Scouting Victor Osimhen
Would the oft-linked Napoli striker be the dream signing for Arsenal's next phase? Or does he present a risk too big and costly? Let’s dive through tape, numbers, and tactics to see what we find
Whenever a star player crops up, the ex-manager Bat Signal shines above Gotham. Heeding the ancestral call, the fogeys join podcasts and radio shows alike, saying the expected words: “I knew right away. I told the brass to sign him, but nobody listened.” This is especially funny when it’s about, like, Erling Haaland.
The reality is that these prospects are usually widely known, but for various reasons, financial and logistical, a move can prove impossible. The players have their own ideas, and the good ones have leverage of their own, y’know.
But no good recruiting tale is complete without the reliable appearance of one man — Monsieur He Don’t Miss, Arsène Wenger. And that is, again, the case with Victor Osimhen, the now-24-year-old striker who has won a few things of late: African Footballer of the Year, the scudetto, and the Capocannoniere (literally “head gunner”), scoring 26 times in 32 appearances in Italy. He finished 8th in the Ballon d’Or.
Wenger’s interest in the young striker was not necessarily unique. Osimhen’s talents were on full display in the U-17 World Cup, when the talisman led Nigeria to a fifth title, scoring 10 goals en route to a Golden Boot.
“I spoke with Arsène Wenger after the tournament ended and he wanted me to come to Arsenal,” he later told The Independent. “I had a lot of options. Barcelona, Inter Milan, Atletico Madrid, Juventus and the rest.”
While he has carried a long-held and very public desire to join the Premier League, and thought Arsenal were a good option, “it wasn’t the best at the time.” He wanted to play as soon as he turned 18, and Wolfsburg offered him that chance.
This has been a through-line of his career, as he shared later.
“Of course, one day I’d like to play for a big club in England. I’ve spoken to Odion [Ighalo] about it. He gave me very good advice, he’s a legend and a big brother … My priority is to play a lot of games. Signing for a big club and being on the bench is not exciting for me.”
A winding path followed. He got hurt, he got malaria, and he only tallied three total starts for the Bundesliga side. When he returned, he requested a loan, and got one — to Belgian side Charlerol. This would prove to be serendipitous, as he racked up 15 G+A in the league that, in my bullshitty estimation, is the single best place for developing young attackers per capita.
Some leagues force players to be too practical, too early, while some are too freewheeling and YOLO, which makes it a struggle to adjust to the next step. Belgium is just right. It forces attackers to develop and face the big boys, but it also allows them to leave with their souls (and ideas) in tact. A shortlist of those who have passed through the ranks of late: Boniface, Doku, Openda, Mitoma, Trossard, Adingra, Nusa, and more. Osimhen’s compatriot George Ilenikhena looks like the next one up.
The production in Belgium earned Osimhen a move to Lille, where he established himself as one of the league’s best players as a 20-year-old. The next summer, he went to Napoli in a €75m deal amidst persistent links to the Gunners (and everybody else).
Going back to that U-17 World Cup that put him on the map, though, there was one clear area of development.
His celebrations could lack refinement. Inconsistent stride patterns, you see:
It’s OK. In the years to follow, he’s gotten ample time to practice — scoring over 100 goals for club and country since.
But what would he look like for Arsenal?
👉 Overview
To get started, I pulled Wyscout data of seven relevant Premier League strikers. Here are some notes:
This data is pulled from all competitions in the last 365 days, but excludes friendlies.
I wanted to show a cross-section of relevant profiles: the goal-scoring behemoth in Haaland, the all-action genius in Jesus, the wide-playmaking-target-man in Toney, the above-average Premier League striker in Watkins, the Next Big Thing in Ferguson, and our own depth option in Nketiah. I didn’t ultimately pull Trossard or Havertz because the data comparison is messy (given positions and game-states), but that can be in the back of our minds.
Behold Jesus and smile.
It is important to acknowledge the difference in leagues, but just by eye test, Italy is currently stocked with fun, fast, young centre-backs. It is more current-stage Kiwior than late-stage Chiellini.
You’ll see a clear picture emerge here: Osimhen generates a lot of box touches, a lot of shots, and a lot of goals (the most bar Haaland). He is low-touch otherwise, but interestingly, his key passing and shot assists aren’t too far off Jesus.
