Rayan Cherki made the big leap to Manchester City this summer, and the playmaker trained at Olympique Lyonnais will be one of the attractions of the Premier League season. The proof? OPTA statisticians have placed the brand new French international among the players to follow.
The portrait made of the old Gone is as follows:
“With Rayan Cherki, Manchester City seems to have recruited a creative midfielder, so original that you would almost believe it from another era. A player so anxious to recover the ball and make things happen in the last third that we can – and we sometimes accuse him – of giving up his defensive responsibilities. In modern football, no one can do that (except maybe Lionel Messi). We are no longer at the time of Juan Román Riquelme or Mesut Özil, where the players could afford to do too little defensive work because they made such a ball difference on the foot. »»
Opta recalls that Cherki was clearly not the most diligent defender in Lyon. Among the offensive players who played at least 1000 minutes in Ligue 1, last season, the Master to play OL arrives only in 68th place (out of 89 elements) in the classification of pressings made in the last third of the field, with 17.7 pressures per 90 minutes on average. It is much less than his teammates Georges Mikautadze (32.0), Alexandre Lacazette (28.9) and even Malick Fofana (23.0), by comparison.
Cherki must improve defensively, but offensively …
On the Opta side, we want to know if Cherki will be able to do the defensive work required to win his place in Manchester City, under the demanding Pep Guardiola. But beyond that, statisticians have (also) want to see at work the tricolor attacking midfielder under the direction of one of the greatest coaches in history. “Whatever we see French in terms of out -of -the -ball work, we will have the pleasure of seeing one of the most talented and effective creative fields in the world at the moment, working and improving under the direction of the best tutor. »»
Opta recalls another statistics. Last season, in the opportunities created, Rayan Cherki arrived in the No. 1 position (3.7 every 90 minutes). No one was doing better. And not in France, but in the five major European championships. Crack?
