Last year, Valery Fernández signed a new contract that will make him stay at Girona until 2030. Nonetheless, in the past two seasons, Valery has only played around 1500’ minutes, and with new signings such as Bryan Gil, Asprilla, and Danjuma it is unlikely that he will get game time. Because of this, he is heading to Mallorca to play under Jagoba Arrasate on loan to get the minutes he needs to stand out.

In this article, we will investigate Valery Fernández and what he can offer to Mallorca.

Name: Valery Fernández

Position: Right Winger/Left WInger/Right Back

Country: Spain

Age: 24

Height: 182cm

Preferred Foot: Right

Last Club: Girona

Valery began his career in Girona’s academy and stayed 6 months at CF Peralada before returning and staying at Girona for the rest of his career, now more than 5 seasons in the first team. Before we begin the data analysis it is important to mention that the data of Valery Fernández is coming from the 2022/2023 season as there is insufficient data from the past years to carry out a data analysis correctly.

Goals + Assists

How many goals and assists a player has shows how decisive he is and this for wingers is key as they are offensive players counted upon to have high figures in these aspects.

Here we can observe that Valery is not a player who gets close to the goal and attacks the box, with the lowest xG among Mallorca’s players. This tells us that he is not a goal-threat and does not get close to the opposition goal.

In this image, we can see that Valery has better numbers than his xG though they are still far lower than that of one of Mallorca’s players. Furthermore, his expected assists tally is lower than 0.1 which tells us that he is not the most decisive player for his team as he has low numbers in both xG and xA.

Crossing

Crosses are a fundamental part of how a winger plays and can also tell us the profile of the winger. If he attempts many crosses that means he likes to stay on the wing, and vice versa, if he doesn’t attempt many crosses that means he likes to play more central and in between the lines.

From this image, we can deduce that Valery is not a traditional winger with less than 2 crosses per 90 and just above a 25% precision. This indicates that he likes to come inside and help in possession rather than staying on the wing to put crosses into the box. This is something that he will have to improve as the Mallorca manager likes that his wingers are able to put dangerous balls into the box for his strikers.

Dribbling

Dribbling is usually one of the standout traits of wingers as the ability to dribble past opponents in 1vs1 situations can be very helpful for the team, and they are usually in situations to make this happen.

With this image, we can say that Valery’s dribbling is excellent and one of his strengths as a player with almost 4 dribbles per 90 and close to a 60% success rate. This is something valued by Arrasate, the Mallorca manager, who likes to attack through his wingers so having agile wingers with the ability to dribble is useful.

Progressive Passing

This passing metric gives us more depth into the danger of each player’s passing rather than just passing the ball forward 5m. This is because this metric only includes more specific passes such as a pass 10m closer to the opposition goal if the pass comes from the opposition side of the pitch.

This image tells us that Valery is not a player with the quality of Mallorca’s players to play dangerous passes. This is not something essential for him considering that he is a winger, but it would be something valuable to add to his game.

This chart compares Valery Fernández with the rest of the La Liga players in his position in the 2022/2023 season using percentiles in different aspects of the game. The percentiles work in the way that whatever the number, he is better than that percentage of players. If it is 70, he is better than 70%.

In this chart, we can see that Valery‘s output in terms of expected goals and assists is average, except for his assists where he is in the 84th percentile, nonetheless, that should be lower. This shows that he is not a decisive player for his club which is one of the reasons why he has left Girona.

However, he is in the 70th percentile for take-ons completed which is not low and indicates that he is effective in his dribbling which can be of aid to Mallorca. In addition, he is in the 93rd percentile for progressive passes received indicating that his off-the-ball movements are excellent, getting into positions where he can receive the ball to progress the play.

Furthermore, he is very good in his 1vs1 defending and in his aerial duels which can be useful for long balls as Mallorca do usually play long balls to their striker but having two options can add unpredictability. Nonetheless, his other defensive attributes are quite poor and must improve as in Mallorca he will have to help his full-back defend.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Valery Fernández is a poor signing for Mallorca as although he has some of the characteristics that Jagoba Arrasate wants of his winger such as his dribbling or ability to win aerial duels. His overall quality is quite average as his output of goals and assists is low, his crossing is also not effective enough and his defending attributes need improvement. However, he does have experience in La Liga and can add depth to a side that needs it in the winger position.

By: Juan Fernandez Valencia / @ScoutLaLiga

Featured Image: @GabFoligno / Soccrates Images / Getty Images