Here’s a sense of how he stacked up last year.
In terms of core profile, it’s hard to believe that Arsenal would be targeting a Gabriel Jesus replicant. I say this because they already have the best Gabriel Jesus in the world. The ideal state is probably a Harry Kane — somebody who can do a lot of the Jesus stuff and a lot of the Haaland stuff. The problem? That production exists in one (1) player worldwide. Kane.
In practice, the upgrade sought is not on Jesus — but on Nketiah, as Jesus will likely play across the frontline if a big acquisition is made, perhaps becoming the long-awaited flexible winger signing. A new striker will then have to dominate the box, expand the window of tolerance, vacuum up attention, and … well, score a lot of goals. On a squad level, more speed is needed as well.
The question, then, is whether the player’s impact is proportionate to the likely-massive outlay that it’ll take to acquire them. Osimhen, for example, is currently the most valuable player in Serie A history, per transfermarkt.
That’s a lot of coin, and of course raises the expectations. Regardless, let’s keep an open mind, and dive into the world of Osimhen.
👉 Preparation
I like watching tape before pulling the data just to keep a clear mind. I did that here. To get ready for this, I did speed-runs through a swath of games: Frosonone, Eintracht Frankfurt, Hellas Verona, Sampadoria, Leicester, Monza, Inter, Juventus, Real Madrid, Braga. Then I created little playlists of his time at Lille and Charlerol, went through some highlights of him with the national team, and rewatched all his goals for that U-17 World Cup. I’d watched him a bunch over the years otherwise.
👉 Role
Osimhen has now played under a spate of managers at Napoli, but the most formative was Luciano Spalletti, who helped oversee the rapid-reboot of 2022-23 that made Napoli one of the world’s most exciting (and successful) sides. Spalletti famously described his evolution from a 4-2-3-1 to more of a swirling in 4-3-3 in more stark terms.
“Systems no longer exist in football, it’s all about the spaces left by the opposition. You must be quick to spot them and know the right moment to strike, have the courage to start the move even when pressed.”
Spalletti is gone now, but regardless of who is in charge, Osimhen has been deployed as an advanced, bullying, savvy, deceptive, low-touch, high-impact, channel-sprinting, tornado of a striker. His role is a mix of what Erling Haaland and Eddie Nketiah like to do.
If you ever need to look for him, he’s never hard to find. He’s almost always occupying both CB’s up front. This creates the space for all the fluidity that Napoli loves to offer, but it can isolate him.
A passmap will often look like this (left).
But sometimes, entertainingly, it can look like this (right).
He is a striker through and through.
👉 Finishing
In this increasingly politically correct society, I’m willing to risk my own cancellation and say it. Goals are good.
The case for Osimhen is extraordinarily simple. He uses his combination of brains and gifts to score goals better than almost anybody alive. And he is a reason for caution when it comes to “green bar analysis.”
Let’s look at Osimhen’s fb-ref page, alongside one of the more dominant forces the sport has ever seen.
Aesthetically, we see a bunch of similar pros and cons for each — essentially, a mixed report with some highs and lows. But the problem with this is how we maintain our sense of proportion and context. Some things are much more important than others, and I’m not sure you can feel the weight of their dominance from this initial impression, for example.
Now I don’t always agree with everything that Dr. Ian Graham, the former head of research at Liverpool, says, but I almost always find it provocative and interesting. That was the case here.
“People don't like the theory that the best players win the game," Graham said. “People love to mystify that there has to be some magic about football that's not easy to measure. A scout or a coach would say, "Why do we like this forward?" His team would respond, "He takes loads of really good shots." The scout or coach would counter, "Yeah, but does he drive inside enough? Does he bring his teammates into play enough?"
"But we're playing them up front," Graham said. "He takes loads of good quality shots. There is literally nothing else to say. All other arguments, they're second-order effects compared to this. But people love to mystify and bring more and more factors into play. A use of the data is just to say: This is the important thing and we might be wrong about it -- we sometimes are wrong -- but you have to come up with some really good arguments against this one really important thing."
Generating a whole lot of shots is Osimhen’s thing.
