Hey everyone,

Here is a short Q&A I did with Ligue 1 journalist Mohammed Ali (https://twitter.com/mohammedali_93) on Fabinho. Enjoy!

First off, who is Fabinho? (Age, nationality, position, club, and how he arrived at the club?)

Fabinho is a 22-year-old Brazilian right-back, though can perform very well in other positions too, notably defensive midfield and also central defence.His versatility is perhaps his best strength, having featured in his supposed 'lesser' position of defensive midfield for roughly 40% of his games this season. He's been at Monaco since 2013, though initially on a two-year loan deal from Rio Ave in Portugal. His deal was made permanent last season.

What were your first impressions of the player?

To be honest, given Monaco's wild 2013 spending, his arrival was pretty much unheralded. Initially, given that he had just moved to Rio Ave and immediately sent out on loan to a promoted Monaco, one could only assume he would provide useful back-up. His early performances were pretty average and unassuming, and he later lost his place to Andrea Raggi. This was not alarming however, as he was 20 at the time, and already thrown in the deep end by Claudio Ranieri.

Nevertheless, he has learned enormously from more experienced team-mates and managed to improve technically as a player in the months that followed. In his early Monaco days, Fabinho was perhaps not your most attack-minded full-back, but showed sound defensive quality that can work effectively against the most fearsome attack. In the past season, he has significantly re-worked his game to overcome his attacking deficiencies. His statistics for 2015-16 are testament to that.

How would you describe Fabinho as a player? Any noticeable strengths and weaknesses?

Fabinho is superb at movement & position. His ability to read the game well and anticipate movement is one of his greatest traits. Coming in at over 6 feet, he is unusually tall for a full-back, though possesses great pace and technical quality to beat a defender. His movement, particularly on the overlap has aided Monaco immeasurably.

His defensive statistics are also strong though not as fantastic as previous campaigns. Monaco did concede a lot of goals this season, and caught on the counter a couple of times.

His versatility also helps his team, being deployed by Jardim in the holding role on more than a few occasions. His tough-tackling but pacey skillset helped to keep five clean sheets in an eight game run earlier this year.

What kind of season did he have for Monaco during the 2015/2016 year?

While Monaco were less defensively sound than the year before (where they conceded the least amount of goals in the league), Fabinho had a superb individual season. His six goals and five assist were the second highest out of ASM's players, coming in just behind Bernardo Silva and ahead of strikers Vagner Love & Guido Carrillo.

Compare that with his tally of one goal and four assists in the past two seasons, and you can see how far he has progressed as a player as well as becoming more central to the team.

Respected Italian journalist Gianluca Di Marzio has reported that Fabinho is being eyed by United, Barcelona, and Napoli. How likely is a move this summer for the player? What kind of transfer fee do you believe it would take to pry him from Monaco?

I think a move is pretty much likely this season given Monaco are also in the business of selling players for big money, as was the case in the previous two transfer windows. It is no surprise that he is being watched by Europe's finest which is a testament to his own development and maturity in becoming one of Europe's best young full-backs. Remember after all, he is 22!

Monaco will play hardball over a transfer fee. Alongside Bernardo Silva, he is perhaps the only other hugely bankable star in this Monaco side. I highly doubt that he will go for less than €20-25 million.