The situation
The Austrian central defender, without the World Cup on the horizon, has worsened his performance compared to last season. The proximity of the World Cup has been an invisible shackle that in recent weeks has weighed down the performance of many players who had the Qatar event on the horizon. A thesis that explains the downturn of some players but that does not fit in the case of Alaba. The Austrian center-back, whose team does not attend the World Cup tournament, is not endorsing the good feelings that he left last season in his debut as a Real Madrid player.
The details
He looks awkward and very impulsive when he has to get out of his position. Alaba is showing himself to be one of the most fragile pieces of the Madrid defense and against Cádiz he was singled out on some occasions by the yellows. Artificial Intelligence corroborates Alaba’s slump. According to data from Olocip, which has evaluated players since the 2016-2017 season, this is the most discreet campaign for the Austrian central defender. His actions contribute a value of 0.1543 every 90 minutes , that is, he helps to score or avoid a goal every seven games. That value represents half that of his best years at Bayern (he reached 0.3598 in 2020-21, just before signing for Madrid) and also far from the 0.275 he reached last season at Madrid. Especially significant is his contribution in defensive actions, with which last season he contributed a value of 0.1047 (he avoided a goal every 10 games) and now it has fallen to 0.0564 (it takes 18 games for the sum of his defensive actions equals an avoided goal). This is pretty important to everyone. So the only thing we have to do at this point is to wait and see what is going to happen. Time will show us everything