As you’ll see below, he in the furthest-right on all of the more straightforward numbers that Graham may covet.
As time has gone on, he’s leaned closer and closer to the goal, with a fiesty array of direct blasts with his head and right foot.
We’ll talk about how he actually generates these shots in the next section, but for now, let’s discuss the shots themselves.
He almost always goes for immediate, direct power rips. Arsenal attackers can be guilty of being a little ponderous on the ball when there’s traffic, hoping to line up perfect conditions, but Osimhen doesn’t share that proclivity. He booms it as soon as he can.
Like your treasured Starboy (Starman), Osimhen can reliably roof it whenever angles are tight.
In fact, he used this mechanism for one of the best goals of last year (as graded by me). Throughout the campaign, he formed a powerful partnership with Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, who shares many similarities to Gabriel Martinelli. Here, “Che Kvara” (Get it? He’s got a scruffy beard. No, that name is not an original creation, I heard it somewhere) chips a cross over to Osimhen — who goes chest, knee, roof for the goal.
It’s a shot he’s practiced at great length since so many of his opportunities come from these right-sided channel runs. These runs can occasionally feel rough-and-tumble and overly ambitious, but when they hit, boy, do they.
He also is not hesitant to chip, and is good at it.
I also must include this one, because it shows a basic truth: Osimhen is fun and funny.
Other than that, his finishing bag isn’t especially varied with his feet. He’s got well-placed power blasts, chips, and relentless second-action poaching — which results in a lot of tap-ins. He’s got the greedy striker quality, which is nothing to be ashamed about, but can definitely rip off snap shots when there is the possibility of playing somebody in; he does so fairly often. I can see the internet comments already.
He doesn’t attempt from long very much these days, and when he does, the technique can be a little scattershot, though it pays off here and there. He is most likely to surprise with a lower-percentage, impressive rip from the right side of the box. He also doesn’t have a long history of curling benders or anything of that sort. There’s a little Lewandowski to his goal catalogue. He doesn’t complicate things.
His game is less about pure finishing quality, and more about generating a high volume of high-quality opportunities, which is probably the #1 thing you’re looking for in this role anyway. One of the ways he does this is aerially.
👉 In the air
As I was going through tape, I looked at this goal and guffawed — screenshotting it immediately. He is jumping against great athletes here:
What I didn’t know until later was that this was the second-highest jump in the recorded history of Serie A. His 2.56m leap bested Cristiano Ronaldo’s highest, and sits only behind Fikayo Tomori’s current record of 2.61m.
He is one of the world’s preeminent players in the air. If you’re interested in the physiology of it all, don’t turn to me, you dunce. A former international high-jumper and coach has you covered.
“He’s not very muscularly built in his lower legs and it shows in where his calf is — it’s quite short and more up towards the back of his knee,” said Matt McInnes Watson. “That shows us that he has an extremely long Achilles tendon, and the Achilles tendon is a massive contributor to force, especially when vertically jumping and when you’re doing things more on the spot as opposed to running in and winning a header.”
Go for the long Achilles tendons. I’m always saying this.
Anyway … Slight manipulation, blind-side run, big jump, goal. This is easy money for him.
This aerial prowess is extremely useful on defensive set pieces as well. I can’t tell you how many times I saw him camp out at the near post zone on a corner, jump high, and just clear the thing away without much bother.
Through the middle of the pitch, though, he has not proven to be quite as dominant as a Toney, despite having all the tools. His timing isn’t as crisp, as its an altogether different beast (think of the aerial difference of Zinchenko on corners, versus in standard play). He could probably generate a higher amount of “target man” style opportunities to bring the ball down. But he likes to run.
…which is a nice segue to his single best quality.
👉 Movement
As he is primarily an off-ball player, everything with Osimhen begins with movement.
First off, he is really fast. While he didn’t show the high speeds he was capable in last year’s Champions League, for whatever reason — he was down amongst the lowly ranks of Mo Salah and Eduardo Camavinga, at 34.3 km/h — he has clocked out at 36.6 km/h otherwise, which puts him in league with the Mudryks, Diabys, and Leãos. Last I checked, he was second in the world in terms of number of sprints at the striker position.
