
United firmly believe they have found this rare skillset in Mbeumo.
Mbeumo’s statistics
The Athletic state that “according to StatsBomb’s On-Ball Value (OBV) metric — only Salah added more value to his team’s attacks last season than United’s new £65million man.”
United will hope he can match 20 Premier League goals from last season but some fans have pointed out that he outperformed his xG last season.
“Yet, last season was actually a down year on the underlying metrics for the 25-year-old, with his 2.08 shots and 0.20 non-penalty xG per 90 minutes being his lowest totals since becoming a Premier League player.” Therefore, there is still significant scope for him to improve his goal contributions.
Mbeumo’s efficiency
United were often wasteful last season in possession and in front of goal but Mbeumo should help remedy this.
The Athletic claim that “Mbeumo made up for that by ranking far better among his peers on value-added metrics, where his execution of shots helped turn low-quality chances into goals, ranking among the 89th percentile of attacking midfielders and wingers in the Premier League.”
Only three players in the league added more value to attacks than Mbeumo: Fernandes, Salah and his Brentford team-mate Mikkel Damsgaard. In reality, he was unlucky not to have added a few more assists to his overall total of nine in all competitions.
Dribbling threat
Last season, most of United’s dribbling threat came from Amad. The signing of Matheus Cunha has also added more firepower in this department and Mbeumo will theoretically only bolster this threat more.
The outlet states that “Mbeumo ranked highly for adding value to Brentford’s attacks through his dribbling last season, with Cunha not far behind for Wolves.”
All in all, Mbeumo is a Premier League proven, “well-rounded” attacking threat who should help United revolutionise their flailing attack.
Featured image Richard Heathcote via Getty Images
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Alex Browne
Alex is a huge Manchester United fan, inspired by greats of his homeland such as George Best, Harry Gregg and Norman Whiteside. Proud owner of such niche shirts such as Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Gary Neville. Grew up pretending to be Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the back garden, with little success.
