Incognito Scout Analysis - Kim Min-Jae

Kim Min-Jae is thought to be a player in high demand.

The Napoli centre-back has already been linked with Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool and Tottenham ahead of the summer transfer window.

It’s an impressive list of admirers for a player who only moved to Europe in 2021 – joining Fenerbah?e – and only made his Serie A debut in August 2022.

He adapted impressively to top-level football, though, immediately becoming a crucial part of a Napoli defence that has been the foundation of a remarkable domestic and European season.

Kim has played in all but two of the Scudetto winners' league games, recording just two below average performances while earning significantly above average match ratings on 12 occasions.

The South Korea international’s 22/23 Incognito Score? of 87.1* for his performances at Left Centre-Back make him the number one ranked defender in Italy and the third-best defender in the entire Incognito database, behind only Yeray álvarez (Athletic Club) and Matthijs de Ligt (Bayern Munich).

His strongest suit is Off Ball Intelligence. A rating of 88.6 for this attribute ranks him first out of 120 eligible** CBs in Italy's top flight.

Of course, he has other strings to his bow too, with top 10 rankings for Clearance (eighth), Aerial (ninth) and Challenge (tenth).

The 6ft 3” defender has also proven himself to be a threat at the top end of the pitch, scoring twice in his first five league appearances for Gli Azzurri. Both goals were impressive headers from corners.

An area for improvement is his work with the ball at his feet, evidenced by a league ranking of 51st for Possession.

However, Kim is already formidable operator coming into the prime of his career, and compares favourably to other high-profile LCBs such as Virgil Van Dijk (Liverpool) and Fikayo Tomori (AC Milan).

Despite Napoli's historic 22/23 campaign, it would be no surprise if an English club swooped this summer.

Man United have been strongly linked again this week and the 26-year-old's release clause is reported to be in the region of ￡45m - a very affordable fee for a Premier League giant.

*Incognito data based on performances in league matches only, up to 13/05/2023.

**Players must play more than 360 minutes in the same position for the same club to obtain an Incognito Score?.

At MPS Data we deliver world-class, innovative forms of data analysis for some of the world’s biggest sporting organisations.

We convert football insight to data, not data insight to football.

To find out more about our incognito platform and how it can help your club make data-informed decisions, please contact us, we'd love to talk!