Here is an example of him being fast as fuck for Lille.
There’s a primary way in which he uses this asset. Whereas Arsenal may increasingly use Kai Havertz as a way of playing over the top of the press, kicking it up to his head with a circumference of teammates there to pick it up, Osimhen is used a little differently.
Napoli often blasts it out into the corner and has him sprint to track it down.
From that spot, he usually tries to beat his man with a power-carry 1v1, prodding to see if he can get the edge and score solo. If not, he holds up play in the corner (usually on the right), and sees if he can pick out a runner. With everybody arriving at different times, this is one of the ways in which Napoli manufactures fluidity.
Speed is nice, but speed is not enough. There are a lot of technical intricacies to movement, and I’ve always wanted to expand the definition of “technicality” to include stuff like this. He’s such an intelligent player to study.
It has a lot to do with timing, speed modulation, and blind spots. I’ll explain.
Below is a simple clip of a goal from his time at Lille, but it shows a lot.
Study the clip, and you’ll see a few subtle things there:
Osimhen lines himself up between the CB’s for maximum gravity.
With his ball-carrying teammate pushing forward vertically, he does the opposite (goes on an angled run).
That run is directly in the primary CB’s blindspot. Osimhen is right on his shoulder, just present enough to be seen (and trigger paranoia) but not present enough to actually be tracked. The Striker Sweet Spot.
He had two speeds. If you ever watch wide receivers in the NFL, they train this skill — giving their opponent a false sense of security with a run that is nominally full-speed, before revealing, surprise, that they have another gear.
Goal.
When teammates carry through the middle and attract attention, he is good at timing his run to the second that the defender commits. He slides into the blind spot and prospers.
The final thing I’ll highlight is something that Havertz has proven so good at — manipulating flow and inertia in the box, going the opposite way of the crowd to find a pocket, and netting it home. This can be hard to train, and is a mark of the better goal scorers.
Aside from that, Osimhen generally camps out with the CB’s, and alternates conserving his energy with electric sprints. When he’s walking, he’s still engaged and communicative.
👉 Link up
His hold-up play has the largest range of possible outcomes. There’s little reason to believe he will ever reach anywhere the peak of Jesus or Firmino as a False-9. But it is an area in which he is developing, and could see some improvement on a side that prizes it more. He’s slightly more natural than a Haaland in this regard.
When he’s out in the channels, he’s happy. He’s a little inconsistent with these big swingers back into play, but he strikes it clean, and it’s easy to picture him dragging CB’s out extra wide, and then looping it into the middle for a flood of Arsenal attackers.
When he’s doing back-to-goal stuff, it’s never bad, but it’s less consistent. His ability to position himself and shield the ball is excellent. If he gets muscled off, that’s because he got fouled (he actually goes down a decent amount for his size). But he can have trouble with the optimal weighting of the passes in link up play. Like Haaland, everything can feel a little robotic, a little too strong. The soft midfield touches can have some clunk to them.
There is good stuff in there, though.
Specifically, he can look good when dropping deep, then doing long one-touch wall-passes out to a winger. I think he has the most exciting potential here when doing quick 1-2’s, where he spins around and sprints through the middle after a quick touch, potentially losing his mark in the process.
His wide hold-up play is a strength; his central hold-up play isn’t necessarily a strength, but isn’t necessarily a liability either. He can just be a little strong and impatient with his actions.
👉 Dribbling and carrying
His work directly on the ball can be summed up as such: he is a decisive, sometimes sloppy, usually imposing carrier of the ball, particularly in that right channel. But he is not always the shiftiest or most agile tight-space dribbler in the land. He’s solid.
When he’s sprinting out to the right side, he’s not immune to a loose touch, or an overambitious move around the defender, but he also may just get around them and create a chance out of nothing. He is comfortable dribbling at speed and great at creating leans to get leverage, knocking the defender off balance.
👉 Passing
He does not pass a lot. That is not his role, and it may also not be his inclination. When he does pass, it’s usually in advanced, crowded areas, so it tracks that he would be lower-percentage there.
His skills are not without merit. He is situationally aware, and he can pick out teammates without much deliberation. His longer passes tend to have some bend and touch, and I like his crosses from the flanks. But his short passing is still a bit stilted, and he just doesn’t do much of it.
