Diogo Dalot The Rise Of The Modern Fullback | Manchester United

Diogo Dalot has endured a turbulent career at Manchester United. There have been plenty up and downs in the five seasons he's been at the club after being bought under then manager and fellow countryman Jose Mourinho. However, things seem to have finally turned around for Dalot this season. He's established himself as a first choice right back and has earned the support of manager Eric Ten Hag, which has given him the opportunity to show just what he's capable of at In this video, we'll look into what makes Diego Dalot a massive fan favourite and his incredible transformation into one of the best right backs in Europe. If you're a full back, you're either a failed winger or a failed centre back. No one wants to grow up to be the next Gary Neville. Words of wisdom once famously spat out by the legendary Jamie Carragher. And while that may have rung true at the time, the expectations of a modern-day full back have never been more complex. Take Klopp. He demands endless running and creativity from his full backs, primarily from advanced, wide positions. And compare that to Guardiola, who famously pioneered the inverted full back, best illustrated in Manchester City's 2021-2022 title-winning season by João Cancelo and Oleksandr Zinchenko. While their styles could hardly differ more, the results were the same. Both Klopp and Guardiola delivered major trophy hauls with full backs at the heart of their success. This serves as an appropriate introduction to Diogo Dalot, one of the surprise turnaround stories of the season and one that, in truth, epitomises Manchester United's overall resurgence this season under Eric Ten Hag. Costing around £19m from Porto back in 2018-2019, the then-19-year-old Dalot joined Manchester United as Jose Mourinho's second signing of the summer, with his new manager considering him as the best full back in Europe in his age group. Unfortunately, a long-term injury saw Dalot spend much of his first three months at United on the sidelines. By the time he finally regained his fitness, the United board had axed Mourinho, appointing Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as his successor. Unlike Mourinho, Solskjaer wasn't as convinced by Dalot, regularly dropping him to the bench. And when he did get a run in the team, he was used in a variety of positions, including left-back and even as a right midfielder. Often found in more advanced positions, Dalot took more shots, received more progressive passes and put up more shot-creating action per 90 than any other time in his United career. However, this led to questions about his defensive abilities. The following summer, Solskjaer looked to revamp United's defence, making big-money moves for English defenders Harry Maguire and Aaron Wan-Bissaka, with the latter brought in as a replacement for Dalot. Dalot had a rough go of it during the 2019-2020 season, spending significant time on the treatment table. But even when he was fit and ready to go, he was stuck playing back-up to Wan-Bissaka, as Solskjaer preferred the more defensive presence of Wan-Bissaka, having earned the nickname The Spider, owing to his love for a tackle. Throughout the remainder of Solskjaer's time in charge, Wan-Bissaka was the first choice right back, with Dalot even being loaned to AC Milan for the 2020-2021 season after being considered surplus to requirements at United. However, fortunes eventually changed for Dalot, as after a lot of speculation and criticism around Solskjaer, a 4-1 loss to Watford proved to be the final nail in the coffin, as Ole's reign at Old Trafford was brought to an end. United, in turn, hired Ralf Rangnick as interim coach, with the German quick to return Dalot to the fold as his first choice, starting him in 19 of the remaining 26 Premier League games of the 2021-2022 season. United then announced the much-anticipated appointment of Erik Ten Haag, this being the catalyst for Dalot's resurgence. Attack wins you games, defence wins you titles. For those unfamiliar with Ten Haag's playing style before he graced the Premier League, he made great use of full-backs, most notably with Ajax. The improvement of both Dalot and Luke Shaw should come as no surprise. Ten Haag likes his sides to be possession-dominant, evident by his United team having the sixth-highest average possession per game of all Premier League clubs this season. And this all starts with the defence. As Sir Alex once famously said, attack wins you games, defence wins you titles. Ten Haag favours ball-playing centre-backs, like summer signing Lisandro Martinez, paired in between full-backs who are comfortable playing a multitude of roles. At Ajax in 2021-2022, Ten Haag's favourite full-back pairing was Daley Blind and Nusair Masraoui. This combination is not unlike Shaw and Dalot at United. Blind would often receive the ball from the goalkeeper or centre-back, and after releasing it, he would tuck inside, acting almost as a wide auxiliary centre-back. This, in turn, allowed Masraoui free reign to either