Many Wolves fans love a bit of Toti Gomes.
The 26-year-old arrived at the club in 2020 after Wolves paid around ยฃ900,000 to sign him from Estoril, and he was immediately loaned out to Grasshoppers.
In January 2022, Wolves recalled Toti Gomes from his loan with Romain Saiss having gone to AFCON with Morocco.
Toti was a fringe player at Molineux for a fair while, but these days he is now a regular, operating on the left of a back three.
Itโs a position that he is now very comfortable, and one that really suits his style of play.
Vitor Pereira has talked up the importance of Toti and the balance he brings to the side.
Toti really has become a hugely important player under Pereira, and now one very impressive statistic has emerged about the Wolves number 24.
Toti Gomes is the most successful player at dispossessing dribblers in the PL this season
Toti has always been a good, out-and-out defender.
The star is strong and athletic, and fairly tall too at 6ft 2in tall.
These things make him pretty useful when it comes to stopping dribblers โ and one very impressive statistic has now emerged relating to this.
According to Opta Analyst, Toti can actually lay claim to being the best one-vs-one defender in the Premier League right now.
He has faced 52 dribbles so far this season, and Toti has won 80.8% of his duels.
No player has a higher percentage (of players to have contested 50+) with William Saliba of Arsenal in second with 78.1%.
Saliba is highly regarded and seen as one of the best one-vs-one defenders around, so this is genuinely impressive stuff from Toti.
The top five one-vs-one defenders in the Premier League are as follows:
- Toti Gomes (52, 80.8%)
- Wiliam Saliba (64, 78.1%)
- Tyrick Mitchell (95, 77.8%)
- Aaron Wan-Bissaka (67, 76.1%)
- Calvin Bassey (60, 73.1%)
Toti is so underrated
Toti didnโt start the current season too well.
Famously Troy Deeney branded Toti a โcar crashโ after his first outing for Wolves against Arsenal.
But that criticism was overboard, because the player was playing in a back four with Yerson Mosquera, who was making his Premier League debut.
Mosquera was actually great against the Gunners, but Toti did struggle.
But since Wolves reverted back to their tried-and-tested back three, Toti has been much better. And since Pereira came in, heโs been one of Wolvesโ best players, making it something of a travesty that Toti didnโt get a Portugal call-up for the current international break.
Toti is just so underrated. He plays that role on the left of the three superbly well, and heโs still a few years away from his peak so itโs exciting to think about the level he could get to.
For this Wolves system heโs a dream, and itโs great to see such a humble and hardworking player thriving at Molineux.