Going back to our Havertz conversation from preseason, this has specific implications:
Haaland and Jesus are fundamentally different players, and this impacts the responsibilities of those around them. While all the focus is on the gap in their finishing ability, not every advantage is in Haaland’s court. Jesus got 46.2 touches per 90 last year; Haaland had 24.8. Jesus offers about 80 more yards of progression over Haaland. He also has three times as many recoveries, and a huge advantage in terms of raw defensive output: literally ten times as much (1.92 tackles+interceptions per 90 to .19).
What does this mean? First, Jesus fills much of the gap in build-up touches of a more expected profile in the role. Second, Arteta is building something different, and it must be understood as such, because his model will continue to deviate from Pep’s.
Put better: Jesus is a striker who is kind of a midfielder, which helps Havertz be a midfielder who is kind of a striker. This is not haphazard — this is the best use of their respective abilities.
I’ll share some final thoughts on this question in the conclusion.
👉 Pressing
This is another way in which he differentiates himself from a Haaland. He is a more active, impactful presser. While many forwards of his quality may look to recharge their batteries, Osimhen would generally fit right into the Arsenal system.
He is usually an intimidating, tireless presence in these situations.
He has been known to pick off a few cheap goals this way, too.
👉 Injuries
The conversation about Osimhen can (and probably should) naturally flow to his injury history, which is pretty extensive. I’d posit that to appropriately evaluate this, we must hold two thoughts in our heads simultaneously:
The majority of Osimhen’s ailments are not muscular in nature.
He plays with reckless abandon and often-indiscriminate energy; it is not surprising that he gets whacked in the face. This may result in a cocktail of injuries (and goals) for the long-term.
You decide.
👉 Vibes
I don’t tend to like getting into psychological profiling as part of these reports — we only know so much from our vantage point — but it feels like a dereliction of duty to not mention the following: I find Osimhen’s vibes on the pitch to be immaculate. He brings passion to every action, he is fully engaged, he celebrates hard, he has fun, he is perpetually dissatisfied, he is supportive, he is always communicating, he is physically and athletically imposing, and he runs a whole lot. It is infectious, and it feels perfectly in line with this squad.
📉 Bear case
Unlike many possible signings, there is a low likelihood of Osimhen having a difficult time adjusting to the Premier League from a physical or mental standpoint. He’s had a expertly-crafted development path. He’s ready. But there are risks, and some are enormous.
Osimhen is going to be exorbitantly expensive. If Arsenal (or any non-oil club) are somehow able to sign him, it will limit the moves that can be made elsewhere. This is where the Osimhen Catch-22 comes in. A striker like him needs to be platformed appropriately, cocooned by the most creative passers imaginable. It requires absolutely no imagination to envision him balling out with Ødegaard, Martinelli, Saka — and yes, Jesus — on their own terms.
But this isn’t necessarily the case with the most recent attacking fortification: Kai Havertz, who is really coming into his own. Both players are best supported through the efforts of more on-ball teammates; both have similar off-ball inclinations; both are tall and rangy. If Arteta envisions a 4-4-fackin’-2 with those two up front, he’s more Galaxy Brained than I thought, perhaps beyond saving. It perhaps works if Havertz fully converts himself to a real midfielder before next summer, whipping in through-balls and crosses alike, but man, I dunno.
But if Osimhen were to sit atop a double-pivot midfield of, say, Rice and Martín Zubimendi, or Rice and Douglas Luiz, then all those concerns melt away. It would all fit like a glove. And therein lies the problem: to get the most out of your £120m+ signing, you simply need to spend £50-£100m on another player, in addition to everything else, and have two recent marquee signings (Havertz and Jesus) become rotational options. It’s difficult to make it all work.
And that’s not all. While Osimhen’s muscular injuries aren’t too out of the ordinary, he is a combative, ever-sprinting presence throughout the pitch, and has the history of dings to show for it. To pay top dollar for prolonged absences would be devastating.
There is less likelihood of pure performance issues. He will have games where he only has 12 touches, the bounces don’t go his way, his shot is off, and his impact feels minimal. It will frustrate supporters when that inevitably happens. But that is part and parcel to a profile like his.
