Alexander Sørloth: Atlético Madrid's New Weapon - Can He Replace Morata?

Atlético Madrid have not had a striker to surpass the 20-goal mark in the league since Luis Suárez did it in the year they won the league, 2021. Álvaro Morata has not lived up to the level his €50 million fee suggests. Due to his departure this summer, Atlético have brought in Alexander Sørloth who scored 23 goals last season in the league to challenge for the title once again after ending 4th last season and having two consecutive 3rd place finishes before that. Today, we will be investigating what makes Sørloth so good and why Atlético have decided to invest more than €30 million in him.

Name: Alexander Sørloth

Position: Center Forward

Country: Norway

Age: 28

Height: 195cm

Preferred Foot: Left

Last Club: Villarreal

Sørloth began his career in Rosenborg BK (Norway) before joining FK Bodø Glimt on loan and from that loan spell, he was signed by Groningen for €550k. After one season and a half, he was signed by Midtjylland for €450k where he spent 6 months before joining Crystal Palace for €9 million.

Following one year in England, he went on loan to KAA Gent for 6 months and later to Trabzonspor. After a successful loan spell in Turkey, he was signed by RB Leipzig for €20 million and spent a year there before joining Real Sociedad on loan twice for two seasons. From there, he joined Villarreal for €10 million where he ended 2nd in the race for the Pichichi behind Artem Dovbyk, scoring 23 goals in the league.

In this image, we can see that Sørloth has the most goals scored, nonetheless, his xG is very similar to Atlético’s players except Álvaro Morata’s whose values are superior. In addition, we can observe that he has scored more goals than his xG expects of him showcasing his exceptional ability to put the ball in the back of the net. Nonetheless, this also means that he should have scored fewer goals and this season may be a one-season wonder with next season him scoring fewer goals.

Here we can see that Sørloth has far superior assists than his xA would suggest he should have. This indicates that he should have had fewer assists, nonetheless, he is not the type of player to give assists as we can see due to his low expected assists.

Sørloth does not have a deficiency in dribbling as he attempts almost 3 dribbles per 90 with a relatively high success rate. Nonetheless, these numbers are not as high as those of Ángel Correa which shows that he is not as agile as the best center forwards, however, this is an asset to his game.

In this image, we can observe that Sørloth does not get involved in the play as he has the least passes per 90 and suggests that he is a target man that likes to stay up front. As we can see, this is an aspect that is normal among what Diego Simeone wants as Morata also does not have many passes per 90 either.

From this image, we can deduce that Sørloth’s ability to win aerial duels is impressive with very similar numbers to those of Morata with almost 5 aerial duels per 90 with more than a 50% success rate. This is clearly one of Sørloth’s strengths and with him coming to replace Morata he is an ideal replacement in this sense and can be a huge asset to Simeone.

This chart compares Alexander Sørloth with the rest of the La Liga players in his position using percentiles in different aspects of the game. The percentiles work in the way that whatever the number, he is better than that percentage of players. If it is 70, he is better than 70%.

We can see in this chart, that Sørloth is in very high percentiles in all of the attacking aspects of the game except for actions leading to goals though this is not necessary for his position. He has very high numbers in both xG and xA compared to the other La Liga strikers and highlights his excellent performances this season for Villarreal.

In addition, we can see that he does not excel in the possession-based aspects indicating once more his role of target man with low percentiles in passes attempted and touches. We can also see once more that his dribbling is not a liability to his game being in the 68th percentile showing that he can carry out these actions as well.

Finally, we can see his exceptional ability to win aerial duels being in the 99th percentile in this aspect among the other La Liga strikers, this is something that can be very useful for Atlético de Madrid. Overall, he has a similar profile to Ollie Watkins at Aston Villa, Victor Osimhen at Napoli, and Robert Lewandowski at Barcelona.

In conclusion, Sørloth is an excellent signing by Atlético de Madrid who can replace Álvaro Morata to perfection with very similar numbers to him in all aspects. This highlights he is the ideal profile for Simeone and can excel under the Argentinian manager just like Morata did last season. Nonetheless, he will have to continue putting up with the high numbers in goals scored as the xG suggests he should have scored less, so he might fail to reach these numbers consistently. Furthermore, he has experience in La Liga in great clubs like Villarreal and Real Sociedad so he should not have many difficulties adapting to his new club.

By: Juan Fernandez Valencia / @ScoutLaLiga

Featured Image: @GabFoligno / Getty Images