The transfer market is always moving, and Villarreal has added another piece to its ever-growing puzzle. After officially announcing the arrivals of Diego Conde and Pape Gueye earlier this month, the yellows have now confirmed the arrival of 19-year-old centreback Willy Kambwala from Manchester United in a transfer worth around €10m.
Born in Kinshasa, DR Congo, but moving to France at a young age, Kambwala made a name for himself at the prestigious FC Sochaux academy, captaining several French youth teams along the way, before making the jump to Manchester United, where he has been applying his trade for the previous three years. Now, after a productive season in which he broke through to United's first team and made several appearances, a few starts and accumulated 324 minutes in the Premier League, the young defender arrives at Villarreal looking to leave a mark.
Despite being inexperienced at the top level, Kambwala's short professional career has featured several standout performances in which the youngster has displayed his qualities to the world. Standing at 1,92m tall, his strength and physical frame are already highly developed in his early years and give him a significant advantage in both ground and aerial duels. Willy is also extremely fast for a centerback, which, combined with his aggression and top-class tackling ability, allow him to effectively defend both central and wide areas of the pitch.
Technically, Kambwala is no slouch either. He mostly keeps it simple with clean, but effective and forward thinking short passes to help build up play from the back, but he also knows to progress play by running with the ball whenever needed. His aforementioned defensive strengths combined with his ball-playing capabilities make him capable of playing at both CB and RB to a sufficient level, a diverse skillset which any manager would appreciate.
Of course, no young player is perfect. Kambwala's game still features some flaws, most of which are natural for this stage of his career. He sometimes relies a bit too much on his strength and height to win defensive duels, a habit naturally picked up in the youth ranks which doesn't translate as well to professional football. He's also sometimes too eager, which manifests itself either in poorly thought out long balls which rarely find their target, or diving in for a crunching tackle when it's not exactly the best option. Despite this, his great recovery pace means that he's always there to fix his mistake.
However, one of Kambwala's greatest and most frightening weaknesses has nothing to do with his performance on the pitch, but rather his susceptibility to injuries. The only reason that a talent of his caliber did not break through into senior football much earlier was a devastating ankle injury suffered almost immediately upon his arrival in England, which ruled him out for around 11 months. Having suffered several smaller injuries since then, he only got a good strecth of health and joined up with the United first team squad at the tail end of the season, which explains his lack of minutes.
Villarreal have made a big gamble by spending €10m to secure the services of a young, inexperienced and injury-prone Willy Kambwala to anchor its inconsistent defence. But in doing so, they have signed of world football's best defensive talents. Under the guidance of Marcelino, one of the world's best coaches who has developed several top defenders throughout the years, Kambwala will certainly explode to new heights and exceed any previous valuation.
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