Wolves look destined to miss out on one of their summer targets with the news that Edson Alvarez is on his way to Ajax.
Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported that the Amsterdam club had agreed a fee for the 21-year-old Mexico defender from Club America in his homeland.
Earlier this month, Mexican outlet Record claimed that Wolves were in line to land Alvarez’s signature, but that now appears unlikely to transpire.
According to De Telegraaf, Ajax have also beaten off Roma, Crystal Palace, West Ham United and Zenit St Petersburg with the imminent €17million (£15.36m) capture of the centre-back.
Alvarez is only 21 but has already won 28 caps for Mexico, playing in all four of their matches at last year’s World Cup and also featuring in their recent Gold Cup triumph.
He is primarily a centre-back, where he has played in 53 of his 94 club starts. However, he offers ample versatility, having also started 23 games in defensive midfield and eight at right-back.
Writing for vivaligamx.com, Dan Chapman compared the youngster to N’Golo Kante for his ability to break up play, while also noting his competent distribution of the ball.
Alvarez’s statistics from the 2018 World Cup support those assertions. At the tournament in Russia, he averaged 1.8 tackles and 1.3 interceptions per game, while recording a passing success rate of 84.4%. He also won 1.3 aerial duels per game in that competition.
Wolves currently have four centre-backs in their squad in Conor Coady, Willy Boly, Ryan Bennett and Roderick Miranda. However, with Nuno usually opting to start with three central defenders, it does not leave much cover at the back if any of those were to become unavailable for any reason.
Alvarez’s aerial duels figures from the World Cup pale in comparison with the averages achieved by Boly (3.8) and Bennett (3.6) in the Premier League last season. However, his passing success rate is higher than both of those players (Boly 81%, Bennett 79.6%), so he could have offered an ideal counterbalance to those two if he had signed for Wolves.
Also, his tackling and interception statistics from last year’s World Cup were on a par with Bennett’s from the Premier League in 2018/19 and far superior to Coady’s average of 0.8 per game for both metrics.
The versatility of Alvarez, along with his ability to legally stop opposition attacks, may have been a useful asset for Wolves. Even if he was unable to forge a starting berth at centre-back at Molineux, he could have provided much-needed cover for Matt Doherty at right-back.
Wolves fans, how big a blow is it to miss out on signing Alvarez? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!