invert, overlap or underlap his more advanced teammates, and join attacks in a dominant Ajax side, doing so with great effect, notching five goals and two assists in last season's Eredivisie. Compare this to present-day Manchester United, and while the personnel has changed, the pattern of play remains the same. Ten Haag has cultivated a formula for success and has seamlessly implemented it at Old Trafford. The roles are a near-perfect match, even operating on the same side of the pitch, with Shaw assuming Blind's auxiliary centre-back role and Dalot mirroring Masraoui as the more progressive of the two. This is best illustrated by Shaw's heat map, as he often dominates an inside left position that could easily be seen as the third centre-back, with the Englishman also putting up the most completed passes of any United player this season, despite missing four games, a metric traditionally dominated by centre-backs or defensive midfielders. Comparing Shaw's heat map with Dalot's, the latter shows less inversion but also notably sees Dalot enter the opposition box more frequently, averaging an impressive 2.05 touches in the box per 90 this season, and generally holding wider positions. Interestingly, Dalot's heat map also shows his tendency to make underlapping runs and occupy space on the outside right-hand side of the box. However, there's also clear evidence of overlapping and positioning in the box, most commonly across the right line, looking for cutbacks or crosses to teammates. Another important factor to consider in Dalot's success comes with Ten Hag's deployment of his midfielders. United's preferred midfield pairing sees Ericsson and Casemiro in the left and right of a double pivot, with their clear stylistic differences suited to United's full-back pairings. On the left, Shaw, the more conservative full-back, is paired with Ericsson, a player who made his name as one of the most dangerous attacking midfielders in Europe. And while he can do a job in a deeper role like he is at United, it's still in his nature to push forward and join the attack. But on the right, Dalot and Casemiro almost invert this pattern, as Dalot operates as the more advanced of the two, as Casemiro fulfills the lights-out destroyer role he has built his reputation on, while being in position to cover Dalot if he is caught out high up the pitch. Even bringing in a third player, often Bruno Fernandes, Dalot, Fernandes and Anthony can combine for passing triangles deep into the opposition half, subsequently creating the space and angles to play high-percentage progressive passes that United have so often done this season to break into the box. This contrast on flanks has allowed Ten Hag to keep his United side somewhat unpredictable, with an in-form Marcus Rashford dominating play on the left with his forward runs, dribbling and newfound precision finishing, and a more double-pronged approach on the right, with Dalot and Anthony proving a handful more for most Premier League left-backs thus far. The numbers don't lie. Unquestionably, Dalot has been a beneficiary from United's new system, but also from Ten Hag's coaching, as evidenced by a number of United's seemingly stale players enjoying a similar resurgence this season. Dalot's 2.43 shot-creating actions is the highest of any United defender, while registering 3.49 progressive passes per 90 and 2.5 progressive carries per 90, significantly more than Shaw, illustrating that Ten Hag entrusts many of his attacks to at least initially start from the right-hand side. For further evidence of Dalot's improvement, SofaScore ranks Dalot as United's fourth-best performing player this season, only behind Bruno Fernandes and summer signings Casemiro and Lisandro Martinez, who have also stood out. His best performance of the season came in a 1-0 win over West Ham, where against the notoriously skilful Saeed Benrahma, Dalot put up a mammoth four tackles and three interceptions, failing to be dribbled by once in the game, in what was a truly eye-catching performance. But given that Ten Hag is still early into his time at United and the project he is clearly working towards, at just 23, there's no reason Dalot can't hold a Neville-style monopoly over the right-back spot for the next eight, nine or maybe even ten years. So far, Dalot's deployment under Ten Hag has been transformative for both his and United's successes this season, making himself undroppable as the Red Devils continue to raise hell for whoever they face, full-time. Just two years ago, the £19m spent on Dalot was beginning to look like a waste of money. However, Dalot now looks to be one of the best value-for-money signings United have made in the past couple of years, and under Ten Hag, his ceiling is yet known. Dalot can defend well, contribute to final phase attacks, and his running and positional awareness create space and time for his more attack-minded teammates to carve out opportunities. In his current form, it could be argued Ten Hag has turned him into the best right-back in the league, and possibly even Europe.