Can Atletico Madrid's Koke light up Manchester United’s passive midfield

Koke (R)

Recently The Express reported that AC Milan have jumped ahead of Manchester United, Liverpool and Barcelona in the race to sign Atletico Madrid starlet Koke. Neither Atletico nor the player has made any comment on the situation but what is clear is that Koke is a player in demand.

Manchester United are one club that are said to be interested in him, especially with the fact the the Red Devils are struggling in midfield in general at the moment and one of Koke’s primary assets is that he can play anywhere in the midfield.

This season in Diego Simeone’s 4-4-2 formation he has played centre-midfield, left-midfield and right-midfield. It is primarily the latter where he has featured but many have touted him as Xavi’s heir at Barcelona so he can’t be that bad in central midfield can he?

It would be safe to say that it has been a surprise, even despite their performances last season, to see Atletico pushing Barcelona so hard. Losing Falcao was meant to severely weaken their team, not strengthen it. Diego Costa in particular has benefitted from the Colombian’s departure and he has formed an excellent understanding with Koke.

Only Cesc Fabregas can match the young Spaniard’s assist tally (8) of all the players across Europe’s top five league and that sort of creativity would be very welcome at Old Trafford right now. His pass accuracy isn’t the highest (79%) but playing on the wing always make it a bit harder, to make those tidy short passes. He has also won nn impressive 24 out of 30 tackles in the league this season which is very healthy indeed and is better than Marouane Fellaini, Michael Carrick and Tom Cleverley.

He’s a very busy player and in some respects would be the perfect partner to someone like Carrick. Whilst the England man sits deep spraying the ball around, Koke can burst forward from midfield and support attacks. Interestingly Koke’s two goals mean that if you ignore Adnan Januzaj he has scored more than the entire United midfield put together.

Finally Koke is an excellent set-piece taker, with scope to only improve as he gets older. Whilst it seems highly unlikely that he’ll displace either Wayne Rooney or Robin van Persie as first choice free-kick takers he could take corners. That would allow both of them to be in the box, rather than having to take them themselves and it could make United more of a threat from those situations. Furthermore, this season he has created 33 chances, more than Man United’s most creative player, Wayne Rooney (26).

Manchester United Top Chance Creators this Season

Back in October the German newspaper Bild reported that Koke’s buyout clause was around £17 million, a fee not beyond United’s reach. It’s also a fee that represents extremely good value for money given the player’s scope for development. Whether or not Koke would be open to a move is open to speculation but if United were presented with an opportunity to sign him, they would be extremely foolish to pass it up.