Lyon’s season so far has been pretty underwhelming. After finishing fourth in the league last season, Lyon are currently 11th in the table with 25 points from 19 games and winless in their last five. One Lyon player who is having an outstanding season so far is midfielder Bruno Guimarães. The 24-year-old defensive midfielder, currently in his third season at Lyon, is linked with a move away to a number of clubs. Most importantly, he has been linked with Arsenal for quite some time now.
The following visualisation shows where Guimares ranks for some of the key metrics among the midfielders in Europe’s top five leagues.
Bruno Guimarães is currently one of the most complete midfielders in Europe. The defensive midfielder pretty much ranks above average for almost all the metrics. Only two other Lyon players have played more minutes than Guimarães in the league so far. Bruno Guimarães is strong when it comes to passing and ranks in the 97th percentile for Key Passes per 90 minutes. He also ranks in the 93rd percentile for Progressive Passes per 90 minutes. When it comes to the defensive side of the game, Guimarães has 10.2 successful Defensive Actions per game which puts him within the 77th percentile and he also wins 65% of his Defensive Duels which ranks him in the 90th percentile for that metric. He attempts 10.96 passes into the final third per 90 minutes, which is in the 97th percentile. Bruno Guimarães also has 0.18 assists per 90 minutes.
Arsenal are in the market for a central midfielder to replace the ageing and not so reliable Granit Xhaka. Albert Sambi Lokonga has struggled to find consistency after moving to the Premier League in the summer of 2021. Thomas Partey has also had more bad days than Arsenal expected him to. Bruno Guimarães, if he signs for Arsenal, will add much needed consistency in the midfield while also improving the overall play of Arsenal.
