Sofyan Amrabat looks set to finally complete his long-awaited move from Fiorentina to Manchester United according to Fabrizio Romano, and Erik ten Hag has now got some much-needed cover for Casemiro through the door.

The Brazilian has struggled in the early weeks of the Premier League season while being flanked by two much more attacking players in the form of Mason Mount and Bruno Fernandes. Amrabat comes in as a player that can both play the role Casemirohe does when he is absent, but can also play alongside the former Real Madrid man to shore up the midfield.

The all-action midfielder was a star in the heart of the Moroccan national side during their run to a fourth-place finish at the 2022 World Cup. His performances caught the eye of many fans across the world, and ramped up speculation that he could make a move to the Premier League in the January transfer window, although this did not pan out. The Manchester United move makes a lot of sense for the club as Scott McTominay does not seem trusted by his manager at the present moment, while Fred has departed the club to sign for Fenerbache.

McTominay was a name that many expected to move on in the summer transfer window in order to gain more first-team football at the age of 26 years old. That has not occurred, however, and the Scottish midfielder now looks to compete with both Casemiro and Amrabat for a starting berth in the team.

With that being said, we take a look at all three players' league statistics from the 2022/23 season and see how they compare, with the stats coming via Squawka.

How does Amrabat compare to Casemiro and McTominay?

McTominay played almost half the minutes of the other two men, with his Brazilian teammate playing the most with 2,125 despite making one less appearance than Amrabat. 24 games played for McTominay shows that he was mainly limited to substitute cameos as the other two played 28 and 29 games.

It has to be remembered that when speaking about Casemiro, we are talking about a world-class defensive midfielder that has even been labelled as the best by some in the past few years. This does reflect in the stats as the 31-year-old was the clear winner in terms of ball recoveries, with almost 100 more than his incoming teammate. McTominay struggles to get near either of his colleagues in a number of stats, probably due to his lack of minutes in comparison.

Casemiro was even the biggest attacking threat in 2022/23 among the trio - with six goals and three assists in the league - as that part of his game seemed to improve significantly under Ten Hag. McTominay and Amrabat only managed a goal and an assist between them respectively, which is not even close to the five-time Champions League winner.

The majority of these goals came from set pieces, which explains the difference as the new signing doesn't often venture into the penalty area for set plays. Regardless, United fans will hope he can at least up his contribution slightly by playing in a more dominant team than Fiorentina often were. On that note, he did retain the ball a lot better than his new teammates, with more passes attempted and a better-passing accuracy at 89.81 per cent, 0ver 10 per cent more than Casemiro.

Of his 1452 attempted passes in 2022/23, the Moroccan completed an impressive 134 long passes which is significantly more than 95 and 18 for Casemiro and McTominay respectively. He did complete less backward and forward passes than Casemiro with the Brazilian keeping it a lot more simple with his distribution of the ball.

McTominay did lose possession 89 times less over the course of the season than Amrabat. However, he also played almost 900 minutes less than the 27-year-old. This is actually the only stat of the bunch that the Scotland international comes out on top of. That just goes to show that Amrabat is not often caught in possession, unlike some of the players already at the club, and this should benefit United's style under Ten Hag.

It may come as a surprise that he only won seven more tackles than McTominay with 39 across the season even with the aforementioned difference in game time, while their fellow midfielder made more than double the challenges with 85. He was also significantly better in terms of aerial duel win percentage, interceptions and clearances.

These statistics look to point in the direction of where he will fit into his new team as the backup, with Casemiro remaining the undisputed first-choice defensive midfielder. While it didn't happen in the summer window, it could also spell the end of McTominay's time at Old Trafford eventually, as his already low game time will decrease further as he falls down the pecking order.

Where does Amrabat fit into Man United's team?

It will definitely be an interesting one to keep an eye on as United have started the season with a very open and easily beaten midfield. The attacking nature of Fernandes and Mount can be helpful in the home games against opposition lower in the table, in theory at least.

But for the difficult away games, particularly against the top half teams - which United famously struggled in last season - it would be helpful to bring Amrabat in to partner Casemiro and add a bit of defensive steel and work rate to the engine room. This was a job often done by Fred to varying degrees of success in 2022/23, with the new signing expected to be an upgrade on the departed Brazilian.

Away games against the likes of Liverpool and Manchester City have been a struggle for many years now, not just in the previous campaign, so having the option of being hard to defeat is always a good one to have. Even if Ten Hag's side finds themselves in the lead, Amrabat can be a very useful player to bring on in the place of a more attacking player to see a game out.