Leeds United

FACTFILE: Leeds United blow hot for Anita – player insights

There is a serious sense of things going right up at Elland Road and with Leeds United since Italian Andrea Radrizzani took full control of the Whites from fellow Italian Massimo Cellino.

The ground has been brought back under the guardianship of the club, the first time in 13 years that this has been so. There is much fan hope and genuine aspiration about the place, last year being an excellent platform that was laid down. Transfers are being signed, five being completed up to press.

And now that five is six, following news released earlier by Phil Hay…

…and confirmed by the club at the kit launch tonight.

For Leeds United fans not in the know, here’s five things about Vurnon Anita.

Vurnon Anita – factfile

1. All Dutch Were We. Starting his career at junior clubs VV Maarssen and CVVV Willemstad (located in the Netherlands Antilles – in the Caribbean), Anita then made the move into European football with Dutch giants Ajax Amsterdam. He broke into the Under-17s, before moving through to the Under-19s in 2005 and the full Ajax set-up in 2008.

He played 152 Eredivisie games for Ajax, scoring seven times and providing nine assists before a 2016 move to Newcastle United for a sum of around £7.2 million. He featured in 106 Premier League games for the Magpies, and made 27 appearances in last season’s successful promotion from the Sky Bet Championship.

2. He’s internationally seasoned. Whilst only appearing for Holland on three occasions, Anita has an international pedigree stretching back through the age groups of Dutch international football. In total, across all age groups, the right-back has 53 appearances – turning out most for the Under-17s with 28 caps at that level.

3. Anita in action.

4. The stats behind the man.

The following (below) is a player radar of his contributions last season for Porto – all apart from the percentages are in ‘per 90 minutes’, so what would be expected from him over the course of a typical 90 minutes appearance.

Anita
Stats courtesy of WhoScored.com

What this graphic shows is that Anita is a solid defender when facing opposition attackers, against whom he wins a higher number of tackles (1.7 per 90 minutes) than he allows players to go past him (0.5 dribbled past per 90 minutes). Passing-wise he is quite a high-volume passer of the ball, attempting 51.3 passes per typical 90 minutes – completing 80.2% of these. From his 41.1 completed passes, he makes 1.1 key passes per 90, or passes setting up a teammate for a shot/chance – this meaning that nearly 2.7% of his passes ended with chances for others.

5. What’s he like in FIFA though?

This is his card and stats from FIFA17

Anita

 

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