Let Man United waste their dosh on Cavani

Is Edinson Cavani the most overrated player in the world? If not, he's up there.  He can't pass, he can't shoot, he can't dribble, and he does not create goals.  What is the big deal?

His stats from last season do nothing to justify his £50m+ estimation:

npgp90	gcp90	ccp90	ap90	ccv
0.55	0.71	0.9	0.08	8.7
pass%	bp%	sacc%	shot%	TTI90
85.5	62.3	36.5	16.7	9.5
gsp90	gap90	gop90	tgop	gopd90
2.12	0.63	1.49	1.61	-0.12

His pass success rate of 85.5% is excellent, at being misleading.  I'm not sure If I have ever seen a back pass percentage above 60, even Iago Aspas had 58.1% last season.  He does have a low turnover rate, but he wasn't exactly the primary ball carrier for PSG, they do have a few other well-known footballers on their squad.  In fact, he only averaged 28 pass attempts and 3.8 shots per 90 minutes last season, for perspective, Ibrahimovic averaged 50 and 5.2 respectively.

Further proof that his passing rate from last season was an anomaly:

year	age	club	comp	app(sub)	pcom	patt	pass%
2012-13	26	Napoli	Serie A	33(1)	544	598	77.9
2011-12	25	Napoli	Serie A	32(3)	551	758	72.7
2010-11	24	Napoli	Serie A	32(3)	495	678	73
2009-10	23	Palermo	Serie A	31(3)	523	682	76.7
				totals	2113	2716	77.8

His previous four year average is nearly 8 points lower.  All those expensive teammates make him look like a Pirlo, when he's really just a Kevin Nolan.  Oddly enough, his 8.7 ccv is his lowest in five years, while his career high was 18.8, his first season in Napoli.  His five year average though is only 11.

Cavani is far from worth £50m, he's probably not even worth £15m. I hope Van Gaal buys him though, it will just add to the horrible deals they made this summer.

Iago Aspas was bad business

In my post about TTI per 90, Iago Aspas came in 2nd at 14.7 last season.  Considering his diminishing minutes as the season progressed, I decided to take a look at the stats from his last campaign at Celta Vigo to see if maybe there was an indication this would happen.

apps (sub)	34
goals	12
assists	7
chances	69
shot acc %	57
shot %	11.8
pass %	77.3
back pass %	61.5
take on %	33.3
TTI per 90	15

Wow, we paid £7.7m for a guy who needed 9 shots per match to score, who passes the ball towards his own goal two-thirds of the time, gives the ball away frequently, and can't dribble passed anyone.

Brendan Rodgers clearly didn't do his homework.  Aspas will turn 27 in August, if he was in his early 20s, I'd say send him out on loan and see if he can improve, but I don't think that's an option anymore.  Celta Vigo must have laughed all the way to the bank.  Rodgers clearly can't continue to spend that kind of money on fringe players without analyzing their game thoroughly.