In 2011 he maintained his impressive form as Santos won the Copa Libertadores, and these eye-catching performances attracted attention from Europe. Porto moved quickly to sign both Alex Sandro, and his Santos team-mate Danilo in one fell swoop. The full-back’s progression has continued in Portugal, which has resulted in interest from Inter Milan and Manchester United amongst others.

If we were to look at the player’s statistics from Porto’s Champions League campaign, they might not paint him in the best light, as the Portuguese champions have struggled in their continental matches so far. To try to achieve some kind of balance, his best and worst performances according to his Squawka performance scores will be used to asses his strengths and weaknesses via the statistics.

Alex Sandro was the standout player in his side’s last Champions League match against Austria Wien, in which they could only manage a 1-1 draw. He won three Sqauwka awards in the game, as he dominated the left side of the field in both attack and defence.

He is described on the Porto website as a street footballer; “pure pleasure, almost playful” with the ball at his feet when attacking. To back this up, he won 8/8 of his attacking take-ons in the game against Austria Wien, a statistic that the best attacking winger would be proud of.

Defensively he was good too, and if we return to his own club’s description of him, they say he has a “style of pickpocketing and stealing the ball which is of the same smoothness he shows in attack”. The graphic below shows his tackling ability, and the complete dominance he has of the left side of the pitch when he’s on his game. He won 3 out of the 4 tackles he attempted in this game, with the only missed tackle occurring deep in the opponents half.

In this game he also had a pass success rate of 84%, as well as winning both his headed duels, and his overall headed duel success is 78%, which is quite respectable for a full-back.

And now to the weaknesses, if you can call them that. Alex Sandro’s successful cross percentage is fairly low, and in most of the games he plays he completes less than 50% of his crosses. Away to Zenit 3 of his 6 crosses were successful, but in the home fixture he only completed 1 out of the 4 crosses he attempted. This said, crosses are fairly notorious for their low success rate as a direct action, and a cross success of 50% is actually a decent return.

Having previously praised the Brazilian’s take on percentage against Porto’s Austrian opponents, it’s a different story against Zenit where he only took the ball past his marker on one occasion out of 8 dribble attempts. This suggests that he needs to pick his battles more carefully in this area of the game, as he obviously has the skills to be successful in the right moments against the right opponents.

It’s difficult to pick out the weaknesses of such an all round player. Even in this game against the Russian title challengers where his Squawka performance score was -12, there are still more positives than negatives to his play. Take, for example, his three out of four tackles won, and his five successful clearances when on defensive duty.

One area of the game the statistics can’t usual judge is a player’s mentality, but Alex Sandro is certainly a player who is used to winning – something which might come in useful when joining a side as successful as Manchester United. There must still be the temptation for David Moyes to follow through on the interest he has in Leighton Baines, as the new Manchester United manager looks to the familiar, safe option in replacing Partice Evra.

However, the Scotsman might be better off taking a risk on Alex Sandro, and it is always a risk when you ask a player to adapt to a new lifestyle, language, and league. But Alex Sandro is a much more rounded a player than many other Brazilian full-backs – André Santos, for example – as he understands there is a defensive side of the game in this position.

Add to this the fact that the Old Trafford club have already produced and tamed a talented Brazilian full-back in the shape of Rafael. Under similar tutelage his compatriot could become as rounded a player as the departing Frenchman.

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