📈 Bull case
I’d place Victor Osimhen as the third-best striker in the world, after Harry Kane and Erling Haaland (and Mbappé, if you count him, and however you want to define Bellingham’s position). With Kane flipping into his thirties, Osimhen offers a truly unique opportunity to secure a generational signing who, along with Haaland (and potentially 1-2 other up-and-comers), helps define the next 10 years of play at striker.
With a disproportionate amount of attention paid to the back-five in the transfer market over Arteta’s tenure, this is the chance to take a big swing up front. You know Saliba’s much-mentioned “aura” in the back — the feeling that no matter what you do as an attacker, it’s probably not going to be good enough today? Osimhen has every capability of offering that to Premier League CB’s. The lineup would get even bigger, more intimidating. Games can be won in the tunnel and all that.
More practically, Osimhen offers specific help in the game-states where Arsenal can still struggle. He would be my first choice of strikers worldwide to have faced Aston Villa’s high line. There is a high likelihood that he would have made them pay.
Against packed, big boy, lower blocks, his little box sprints and fakes and blind-spot exploitations open up the window of tolerance greatly. He would have created too-rare shots against Newcastle. Against Brentford, when countless perfectly-placed crosses were whipped to the likes of Trossard, it’s hard to imagine Osimhen not sliding one in earlier. He can jump over a Pinnock, Mee, or Ajer.
Moreover, he would offer a rare gravitational pull that would hopefully siphon attention away from the wingers and open up games. The opposition would be faced with a set of increasingly-bad choices.
The potential is intoxicating. But as we’ve seen in his career, the setup matters for a profile like his, and it must be accommodated.
👉 Final thoughts
This all feels pretty unlikely, and I don’t imagine anything happens on the Osimhen front until the summer. When that day comes, he may be the #1 player available on the market, but on the plus side, many of the richer clubs are looking pot-committed on some striker investments right now. Arsenal may be able to devise a compelling in, and everybody in this world is one Arteta Powerpoint away from doing anything.
Still, I can struggle to conclude that Arsenal have a £120m+ hole at the nine; not while Jesus is here. Jesus, it bares repeating, is preposterously good. Even if Nketiah moves on — in addition to Jesus, Havertz offers so much to like in many game-states, and Martinelli/Trossard are legitimate options. If I’m in the decision-making rooms, there are other avenues that may be enticing — let’s say there’s a surprise superstar winger on the market, or you’re able to use the same funds to get Benjamin Šeško and Douglas Luiz, or Nico Williams and Martín Zubimendi, or Ivan Toney and Amadou Onana (and a young full-back?), or something. Somebody like Šeško feels like a right-sized blend of profile, investment, and ambition. Buying a year early and phasing them in seems like a good way to get some value.
Perhaps I’ll write about Toney at a different juncture, but my short version is this: I get the sense he is being underrated at present because of his absence and the bespoke role he plays. But he is an absolute, Main Character of a beast who can play whatever version of striker you want. I have trouble seeing how the cost and shared trajectory can match up at Arsenal, and I’m extremely cost-conscious in that pursuit, but at certain prices, sure, I can probably get interested.
Which brings us back to Osimhen. His decision is probably a long way off. It would be as ambitious of a move as is available, and a full, push-the-chips-to-the-middle-of-the-table, “all-in” moment in the next phase of the project. At the price points being mentioned, it has a lot of risk.
Writing about Declan Rice yesterday, I said this: “I don't know much, but at the highest of high levels, it becomes a little bit less about managerial tinkering, and more about stacking unicorns.”
Osimhen fits the bill. And let’s face it, if that were to go through, we wouldn’t be splitting hairs. We’d all be celebrating.
Perhaps we’d look like this.
Might do a Palhinha one of these soon, too. We’ll see.
Be good to each other. ❤️
Can you do something on Šeško?
Great stuff Billy. Honestly, I just feel that our team currently wants to get the most out of out front 5. I struggle to see how we'll do that with Osimhen. To make it work I feel like he would have to be hitting close to Haaland numbers.
Do you think there's configuration of the team where signing a player like Leao works???