After completing his move to Middlesbrough for 6.75 million euros, Martín Payero became the third-biggest sale of the Argentinian side Banfield, just behind James Rodríguez to Porto (currently at Everton) and Darío Cvitanich to Ajax and surpassing the transfer of Javier Zanetti to Inter in 1995.
Born in 1998, Payero is an academy product of Banfield and he already had 60 professional matches in his career before the move, both for Banfield and Talleres de Córdona, where he played on loan. In those 60 matches, he scored three goals and provided eleven assists, which earned him the call of Argentina U23 for the Olympics this summer.
In this tactical analysis, we’ll see why Payero has attracted Middlesbrough’s interest, what he could bring to their tactics and potential areas to improve to reach his best version.
Player overview
Payero is a right-footed central midfielder who usually plays on the right side of a midfield trio. Not a positional defensive midfielder and not a creative number ten, Payero needs to play alongside a more defensive midfielder and also needs more creative players in front of him. He covers a lot of ground and can also appear wide in the final third, almost as a winger, as seen in his heatmap below.
Standing at 183cm / 6’0’’, Payero is a good presence in the middle of the park. Apart from his size, he also has a big frame and long limbs that make him an excellent runner. A very powerful player going forward, Payero takes full advantage of his engine as we’ll see later in this scout report.
Technically, Payero is a good player but not a spectacular player who will dominate games thanks to his quality. He usually takes simple but effective and well-chosen touches both to control, pass and drive the ball forward. His delivery from set-pieces is excellent and has shown glimpses of his ability to shoot from distance too.
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