The man who dares to shovel up no matter who his opponent is, even if the one coming is a big truck, is back! The former Premier League "stealer king", Portuguese iron waist Paligna joined Tottenham Hotspur on loan from Bayern Munich to return to the Premier League, with a loan period of one year.
Palinia (Spurs)
Palinia once made a name for his strong performance in Fulham. In the two seasons of the Premier League between 2022 and 2024, he completed a total of 300 steals, ranking first and far ahead, with 109 more than second-ranked Kesaido (191 times).
2022/23 season, Paligna completed 148 steals. In addition, he participated in 487 confrontations, ranking second in the league, with a success rate of 59.1%. This includes 64.3% of 112 aerial confrontations, ranking 12th among all Premier League players. It is worth mentioning that 10 of them are central defenders, and winning the air ball has an advantage. The only midfielder whose air confrontation data is better than him is Manchester City's Rodri (105 confrontations, with a success rate of 68.6%).
By the 2023/24 season, although Palinia played two fewer games than the previous season, she completed 152 more steals and was once again awarded the "Steal King". This is the highest record in the Premier League single season since Kanter made 175 steals for Leicester City in the 2015/16 season.
However, frequent steal attempts and tackles are inevitably accompanied by the risk of yellow cards. In the 2022/23 season, Paligna received the 14 most yellow cards in the Premier League, tying the single-season yellow card record; in the 2023/24 season, he won 13 yellow cards, which is also "not far behind". But even so, he has never been sent off, which shows that he has a sense of qualities and control.
Palinia's highlight performance in Fulham attracted the attention of Bayern Munich. But when he joined the Bundesliga overlord as he wished in the summer of 2024, coach Tuchel, who had originally signed him, had been replaced by Kompany, who preferred the ball-handling style.
Last season, Paligna had limited opportunities to perform. He only started 6 times in the Bundesliga and made a total of 17 appearances. So he can no longer accumulate more steals like he did when he was at Fulham. Even so, he still averaged 2.7 steals per game in limited opportunities, second only to Sasha Boe in the team.
In addition to defense, another question that Tottenham fans may be more concerned is: As a midfielder, does Palinia's passing ability meet the standards?
data shows that Paligna's pass success rate in the Bundesliga last season was 92.9%, with only four players in the team being higher. Among them, his pass accuracy in his own half was as high as 98.4%, and his opponent's half was 88.6%, and his results were very good in both aspects. But in the third offensive zone, his accuracy rate dropped to 82.2%, ranking only 12th in Bayern.
In contrast, no midfielder passed a pass rate of more than 90% in last season's Premier League match. In terms of offensive third zones, only Saar (84.1%) and Bentankur (83.5%) performed better than Palinia's Bundesliga data.
Of course, simply looking at the success rate of the pass does not tell the whole story. A simple inverted foot or pass "safety ball" is obviously incomparable to a fatal straight pass.
In the 2024/25 Bundesliga, only 2.7% of Palinia's passes were propelling passes (only 15 of 551 passes), accounting for the lowest proportion among all midfielders who had at least 200 passes. In contrast, Tottenham's Bisuma (3.8%), Bentankur (4.0%), Saar (3.3%) and Berivar (3.5%) have all higher proportions of push passes than him.
But no matter what, for Tottenham, this is a sure-making deal. They have obtained a midfielder with experience in the Premier League and European wars and excellent defensive coverage and interception capabilities. Such a midfield interception expert can undoubtedly provide great help when playing against strong teams, providing more protection for the back line that exposed problems many times last season.
Source: Premier League