Player Review

I bought Ghouam a while back because I didn't want to pay a crazy amount for Alex Sandro, and I felt 35,000 was good value for Ghoulam at the time (clearly considering he's now worth 50,000 when I'm writing this). I had been using 84 Kolarov who I liked a lot, but because the team I have them in is a 5-2-1-2 formation, the wingbacks do A LOT of running up and down the flanks so they can swing the ball into a big man in the middle (Mandzukic/Belotti/Zapata). All that running means their stamina drains very quickly, so Kolarov's 85 stamina rarely lasted through the game, but Ghoulam's 93 often does the job (at least does better).

Pace: I use a shadow on him, so 92 pace is pretty nice. There a bit of a discrepancy between his sprint speed and acceleration, but there is for Kolarov too, and I seem to prefer the better sprint speed than the better acceleration, because the wingbacks are often running at top speed. Generally, I don't think the discrepancy in Ghoulam is nearly as obvious as it is with Kolarov.

Shooting: I don't shoot too often with Ghoulam, so it's a bit hard to rate. If I do shoot with him, I have little expectations of him scoring. That said, because he does get into decent positions in the box occasionally, sometimes I'll just shoot hard at the keeper and hope he parries it into the middle so a striker can tap it in. If these were counted as assists, he would probably have more than twice the amount he currently has for me.

Passing: Ghoulam whips excellent balls into the box, either low and driven or high and lofted. He combines well on short buildup passes with midfielders as well. I wouldn't say he is any better or worse that Kolarov at either. There are two bonuses to using Ghoulam though. First, he has a better weak foot I've found, so he's capable of crossing with the right foot if you want to be a little unpredictable. The other benefit to Ghoulam is the giant throw in trait. Because I play with the fullbacks quite a bit near the lines, I often get throws high up the field. He can throw the ball well into the box, which I then use a big man to head down for someone else to finish. Every few games I score one of these throw in plays, but again Ghoulam fails to get assists for this.

Dribbling: Pretty comfortable on the ball, but nothing spectacular. I use him a lot to progress the ball up the field, but I don't try to do anything special with him. If he has the ball in the attacking third, he is either crossing, or laying it off to a creative midfielder to get the ball into the danger area or to shift play.

Defending: Very solid defender, tracking back well from a high wingback position to make plenty of tackles and interceptions even though his defensive work rate is only medium. He wins the ball high up the field as well if someone is trying to play out of the back, allowing me to counter quickly. Towards the end of the game as his stamina drains, he tracks back less and less though, and can easily get beaten for pace by wingers. To mitigate this late game risk, I play Manolas on Ghoulam's side, so I have a quick CB capable of defending out wide and tracking wingers if needed.

Physical: Although I just talked about how his stamina is somewhat letting me down, I can't ask for much more. He does a ton of work with his 93 stamina and ends up exhausted; I think it's more of a combination of the formation and my play style, because I doubt even 99 stamina would be enough. He is surprisingly strong as well, even though he only has 73 strength. Good at defending the near post on corners because his jumping isn't bad and he's 6'.

Overall, I don't really have any complaints about Ghoulam. I think he's a slight upgrade over Kolarov at LWB, mostly because of the stamina but also modestly better passing/dribbling, but I would take either if they were playing a traditional LB. He works hard and plays decent balls, and that's about all I can ask for out of a wingback. While writing this, he's about 5,000 cheaper than Alex Sandro, but because I have no problems with Ghoulam, I feel no need to change, because they look very comparable on paper. 50,000 is a bit expensive for a LWB/LB, but he's up there with Alex Sandro as one of the top LB's in Serie A.