Is the brilliant Falcao the right player for United?

It’s rare that the Premier League has welcomed the arrival of someone who could be considered the best in the world at their job, but Manchester United’s signing of Radamel Falcao falls into that category.

It’s not that Falcao is the best all-round striker in the world – Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Robert Lewadowski might be better candidates – but he might be the best pure finisher.

Ibrahimovic considers himself more of a number ten, a role he occasionally plays for Sweden, and spent much of his first campaign at PSG dropping deep as something of a false nine, attempting to supply onrushing midfielders.

Lewandowski, while a prolific goalscorer, is also excellent at coming short and becoming involved in build-up play, before slipping clever passes through the defence.

Falcao, however, is a goalscorer. He’s the most efficient player in world football at simply converting chances into goals, making space for shots, getting his body in the right position to fire towards goal while seemingly off-balance. He comes alive inside the penalty box, always on the move in a different direction to teammates and opponents, which means ricochets and deflections often fall kindly.

He is, in essence, a poacher, albeit someone who can score spectacular goals too. His double against Athletic Bilbao in the 2012 Europa League final was an extraordinary contrast of brilliant strikes – the first a curled effort from the edge of the box, the second a brilliant Puskas-style turn to leave a defender on his backside, and a cool finish.

You can probably find a selection of Falcao’s greatest goals on YouTube that makes him look like Matt Le Tissier – a scorer of great goals – but in reality he’s perhaps more like Ian Wright – a great goalscorer, of which a select few are also great goals. Wright was a poacher but could also curl them in from long range, or chip the goalkeeper – he found the quickest, most efficient route to goal, which took a variety of forms. Falcao does something similar.

The question, however, is whether teams want a player like Falcao in the modern era. In basic terms, of course they do – he’s one of the best goalscorers around. There’s a suspicion, though, that Falcao makes himself look good, without necessarily making his team as dangerous as possible. It’s interesting that Atletico actually improved after his departure, going from impressive outsiders to actual league winners, an amazing achievement. They didn’t possess anyone as ruthless as Falcao, but overall the team was better organised, and ultimately more successful.

Falcao’s case wasn’t helped by the fact Colombia were also magnificent in his absence at the World Cup, cruelly kicked out of the quarter-final by Brazil, having previously been the tournament’s most impressive team. Again, they didn’t have anyone as good upfront as Falcao, and Teo Gutierrez and Jackson Martinez weren’t individually impressive – but they contributed more in terms of link play, so Juan Cuadrado and James Rodriguez were able to shine and Colombia were brilliant as a unit.

Falcao never played that link role for Colombia – at least not successfully. At the 2011 Copa America, it was interesting to see him dropping back more and becoming involved in build-up play. But it didn’t suit him, it didn’t work very well, and Colombia were poor. It was a stark contrast from his performances with Porto, with whom he had just won the Europa League, heading the only goal in the final against Braga in Dublin. There, he stayed high up the pitch, and banged in the goals with incredible frequency – that was Falcao at his best.

There’s a danger United could go down the Ruud van Nistelrooy route. While United’s most clinical striker of recent years, Van Nistelrooy actually disturbed the ‘United way’ – they won three consecutive league titles before he joined, three consecutive league titles after his departure, but only one in five while Van Nistelrooy was at the club. Clearly it wasn’t entirely the Dutchman’s fault, with problems from top to bottom at the club during that period, but United were overly one-dimensional, and simply too predictable in their build-up play.

Falcao is an interesting case. In one sense he’s unquestionably one of the best forwards around, in another he’s actually untested at the highest level. This will be his fifth consecutive campaign not playing in the Champions League, despite having played for four different clubs during that period – he’s made a succession of sideways moves.

Falcao himself has always wanted to play for Real Madrid, and was convinced he’d earn that move this summer. It would be interesting to see whether a player like him, an old-school number nine who thrives in the box, can still be successful for a genuine title challenger in a major league – and that means making the side better, not just scoring goals.

That experiment might have to wait another year, whether it’s at Manchester United or finally at Real. But the statistics speak for themselves: 72 in 87 at Porto, 70 in 91 at Atletico, 13 in 22 at Monaco. As a pure finisher, Falcao is the best around.