Think he's another Fred for us. Bags of energy, will always be a useful squad player, but the midfield will always be slightly limited when he's playing.
He has one or two things in common with Fred, but for me hes also the opposite rather than all that similar.
Both have high stamina, energy and workrate.
Fred was an athlete, quite quick for a CM. But his skillset wasnt ideal for either an attacking midfielder - low end product most seasons, or a defensive midfielder - shat his pants when pressed in his own defensive third of the pitch and poor concentration leading to simple passes in his half going astray.
Ugarte on the other hand isnt that athletic, outside of the legs. He isnt fast or strong, he doesnt have a big leap etc. But he is mostly ideal for the DM position and not at all suited to an attacking role. Most of the time he's dependable defensively and sometimes he'll do decently or well when pressed in his own half. But he's not playing some of the nice passes Fred would play between the frustratingly misplaced 5 yard passes
I personally like Ugarte more because its straight forward to find a good partner for him. He does more than his share of the defensive work but not enough in buildup play, so you need to pair him with an offensive minded player who might be a bit light defensively. From our squad thats Bruno, possibly Eriksen on a good day and going forward those are the kinds of players we should look to buy next to him.
With Fred neither the defensive player nor the attacking player makes an ideal partner because he isnt either one. The attacking player leaves you too light relying on Fred defensively and the defensive player frees Fred up to attack more, but he wasnt that good at it.
