One of the great beneficiaries of Erik ten Hag’s arrival at Old Trafford has been Diogo Dalot.
Alongside David de Gea, Dalot is the only other player to have started each of Ten Hag’s 15 games in charge, a huge vote of confidence from the manager in the player.
As ESPN’s Rob Dawson reveals, this is no fluke and Dalot is reaping the rewards of the intensive preparation he undertook before the season began.
Dawson reports: “Dalot made sure he was ready to impress Ten Hag during pre-season by using part of his summer break in Portugal to work with a personal trainer, physical therapist and nutritionist.”
“A lot of the work went into improving his agility and speed and, so far, it’s paying off: Dalot has posted the third-fastest sprint in the Premier League this season behind Darwin Nunez and Gabriel Martinelli.”
According to Dawson, this follows the hard work the Portuguese put in while on loan in Italy with AC Milan.
So committed was Dalot to his duties and responsibilities that he would sometimes sleep at the Rossoneri’s training ground to ensure easy access to recovery equipment.
The 23-year-old finally lives up to the label of “Europe’s best full-back in his age group” that José Mourinho put on him when United signed him in a £19m deal from Porto.
To highlight the player’s drastic improvement, no United player in the Premier League has had more touches than Dalot: 769.
Only Lisandro MartÃnez and Bruno Fernandes lead Dalot in the ranking of most completed passes within the Red Devils squad.
Defensively and offensively, the winger is on another level. Only Casemiro has made more tackles than him and he is third behind MartÃnez and Raphael Varane in clearances.
Certainly, Dalot is a player on the rise. With his contract expiring at the end of the season, United must make sure to tie him to new terms to avoid interested parties.
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