Andrey Santos is a machine. He’s got 5 goals already this season, quite insane numbers for a midfielder.
But he’s not a number 10, he’s a true all round, box to box midfielder, and that is backed up by his crazy “duels” numbers in the league.
The youngster on loan at Strasbourg has won 63 duels this season, more than any other player in Ligue 1. There are only 93 players anywhere in Europe’s top 5 leagues who have won more than 50, and Santos has the 5th highest success rate of all of them.
He’s getting up and down the pitch, winning the ball in the air and on the ground, then scoring goals with it. It’s such an impressive effort from a player who a year ago couldn’t get on the pitch for a struggling Nottingham Forest team. This central role also seems to be developing him rapidly as a character and as a leader too.
As you can see from this graphic showing the locations of the duels won, Santos is not just a number 6 sitting deep:
Santos and Casadei prepare to take friendly rivalry to the next level
While Santos rests up ahead of another winnable game for Strasbourg – they face St Etienne this weekend – his friend Cesare Casadei back at Chelsea is hoping for a fourth start of the season tomorrow night when we face Newcastle in the Carabao Cup.
The pair of them have chosen very different career paths, but having arrived just a few months apart at Chelsea for similar fees, it’s fun to watch them both develop and see who has the lead in terms of trying to break into our first team squad.
Santos will take some catching given the season he’s had, but Casadei gets his shot tomorrow night.
