Analysis
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Southampton‘s season continues to go from bad to worse in the Premier League. After parting ways with manager Russell Martin in mid December, the Saints haven’t faired much better under new head coach Ivan Juric. Over the course of his six games in charge the club have won just one game – a 3-0 win over Swansea in the FA Cup – and remain planted to the bottom of the league table with just one win and three draws from 22 league games to date.
As such, fans of the recently-promoted club have had very little to celebrate this season, as they’ve struggled to match the lofty expectations that are often placed on clubs from the championship” href=”https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/championship/startseite/wettbewerb/GB2″ target=”_blank”>championship. And unless something changes soon, it seems more than likely that the club will be heading back to the second tier in May. But at least before that comes to pass, Saints fans can take some solace from the remarkable performances of young winger Tyler Dibling.
How good is Tyler Dibling?
Having just turned 18 earlier this year, Dibling is still very much coming to terms with the demands of senior football in the most demanding league in european football. But there’s certainly a number of reasons why Southampton have fast-tracked him into their first team. Last season, the young winger shone in the club’s second team, bagging eight goals and six assists in 27 games across all competitions, as Dibling showcased a remarkable array of talents that included scoring, creating goals but most exciting of all of them was a tremendous ability to dribble by defenders. And, to the praise of many fans and pundits alike this season, Dibling has shown no interest in shying away from doing exactly that against top-class opponents in the Premier League in the past few months.
According to stats website FBRef, Dibling is fourteenth among all players in the Premier League for attempted take ons this season, sitting just below Manchester City star Savinho and above established, top-class attackers like Luis Díaz, Cole Palmer and Gabriel Martinelli. And, to no great surprise, the 18-year-old talent leads Southampton’s own charts in this regard, averaging almost twice as many dribbles per 90 minutes (5.55) than the next best dribbler in the team in Mateus Fernandes (3.58). But what makes Dibling such a remarkable talent is his ability to couple his very direct dribbling with the finesse and technique needed to create goals either for himself or for his team mates at Southampton.
Indeed, alongside his dribbling stats, Dibling is also Southampton’s third highest source of passes into the opposing box this season with 16 from his first 20 league appearances. The 18-year-old star also comes fourth only to Yukinari Sugawara, Kyle Walker-Peters and the aformentioned Fernandes for passes that have led to a shot in the league for Southampton this season. So when we combined that with the fact that Dibling is also joint-first in Southampton’s squad for total shots on target in their squad this season, it points to a young player that is already taking it upon himself to lead the line for this club and in many cases almost single-handedly win games for them in the Premier League.
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Who wants to sign Tyler Dibling?
With a market value of €22 million, Dibling is currently the most valuable forward in the Premier League aged 19 years of age or younger. This is in no small part due to his performances for Southampton over the course of this season and the interest that has garnered around the youth talent. Having previously been linked with a return to Chelsea last year, the Southampton star has since seen his name brought up in reports suggesting that Premier League sides Tottenham and Newcastle could be interested in signing the young winger. While the most recent report from Germany suggests that Bundesliga giants RB Leipzig would be willing to offer €30m to sign the Saints star in January. It seems like it may only be a matter of time before this right winger is rubbing shoulders with some of Southampton’s most expensive departures. Whether or not that happens before the end of the season and due to Southampton either staying in the Premier League or facing the prospect of relegation, remains to be seen.
