There are many rumours suggesting that David Alaba is looking for a move away from Bayern Munchen. Some of the teams that are reportedly interested are Chelsea, Real Madrid and PSG. Apparently, a few years ago Alaba was on the verge of leaving Bayern in search of a team where he could play in a midfield role. It seems as if the Austrian international once again has his sights set on playing in the midfield, rather than the defence. Last season Alaba was shifted from left-back to centre-back because of his progressive qualities, but also because Bayern needed to make room for Alphonso Davies. Alaba impressed in the build-up from centre-back position which is important for a dominant team who dominates possession like Bayern.

Let’s take a look at how Alaba compares to the other centre-backs from Europe’s top five leagues this season. The comparison only includes players who have played at least 300 minutes. On the dashboard, the greener the marker indicates a better performance in that metric compared to the other centre-backs. The number in the marker represents the value per 90 minutes.

Looking at the defensive stats on the left we can see that Alaba is not too successful in both aerial and ground duels. He is slightly better at possession adjusted metrics which, of course, help give better insight into interceptions and sliding tackles because they close the gap between players playing in better teams and players playing in weaker teams. But, if we take a look into his passing qualities it is clear that he is one of the finest progressors of the ball in the top five leagues. He is ranked very high in progressive passes and progressive runs, but also in long passes and forward passes. Even though he is below average in pass accuracy he still has a high overall accuracy of 87.34%. He likely falls behind in his accuracy because he takes more risks in his passing actions than most other centre-backs.

Conclusion

It is not surprising that Guardiola was the first coach to experiment with Alaba at centre-back because he saw Alaba as someone who could find his teammates between the lines and make a big impact in the build-up. Alaba, even though it looks like he prefers playing in the midfield like he does for the Austrian national team, is a difference-maker as a centre-back and would be quite an addition for any team that plays possession-based football.