I decided to do a bit of scouting on Alex Teixeira, Liverpool are obviously very interested and Chelsea were reportedly interested and about are about to sell Rameres for £25m so will now have funds to make a bid in the low 40m range which may well be tempting to Shakhtar.
Anyway, rather than watching a goals compilation on Alex I decided to looked at three games of his against varying degrees in quality of opposition. We've got Alex vs Real Madrid [
link], Alex vs Fenerbahce [
link] and Alex vs Dynamo Kiev [
link]. All fairly solid teams which are roughly in the same ballpark as premier league opposition based on their performances in European football.
His game against Real Madrid appears fairly quiet, Madrid are defending well and there isn't much space in the box for him to use his good movement. Madrid also defends deep preventing Alex from using his pace and positioning to break away. His biggest weakness in this game is the amount of time he wants on the ball, he simply doesn't get it against this quality of opposition. Nevertheless, he still scores one goal from open play and second by a penalty.
His game against Fenerbahce is his weakest of the three. Fenerbahce look like they are playing a very high line and look ill disciplined at the back and let Alex through via a lobbed through ball. Alex miscontrols it and ends up pulling the shot wide of the post. He still has good movement but this wasn't his day.
His third game is against Dynamo Kiev who are the second biggest side in the Ukrainian first division and are a regular of the Europa League. Alex has great game scoring twice from open play, using almost Diego Costa positioning in the box for his first goal and then racing past the last defender for a one on one against the goalkeeper. His finish for the second goal is superb and most goalkeepers would be doing well to save this.
So overall he appears to be quite the player and should relatively easily adjust to the premier league, he'll miss chances no doubt and it will take him some time to get used to the new league should he arrive. Will he justify his price tag? I'm not 100% sure, he plays very well for a CAM but Liverpool and Chelsea are both full of players who want to play as a number 10 so it would a bit of a reshuffle to have him fit into either team.