Two Young Edinson Cavani Replacement Options for Manchester United
Disclaimer: I’ll earn a small commission from the eBay links in this article. It’s only a small cut and is at no extra cost to you. It covers the cost of the newsletter and really helps me out here.
Edinson Cavani has been a great get for Manchester United this season - Many weren’t too sure what to think when the big fella joined the red half of Manchester in the later years of his career.
But he’s averaging 0.63 goals per 90 minutes, which is a great return and he seems to give Manchester United a different look in attack; A look that’s more…. structured, for lack of a better word.
However, Cavani is 34 years old and isn’t a long-term option.
In this article, I’ll mention two guys who could take over from Cavani at Manchester United.
What I’m Looking For
When it comes to looking for a Cavani replacement, we can use SmarterScout data to look at a players’ “style”, which is basically an algorithmic approach to seeing how frequently a player does a certain action or contributes in aspects of the game.
Scores are then given a 0-99 FIFA-style ranking on different parts of the game comparing their numbers to others players in a similar position.
Looking at how Cavani is used this year, we can see the following:
We can see from the graph that Cavani is frequently doing one of the following:
Getting involved in the link-up play
Recovering moving balls
Disrupting opposition moves
Whereas he doesn’t dribble a lot, nor attempt progressive passes towards goal. Which, when you think about the players around him at Manchester United, makes sense.
I’ll also take this opportunity to show you one of my favorite shot chars in recent memory.
Just check where Cavani is getting his shots from.
Not many wasted efforts there.
Also, I’ve decided to look for the following:
I’ve avoided the big names like Haaland here - no shit Man U want Haaland. Every club in the world wants him. Shit, he could declare that he wants to play for my Sunday league side and we’d look to find a way to make the salary work.
I’ve included prospects as a lot of United’s business (Cavani aside) has been on younger players
I’ve looked at leagues that Manchester United are likely to recruit from
I’ve only included guys that could be part of a striker rotation, as that is what it looks like OGS is doing at the moment.
With that in mind, I came up with two guys that I absolutely love from Ligue 1.
Option One: Jonathan David
David is a guy who I’ve had an eye on for a while now, he was impressive in Belgium and now is finding his feet in France after a pretty rough start to life.
The Canadian striker operates in a lot of similar areas to Cavani and checking his style metrics, we can see a lot of correlation between the two players.
We can see that Jonathan David and Edinson Cavani both get involved in the link-up play along with recovering moving balls.
Along with style metrics, we can use SmarterScout to look at his statistical profile and see how that adjusts to other leagues - in this case, the Premier League. From there, we can use the 0-99 style scoring system to translate his effectiveness.
Looking at Jonathan David’s statistical output in France and trying to relate it to the Premier League we can see the following:
David’s defensive work should already be
His ball retention and linkup play would be above average for Premier League strikers.
All in all, I can’t imagine Jonathan David being a ‘build your squad around him’ type striker, but he’s got potential to be a great piece while he develops.
Option Two: Amine Gouiri
The second option, and probably my favorite is Amine Gouiri.
The young French striker is at Nice these days and absolutely smashing it. In fact, if you read the article earlier this week, he’s actually second (behind Kylian Mbappe - so I’d argue he is first because Mbappe is another level) when looking at combined expected goals and expected assists from players 22 and under this season in the top five European leagues.
Comparing style numbers, we can see a lot of similarities.
Both players like to get involved in link-up passing
Both look to recover moving balls
Both receive the ball in the box to a similar level compared to their peers
And it’s not just the play-style that fits - he’s a good age (21) and already has a statistical profile that’d seemingly translate well to the Premier League. Here is how SmarterScout would look at his output in France and see how it might translate to England - along with the 0-99 number rating.
The high defending quality and low quality means that Gouiri is either doing a lot structure-wise in defense, which is vital for a player in his position.
I also love his high ball retention rating a striker who can keep the ball is key to getting the ball out to creative attacking outlets like Bruno and Rashford.
I think Gouiri is the better pick at the moment compared to Jonathan David, however both would be solid pieces for Manchester United - sure, signing one of these guys won’t instantly turn United into title favorites, but they’ll go a long way structure-wise to fit into the role that Cavani holds in the United side.
Your Next Steps
Subscribe if you haven’t
Share this with a friend if you liked it, and an enemy if you didn’t