James vs Alexander-Arnold vs Cancelo: FIFA 22 reveals the winner | OneFootball

Reece James enjoyed yet another Chelsea masterclass against Manchester United on Thursday night.

In what has truly proven to be the season in which James has announced himself as a world-class full-back, only the Old Trafford post denied him what would have been a perfect Premier League performance.

It’s crazy to think that the Chelsea prodigy is competing at such a dizzying level when he’s still only 22 years old and was competing in the Championship for Wigan Athletic just three seasons ago.

The Premier League’s best full-backs

Besides, James has been performing so well on such a consistent basis across the 2021/22 campaign that he’s rightfully earning comparisons to Trent Alexander-Arnold and Joao Cancelo.

While asking a fan to pick who the best full-back is out of those three would cause all manner of drama and debate, it would be far less controversial to say that they’re the best in the division right now.

Kudos to Kyle Walker, Kieran Trippier and most notably Andrew Robertson, but you’ve got to put your hands up and say that Alexander-Arnold, James and Cancelo have been in a league of their own this season.

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Alexander-Arnold vs Cancelo vs James

So, on the back of yet another scintillating performance from James, we couldn’t help looking at different ways to try and settle the debate between the Premier League’s leading full-backs.

And one of the unique mediums through which we can try to achieve that is by looking at the statistics over on FIFA 22, which serves as one of the largest objective measures of football players out there.

Every year, EA Sports takes on the near-impossible task of not only assigning every player on the game an overall rating, but also a total out of 100 for every major aspect of their game.

As such, we can use that system to see how Alexander-Arnold, James and Cancelo compare across attributes ranging from sliding tackles to interceptions and free-kick accuracy to heading.

Man Utd 1-1 Chelsea Match Reaction (Football Terrace)

FIFA 22 picks the winner

Now, to try and make things fair, we’re calling upon James’ strongest in-form card of the season because his original base card of 81 for FIFA 22 just doesn’t reflect how brilliant he’s been in 2021/22.

And with said in-form card rating him at an overall of 86, that brings him closer to the base stats of Alexander-Arnold (87) and Cancelo (86) to hopefully give us a comparison that’s more accurate to real life.

Got it? Right then, well, be sure to check out who FIFA 22 considers to be the best full-back out of Alexander-Arnold, James and Cancelo across all 29 in-game attributes, according to Futhead, down below:

Sprint Speed: Reece James – 88

Positioning: Joao Cancelo – 80

Finishing: Joao Cancelo – 68

Long shots: Trent Alexander-Arnold and Joao Cancelo – 75

Volleys: Trent Alexander-Arnold and Joao Cancelo – 62

Penalties: Trent Alexander-Arnold – 55

Dribbling: Joao Cancelo – 85

Agility: Joao Cancelo – 80

Balance: Reece James – 93

Reactions: Joao Cancelo – 85

Ball control: Reece James – 87

Composure: Joao Cancelo – 85

Interceptions: Trent Alexander-Arnold and Reece James – 82

Heading accuracy: Reece James – 75

Defensive awareness: Reece James – 84

Standing tackle: Reece James – 87

Sliding tackle: Reece James – 81

Vision: Trent Alexander-Arnold – 87

Crossing: Reece James – 93

Free-kick accuracy: Trent Alexander-Arnold – 85

Short passing: Trent Alexander-Arnold – 86

Jumping: Reece James – 78

Stamina: Joao Cancelo – 90

Strength: Reece James – 88

Aggression: Reece James – 79

Final scores

2. Joao Cancelo – 9

3. Trent Alexander-Arnold – 7.5

James takes the victory

Wowsers. Well then, there you have it: James is the best full-back in the Premier League.

Ok, ok, ok, so there is ultimately only so much you can extrapolate from a video game series, but the Chelsea star’s most recent in-form card seems to have elevated him above his Liverpool and City rivals.

James particularly shone in the defensive and physical categories with the more attacking attributes ultimately being spread across Alexander-Arnold and Cancelo, which does make a lot of sense.

Perhaps the moral of the story there is that regardless of whether or not you think James is the best player out of the three, perhaps he’s the most rounded across defensive and offensive skills.

What we do know for certain, though, is that James deserves a huge upgrade from the 81 base card that he was handed this season because he should be right up there competing in the high eighties.

James vs Alexander-Arnold vs Cancelo: take your pick, but it’s damn close.